Some of us are acutely aware that, if we ever get a socialist state in America,\u00a0we shall get it by gradual infiltration, not by sudden revolution. That\u00a0is why we are so much concerned about the Pres i dent’s order for the government\u00a0to take over the steel industry. It Is not wages and prices in steel that is\u00a0the vital ilssue involved. It is the threat of government operated Industry instead\u00a0of privately operated industry.\u00a0Of course there are honest, sincere persons who th ink we ought to have socialized Industry — that the government ought to operate al I the basic avenues\u00a0of production. But a lot of us don’t agree with that position, and if we don’t\u00a0agree we ought to make our voices constantly heard.<\/p>\n
The evidence from Russia ought to convince the most hardened socialist that\u00a0the socialized state becomes inevitably the bureaucratic state, that instead of\u00a0having more freedom, the people have less. The trouble, of course, is that the\u00a0group who get into power in the socialized state are just as subject as any of\u00a0the rest of us to the age-tested maxim: Power co.rrupts, and absolute power corrupts\u00a0absolutely.<\/p>\n
So we say let the courts, Including the Supreme Court of the United States,\u00a0decide clearly and definitely this highly debatable question of the presidential\u00a0power. Can the President, without legislation and on his own decision about\u00a0the nature and severity of the emergency, legally put under government 0peration any industry in the country? Perhaps he can. You and I have no right\u00a0to say. The courts must decide. And let’s not forget this: on their decision\u00a0may, indeed, rest the question whether private enterprise and its cherished\u00a0freedoms will prevail in America.<\/p>\n
I want to thank the more than 60 listeners who have telephoned or written\u00a0about the airship accident at the Central Maine Fair. Next week I’ll give you\u00a0a full account of just what happened on that fateful second day of September\u00a0in 1908.<\/p>\n
A distinguished citizen of Watervi lie has written another book. Carl Weber,\u00a0who has resided for more than thirty years on Burleigh Street, is unquestionably\u00a0the world’s foremost authority on Thomas Hardy. Now don’t ask me who Thomas\u00a0Hardy was; ask your neighbor. You will find a lot of people who have read\u00a0The Return of the Native, or Tess of the O’Urbervi lies, or the Mayor of Casterbridge,\u00a0though they may never have attended college for a single day.<\/p>\n
Carl Weber’s latest contribution to the ever mounting commentaries about\u00a0this great British novelist and peat is called “Hardy and the Lady from Madison\u00a0Square”. You don’t have to know a thing about the Wessex novel ist to find\u00a0this a fascinating book. It tells the story of Rebekah Owen who, as a young\u00a0woman, became so impressed by Hardy’s novels that she was determined to make\u00a0his acquaintance. Here she was on one side of the Atlantic, he on the other.\u00a0She was unknown; he was already famous. She was a woman and conscious of the\u00a0etiquette of her time; he was a man and one notoriously difficult for a stranger\u00a0to approach.<\/p>\n
How Rebekah Owen wangled an introduction to Hardy, how she became an accepted close friend of both the novelist and his wife, and how estrangement\u00a0finally occurred, is a story which Dr. Weber manages with great skill. This\u00a0lady from Madison Square even persuaded Hardy to change certain passages in\u00a0his books when they appeared in later editions.\u00a0Did Rebekah become emotionally entangled with the novelist? Read the book\u00a0and judge for yourself. You will get somewhat annoyed by Emma Lavinia, Hardy’s\u00a0wife, but you may suspect that Emma Lavinia was herself more than annoyed by\u00a0the lady from Madison Square.<\/p>\n
By The way, it was Just 75 years ago, in 1877, that the Seaside Library,\u00a0a cheap reprint series published by George Munro, began bringing the works of\u00a0Thomas Hardy to the attention of the average Maine reader. Thomas Bailey Aldrich,\u00a0who had a summer home near Camden, was editor of the Atlantic Monthly,\u00a0when In 1 882 — 70 years ago — that famous magazine brought Hardy into thousands\u00a0of homes. In that year the Atlantic published as a serial Hardy’s novel\u00a0“Two on a Tower”. One of the Maine readers who first saw that nove I in the\u00a0pages of The Atlantic was a doctor’s daughter down in Berwick, who was destined\u00a0to become a recognized novelist herself. The young lady was Sarah Orne Jewett,\u00a0who later made out a list of what she called ”Books That Have Interested M3 t1.<\/p>\n
