\nLast year we said a lot about waste and extravagance in the federal government.\u00a0We don’t pretend that what we said has made any difference, but if some\u00a0of us don’t go right on calling attention to this flagrant government spending,\u00a0nothing will ever be done about it. When enough people get truly concerned and\u00a0tal k turkey TO the i r Congressmen ~ we sha II get acti on.<\/p>\n
In the fiscal year that ended on June 30, 1952 our government in Washington\u00a0collected In taxes 62bilUon dollars. Now much of that vast sum had to be\u00a0spent, of course., to provide the minimum services government must provide, and\u00a0a great deal of it. went .for defense materials and personnel that most of us ardently\u00a0support. But a lot went also for unneeded materials, for padded payrolls;\u00a0for extravagant ~ntertaining~ for duplication and sheer waste.<\/p>\n
That single year’s tax col lection — 62 hi II ion dollars — is so much money\u00a0that we just can ‘t comprehend I t. But we can stop a minute and cons,lder some\u00a0of the things that could be done with 62 bi II ion dollars. For one thing, it\u00a0would payoff a I I the mortgages on a lithe farms and homes in the Un I ted states \u2022\u00a0It would completely maintain every inch of Our 3 million miles of highway~ and\u00a0bu rid a II the new ones needed for the next ten years.<\/p>\n
Sixty-two billion dollars would build 2,000 new $10,000 homes In every one\u00a0of the 3,070 counties in the United States. It would buy every family in the\u00a0country a $300 teJevi s i on set, a washing machine, an e lectri crefri gerator.,\u00a0and a $500 vacat ion.\u00a0If that money were all in hundred dollar bi J Is, one man, counting it 40\u00a0hours a week, would take 77 years to finish the job. If it were all in si IVer\u00a0dollars and loaded into freight cars, 50 tons to a car, it would require 36,530\u00a0cars and make a train 307 mi les long.<\/p>\n
Well, anyhow, the next time you are asked to add your voice to the many\u00a0who are demanding more prudence and more business like methods in our government\u00a0spending, before you decide to remain silent, shrug your shoulders, and let the\u00a0mad revel go right on …. – just stop a minute and remember that 62 bill ion dollars.<\/p>\n
There recently came to my hands the printed report of the Maine Methodist\u00a0Conference for the year 1844. As ear Iy as that ~1ethodi sm had made marked progress\u00a0in Maine. In the whole state they claimed 26,000 members. In those days,\u00a0before railroad travel, the church divided the state into six districts, called\u00a0the Portland, the Readfield, the Gardiner, the Augusta, the Bangor and the\u00a0Bucksport.<\/p>\n
The largest fVjethod j st commun i ty was not Portland, but Farmington. r..10re\u00a0than 400 of the fa i th Ii ved in Durham and in Orrington. A Ithough Augusta and\u00a0Hal lowell each had more than 300 Methodists in 1844, Watervi lIe had only 35. “‘,S\u00a0yet it had no establ ished Methodist church, but was a center for mission preaching\u00a0by an itinerant Methodist elder. Rockland is not mentioned in the (,j’st at\u00a0all, though Thomaston had 48 members, Friendship lSD, and the island of Vinalhaven\u00a0116.<\/p>\n
Apparently the Methodists were having trouble 108 years ago with their\u00a0school at Kents Hill. One resolution passed by the conference reads as follows:IIV\/hereas th i s conference has dec lined the tender of trust from the Trustees of\u00a0the fvlaine Wesleyan Seminary, be it resolved\u00a0( 1) That. if the -trustees of the Sem i nary sha I I cont i n ue the j r effort to\u00a0carryon the school and sha II appoint an agent to co Ilect funds for the re’ ief\u00a0of the Institution, we wi I I gladly cooperate with the agent.\u00a0(2) That, if an agent be appointed for the above named purpose, we recommend\u00a0that the agent delay the collection of subscriptions he may obtain until a\u00a0sufficient amount be subscribed to relieve the institution of all its embarassment.<\/p>\n
“Fortunately not al I Methodists and other friends of Kents Hill were so\u00a0pessimistic as were the men who attended that conference of 1844. Because a\u00a0few devoted souls were determined that the school should not die, it didl ive\u00a0on and grew into the fine., strong institution we know it to be today.\u00a0Kents Hi II was not the only concern of the Methodist conference of 1844.\u00a0They were having trouble with the Odd Fellows. 50 they resolved; “We .consider\u00a0ourselves bound to avoid all questions and measures for or against the Odd Fel ..\u00a0lows, since these questi ons sti r up e~c itement and strife among our people. We\u00a0wi II not attend nor encourage meetings of Odd Fellows, and this conference wi lI\u00a0consider any of itsmembers~ who disregard this resolution as offending against\u00a0the ,authority of the Conference.”<\/p>\n
