Out Street Commissioner, Payson Witham, has called attention to an error\u00a0I n one of our broadcasts last spring. Perhaps you recal I that one Sunday eve …\u00a0ning we quoted from a pamphlet telling an amusing story of how a man said he\u00a0cou I dn’ t afford to five in a $40,000 house, because that was what h Is 1940\u00a0house, bui It for $15 ,OOO~5’Would cost h 1m to rep lace”, One statement In that pamphtet sai d, “And now the un ion will. only a Ilow the masons to Jay about twothirds\u00a0as many bricks a day” \u2022<\/p>\n
Mr. Wi tham contends that the masons un I on has never p I aced any restrl cti ons\u00a0on the number of bricks a mason shall lay. t find that Mr. Witham Is right. He\u00a0is confirmed by the superintendent of anational.ly prominent contracting firm.\u00a0The superintendentsays~ “If a mason doesn’t lay as many bricks as I thlnk the\u00a0Job reasonably cal Is f~t, t can fire him, and the union wi II notinterfere. ft How\u00a0do these stories get started? .. How do they get into print in reputable magaz ines\u00a0r\u00a0and copyri ghted pampa.lets? We I ” anyh.ow, we want th is program TO have no part .\u00a0. in such misrepresentation. We are glad to correct the statement.<\/p>\n
The left wing economists and politicians have tried their best to make the\u00a0word profit an unsavory and uni’E>pular word. They would have lJ,s believe there is\u00a0something\u00b7sinlsfer and sinful about profits. Some of us think it is about time,\u00a0nOT to defend profits, but aggressively to proclaim their worth in modern eeon,…\u00a0omy.<\/p>\n
It Is not enough to keep repeating the 0 I d truth that free enterprise !;jives\u00a0incentive to profit and that the profit motive creates jobs and prosperity. Free\u00a0enterprise is much more important than that, important in terms of human values.\u00a0Wor I dpeacedepends ‘n great measure upon the e.conom i c stab’ 11 ty of the\u00a0Un i ted States \u2022 I f that stabl Ilty i s serious Iy I mpa ired, we cou Id not he Ipthe\u00a0free world canbat the Canmunist aggression. And nothing can so seriously shat ..\u00a0ter American stability as the destruction of the free enterprise system.<\/p>\n
Free enterprise 15 the fulfi liment of the creative power of free men In\u00a0a free society. If we forget that, we forget the vital connection of economic vfreedom with all the other freedoms man allover the world yearn to enjoy.<\/p>\n
Back in the 1820’s, when Maine had first become a state, our Maine towns\u00a0had no common road comrni ss Toner i ncharge of a I I <\/em>the roads” Each town was\u00a0divided into districts with a hJghway supervisor in charge of each district.\u00a0have had opportunity to examine the accounts kept by one of those district sur ..veyors in 1823. He was Daniel Soule of Watervi lie, to whose district was com~\u00a0mitted $258 of the town’s total highway appropriation of $1,800 for that year.\u00a0It was clear that SOU.\/e not only had to see to the expenditure of that. $258 on\u00a0his district’s roads, but that he also had to col ‘ect the assessment himself.<\/p>\n The warrant issued to Soule and signed by the five assessors of Watervi \/Ie,\u00a0reads as follows:<\/p>\n “Herein we commlt to you a list of assessments amdlunting to $258, which\u00a0sum you are to collect and cause to be expended in labor and materials on the\u00a0pub Ii croadsw I th in your ‘i mi ts agreeab I y to law. If\u00a0Most of you have heard the exp ress i on “work I ng out my taxes”. A I though by\u00a0the ti me I was’bornl~~1sfrtaxe~::weref’paid’Ut :casfi’;;~’ffrl~r-e’:Ja~?’:~tntJ:inQi:igh,riworkIng\u00a0out of taxes” forme to be fami liar with the practice. The usual method by\u00a0which a man worked out blstaxes was by labor on the roads. Sometimes he could\u00a0furnish material. Hence the phrase in the assessors’ commitment to Daniel\u00a0Soule, “to be expended In labor and materials”.