At the very head of the list she put Thomas Hardy’s “Far from the Madding Crowd”.\u00a0One of Hardy’s novels made a deep impression down in Gardiner. Harper’s\u00a0Magazine serialized ”The Mayor of Casterbrldge” and thus brought that story into\u00a0the home of another Maine doctor, A. T. Schumann. He promptly purchased the\u00a0novel in book form and Just as promptly loaned it to a high school boy in Gardiner,\u00a0named Edwin Arl ington Fbbinson. That was how the great writer of Wessex\u00a0was introduced to him who was to become Maine’s great poet. Robinson’s debt\u00a0to Hardy he always gratefully acknowledged, and the reader of both men can detect\u00a0a number of resemblances. In 1895 Robinson wrote a sonnet which he entitled “Sonnet for a Book by Thomas Hardy”. Although Robinson’s introduction to\u00a0Hardy was through “The Mayor of Casterbridge”, and he soon read also “Tess” and\u00a0“The Woodlanders”, he considered “The Return of the Native” Hardy’s best novel.\u00a0A lot of less renowned readers agree with him.<\/p>\n
Some time I want to tell you the most interesting story of all about Hardy\u00a0In Maine — the story of how the Colby College Library became the center for the\u00a0world’s most famous collection of books by and about Thomas Hardy. But enough\u00a0about Hardy for tonight. We must leave the library story for a later broadcast.<\/p>\n
A few weeks ago I promised to tell you more about the Shakers. Well, here it is.\u00a0The Shakers are a singular people — singular in more than one sense, for\u00a0they neither marry nor are given in marriage. That, of course, is one reason\u00a0why they have become nearly an extinct sect today. Even in my own boyhood the\u00a0Shaker colony at Sabbath Day Lake in the town of Poland seemed made up largely\u00a0of old people. With no children of their own, the Shakers had to recruit ‘from .\u00a0the outside, and their way of living — noble and self-sacrificing as It was-attracted\u00a0few converts.<\/p>\n
Life in a Shaker colony was wholly communal. There was no private ownership\u00a0of property. The whole community was a family with one common purse, into\u00a0which went the profits of everyone’s labor, and out of which the wants of all\u00a0were equally provided. When a person Joined the community, whether he had a\u00a0thousand dollars or only one, he put it all into the common fund. The members\u00a0of a Shaker community all ate at the same table, lived in the same house, dressed in the same fashion, shared al ike in the common work, and benefitted equally\u00a0by the common wealth.\u00a0Interestingly enough I never heard of a loafing Shaker. Perhaps they\u00a0found some who could not adapt to the life and would not carry their share of\u00a0the load, and perhaps those persons quietly left the community. But, frankly,\u00a0never heard of such an occurrence either at Alfred or at Sabbath Day Lake.<\/p>\n
The Shakers were indeed diligent workers. As farmers they excelled. It\u00a0was often said, long before the days of scientific agriculture, that a Shaker\u00a0Colony could get more from the soil than any other farmer. They had the finest\u00a0stock, the best cultured fields, the sturdiest plants. They cared for both\u00a0plants and animals with great tenderness, as if they were humans. If a Shaker\u00a0saw a plant drooping, he would shift its position and give it special care, as\u00a0he would to a chi Id, and gave as his reason “just to make the plant more comfortable and happy”.<\/p>\n
A I though the Shaker communities were usually called Shaker villages by the\u00a0neighbors, the visitor at once noticed a marked difference from the ordinary\u00a0village. That was the total absence of separate dwelling houses, cottages and\u00a0little shops. Not only did the inhabitants live together as one family in one\u00a0large building; they all worked together in one large workshop. In one Shaker\u00a0village, for instance, the chief Industry was a broom shop. The same community\u00a0had a big dairy house, a granary, a seed shop, a boys’ shop, and what they called\u00a0the aged brethren’s shop.<\/p>\n