<\/p>\n It is interesting to note that in 1823 there was no single tax collector,\u00a0who gathered in the tax, then handed the money over to the town treasurer, for\u00a0it to be pa i d out on wa rrants \u2022 Each highway surveyor had to co I I ect the tax\u00a0for his disTrict. That was a sensible practice, srJnce very I ittle money\u00a0changed hands. Most of Daniel Soule’s $258 was probably collected in the form\u00a0of labor and mater ia I s. The highway tax was ent ire I y separate from the other\u00a0town taxes.<\/p>\n Daniel Soule had only one big taxpayer in his district — Asa Redington,\u00a0who w~s responsible for $44.64 of the whole $258. Probably most of Asa’s tax\u00a0was paid in cash, though That is by no means certain. There were a lot of people\u00a0in debt TO AsaRedington, and a common way of getting such a debt cleared\u00a0a hundred years ago was to have the debtor work out part of the creditor’s tax\u00a0by labor on the roads \u2022. The only other men of sUbstantial means in Soule 1s district\u00a0in 1823 were Reuel:;WlHi;ams;’and0Darlli\\fj1 Moor, WhO:;:Togetherheld considerable\u00a0property. The total number of taxpayers in Soule’s district, responsible\u00a0for the whole $258, was only 34. The smallest Tax was assessed to Thomas fedington,\u00a0$1.27, but four other men — Henry Moor, Abel Tozier, Joseph Moor anc\u00a0Daniel Soule himself — were down for only $1 :28 aplece. Three fami lies — the\u00a0RedingTons, Moors and Soules — paid $115.50, or 43% of the whole tax.<\/p>\n find That we teachers are not the olJly persons interested in what are\u00a0called boners — the amusing mistakes made in Jetters, diaries, and especially\u00a0on exam i nat I on pape rs \u2022 Let me te II you a few of those boners that have come to\u00a0my attent Ion ove r the years.<\/p>\n Perhaps one youngster had a point when he wrote, I1Anatomy is The study of\u00a0heavenly bodies”. Perhaps he wasn’t so wrong, either, when he wrote, “Burlesque\u00a0Is a kind of take-off”. In fact most boners can be explained in terms\u00a0of simi larit-y. Why shouldn’t a child think a buttress is a female butler, or\u00a0that an ep ist Ie I s the wi fe of an apost Ie, or even that a geyser is a rna Ie goose?\u00a0We wou I d P I ace a good bet Gn the future success of the ch i I d who de f I ned a\u00a0hamlet as a little pig, and there’s something to be said for the student who de~\u00a0fined psychology as the science of diseases that don’t exist.<\/p>\n We have heard a lot of explanations of the di fference between an optimist\u00a0and a pessimist, but few that equal this one: An optimist Is a man who looks\u00a0after your eyes; a peSSimist looks after your feet.\u00a0After we have been through a sesquicentennial ce lebration here in Watervii\u00a0Ie, weare pleased to learn that a ml Ilenium is something like a centennial,\u00a0on I Y it has more legs.<\/p>\n To one student, sinister meant a woman who hadn’t married, whi Ie another\u00a0youngster defined spinster as a bachelor’s wife. Another fellow thought trigo.\u00a0nometry was when a lady married three men at the same time. A poJ;ygon, by the\u00a0way, is a man with more than one wife, preferably living. Even matrimony occas \u00a0\u00b71 onall y gets I n for confus Ion. A def i nl tf on once seen in schoo I wr I ti ng sal d:\u00a0“Matrimony Is a place where atl soul$.’ suffer for a time on account of their\u00a0sins.”<\/p>\n You may be interested to know that a grass widow is the wife of a vegetar.f.~\u00a0ian; that in gardening anherbacecf)us border is one who borders all the week\u00a0and goes home on Saturdays and Sundays; and that heredity means if your grandfather\u00a0didn’t have any children, then your father wouldn’t have any, and neither\u00a0would you, probably.\u00a0It was of course a modern chi Id who wrote, “A hosp ita1 is where you go to\u00a0be born”; and an uJtra-mod~rn one who said an inhibition is I ike an exhibition,\u00a0only Indoors.<\/p>\n You may be amazed to learn some th ings about Amerl can geography and history.\u00a0Georgia was founded by peop Ie who had been executed. Nearly at the bottom of\u00a0Lake Michigan is Chicago. New York is behind Greenwich time because America was\u00a0not discovered unt I I much later. Col umbus made four voyages to Ameri ca; he died\u00a0on the third one. General Braddock had three horses shot under him, and a’\u00a0fourth went through his clothes.<\/p>\n tJlaine school children always know something about Maine’s most famous poet,\u00a0Henry W. Longfe II ow. One youngster exp ressed hi mse If th i sway: “Hen ry W. Longfellow\u00a0was born in Portland, Maine, while his parents were traveling on the\u00a0cont inent. He made many fast friends; among the fastest we re A lice and Phoebe\u00a0Cary.<\/p>\n Finally, I’m sure aJ I youJ isteners who are parents wi II appreciate what\u00a0one youngster wrote about one of the fami I iar Bible stories. Here are his words:<\/p>\n HThe greatest miracle ;n the Bible is when Joshua told his son to stand sti II,\u00a0and the son obeyed him.”<\/p>\n We like to keep reminding our listeners about facts concerning our entire\u00a0State of Maine. When Maine was a part of Massachusetts, it was called the District\u00a0of Maine. Do you know why? Why district instead of province or some\u00a0other designation? Here is the answer. In 1778 the Continental Congress divided\u00a0the whole country Into admiralty districts, each with its own court of adm! ra I ty. Massachusetts had three of these di stri cts: northern 1 mi dd Ie and\u00a0southern. The northern district consisted of the three Maine counties and was\u00a0commonly called the DIstrict of Maine. Yes in 1778 Maine had only three coun”‘:\u00a0ties — York, Cumberland and lincoln.<\/p>\n Did you ever hear about Maine’s part in ratifying the Constitution of the\u00a0United States? The General Court of Massachusetts voted for the constitution\u00a0in 1788 by a vote of 197 to 158. Of that total of 355 votes, 46 were cast by\u00a0representatives from the District of Maine. Their vote was very close — 25 for\u00a0the constitution, 21 against it. York County went nearly two to one against\u00a0the constitution, her representatives voting 6 for and 11 against. The biggest,\u00a0but least populous, Maine county of Lincoln, which then included everything\u00a0east of the Androscoggin, voted 9 to 7. in favor. It was Cumberland, with its\u00a0comparatively large towns of Falmouth (now Portland) 1 Scarboro, Yarmouth, and\u00a0Cape Elizabeth that saved the reputation of the District, for Cumberland favored\u00a0the new constJtuti~n 10 to 3.\u00a0The great supporter of the constitution In our\u00b7 part of the country was\u00a0Captain Snow of Harpswell, while the bitterest opponent was a soldier of the\u00a0Revo I uti on, Genera I Thompson of Saco.<\/p>\n Who of our listeners wi II be the first to te II me the name of Maine’s\u00a0third largest lake? You are all expected to know that Moosehead Is our largest\u00a0and Sebago is second. But which one of our thousand Jakes is third in size?\u00a0(Chesuncook)\u00a0Ohemore question. Which of Maine’s rivers is fed by the largest number\u00a0of streams,p~nds and lakes?\u00a0WhenHarrv Coewas secretary \u00b7of the Maine Publ Jcity Bureau, I heard him\u00a0once say that, of all .thenumerous mountains in Mahle, only five have Indian\u00a0names. Everybody can name two — Katahdin and Kineo. What are the other three?\u00a0(Kennebago, Megunticook and Wassatequ Ick)\u00a0By the way, Maine’s second highest mountain is not Kineo. What is it?\u00a0(Sadd leback)<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Year: 1952<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Read the script for “Little Talks” program #157, broadcast on October 12, 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\/7352"}],"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=7352"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7352\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7352"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7352"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7352"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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