The largest building in any Shaker village was, of course, the dwelling\u00a0house, containing al I the public rooms and the dormitory; one wing for men, the\u00a0other for women. They ate al I meals together, at one long table, the men at one\u00a0end, the women at the other. There was no conversation at meals. After a silent\u00a0grace, in the manner of the Quakers, they ate each meal in complete silence.\u00a0The Shakers got their name from a practice connected with their worship.\u00a0The service had no public prayers and no preaching. They sang hymns and, like\u00a0the Quakers, allowed any member to speak if he had anything special to say.\u00a0Then, with the singers in the middle, the whole body of worshippers would move\u00a0up and down the room in a kind of rhythmic trot, keeping time to the singing.\u00a0This sort of march or dance, in which everyone shook himself in unison with all\u00a0the others, caused people to call them the Shakers. The ceremony itself was\u00a0deep-seated in their belief. They said, as King David had danced before the\u00a0Lord, so during their dance the spirit of the Lord took possession of them.<\/p>\n
The founder of the Shaker sect was Ann Lee,\u00a0<\/em>born in Manchester, England in\u00a01736. Child of poor parents, she worked in a cotton factory as a girl, then\u00a0married a blacksmith, had four children, and finally became interested in a\u00a0small society formed within a group of Quakers. Dissenting from the calmer and\u00a0more conservative beliefs of the regular Quakers, this group became stirred by \u00a0the great religious revival which swept England in the middle of the 18th century.\u00a0They boldly proclaimed the near approach of the second coming of Christ.<\/p>\n In 1770 Ann Lee began to speak like one inspired, and members of the little\u00a0society came gradually to believe that Christ himself had reappeared In her.\u00a0They gave her the name of Mother in Christ. In 1774 Ann declared she had received a revelation directing her to go to Ameri ca, there to establish the ,~church of the Second Appearing. In spite of many difficulties, Ann did establish\u00a0the first American Shaker colony at Waterville, New York. From that colony\u00a0spread many others, including the two In Maine — at Alfred and at Sabbath Day\u00a0Lake.<\/p>\n Many a student of Shaker beliefs has noted the interesting simi larity between\u00a0their veneration of Ann Lee and Roman Catholic veneration of the Virgin\u00a0Mary. But there is a big difference. Mary, Mother of Christ, occupies the position\u00a0of the great intercessor, the holy, immaculate mother who can plead with\u00a0her son for any sincerely penitent mortal.\u00a0The Shakers, however, considered Ann Lee as the human embodiment of Christ’s\u00a0second appearing. As one devout, elderly Shaker put it: “Mother Ann was divine\u00a0as Jesus was divine. God appeared in human form first in Jesus. But God is\u00a0not male alone; he is dual, both male and female, both father and mother. God\u00a0the Father was revealed in Jesus; God the Mother was revealed in Mother Ann.\u00a0This was the Second Appearing.”<\/p>\n You would suppose the Shakers would have been hard put to answer one question.\u00a0It was this: “If all the people in the world became Shakers and marriage ceased, where would the next generation come from? Wouldn’t all human life\u00a0on earth come to an end?”\u00a0In reply, the Shakers insisted that the solution of that problem was not\u00a0their concern. Their duty was only to do right and leave the consequences to\u00a0God. Did not the Bible tell us that God could, if he pleased, raise up children to Abraham out of the stones of the field? And anyhow, the world has to\u00a0come to an end sometime. Some Christians say It will end by being burned up.\u00a0“It seems to us”, said the Shakers, “that our way is a lot pleasanter”.\u00a0It is said that never, at one time, did all the Shakers in all the Shaker\u00a0villages in the world number more than 6,000 persons. It says a great deal for\u00a0so small a sect that they have made for themselves a lasting name of incorruptible honesty and un~asing diligence. Many of their practIces seem to us both\u00a0unsocial and irrational, but we may well be reminded of the memorable saying of\u00a0John Sterling: ”The worst education that teaches self-denial is better than the\u00a0best education that teaches all else and leaves self-denial out.”<\/p>\n Year: 1952<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Read the script for “Little Talks” program #147, broadcast on May 4, 1952<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":405,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[787,35296],"tags":[],"builder_content":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7322"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/405"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7322"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7322\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7322"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7322"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7322"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}