That.Methodist Conference tnet seventeen years before the CivIl War~lt was\u00a0the very year in fact when a young lawyer out In 5pringifJe Id, III inois was elec;:;;>\u00a0ted a representati va to Congress. No one then had the s Ii ghtest susp i cion that\u00a0” ~ ,<\/p>\n
Abraham Lincoln would lead the nation through its greatest internal conflict\u00a0over the question of slavery. But Maine Methodists had their opinion abOut\u00a0slavery as far back as 1844, and they expressed it thus:<\/p>\n
”We are conv ineed of the great evi I of slavery, and we are determined to\u00a0use all Christian and constitutional measures to get rid of it. Whatevermay\u00a0be the unhallowed spirit manifested by some of our southern breThren against\u00a0the doings of’ the northern portion of the church, we st! II hope and ardently\u00a0pray that, under serious consideration \u00b7of this great evil, they will Join with\u00a0us in e ffortsfor its destruct I on.”<\/p>\n
The other day got to thinking about changes in Maine population during\u00a0the past 60 years. The eensus :ff}9ures are interesting. In. 1890 there were\u00a0only six communities in the state that had more than 10,000 people. They were,\u00a0in order of size, Portland, Lewiston, Bangor” Biddeford, Auburn and Augusta.\u00a0Waterville was tenth in size 60 years ago. Ahead of her were Rockland,\u00a08ath, and Calais. Yes, in 1890, Rockland had a thousand more people than Watervi\u00a0lie.<\/p>\n
In 1950 the order of the first three cities was the same — Portland” Lewiston,\u00a0Bangor — and how they had grown. In 1890 their combined popUlation was\u00a0just over 75,000. In 1950 Portland alone had more than that — 77,000-~ and\u00a0the three together were the homes of 150,000 peop Ie,\u00a0But, after the first three cities, the passing 60 years saw marked changes\u00a0in the rank of Maine communities. Biddeford, fourth in 1890, is now seventh,\u00a0and Maine’s fourth city is Auburn. In fifth place today is a city that did not\u00a0even exist in 1890, South Portland. Augusta held its position,sixth pJace both\u00a0in 1890 and in 1950. Waterville had gone up two steps, from tenth place to\u00a0eighth. \\\u00a5estbrook had grown tremendously, tripling its population in the 60\u00a0years, 50 that it is now in ninth place.<\/p>\n
The coast towns beyond Port land haven’t fared so well. In sp i te of the\u00a0booms of two world wars, Bath dropped from seventh to eleventh position, and\u00a0Rockland from eighth to fifteenth. Today Camden, Thomaston and Eastport actu,…\u00a0ally have fewer people than they had in 1890. Bel\u00b7fast has only 800 more.\u00a0In Central Maine Hallowell has only 200 more people than it had 60 years\u00a0ago, Gardiner less than a thousand more, and Fairfield about a hundred more.\u00a0Skowhegan has about a thousand increase p and Madison about 300.\u00a0This all reminds us that t4aine is sti It a state of small communities. We\u00a0have only 12 places today with more than 10,000 people, compared with six places\u00a0of 10,000 sixty years ago. The World Almanac I ists all communities in the\u00a0United States with more than 2.,500 population. In that list there are Just 51\u00a0Maine towns and cities. In only 51 of Maine’s nearly 700 towns are there as\u00a0many as 2 ,500 peop Ie \u2022<\/p>\n
Now don’t tet these figures discourage us. We are indeed a small state,\u00a0with fewer than a mi Ilion people …. – but in our products we hold a high place.\u00a0\\>Je <\/em>have the best potatoes, the best bl ueberrles, the best sweet corn, and the\u00a0best lobsters in the worl d. We are fast becoming one of the great ch i cken centers\u00a0of the nat I on. And the very best of Ma ine products — Ma ine boys and\u00a0girls — have made distinguished records in every state in the Union.\u00a0The historian Toynbee ca lIed Ma ine a state of woodsmen I <\/em>watermen 1 and hunters.\u00a0Artemas Ward, who was born up in the town of Waterford, called Maine a\u00a0state of mind. Our own f.btor Vehicle Division calls it Vacationland. But it\u00a0Is really a land of rushing waters and turning Wheels, of farms and orchards\u00a0and dairies, of elm shaded villages and stretching evergreen forests — a land\u00a0peopled by folk who stU I believe in an honestday1s work~ and that the way\u00a0to prosperity for a family and a government alike i sto spend just a little\u00a0less than you earn.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Year: \u00a01952<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Read the script for “Little Talks” program #158, broadcast on October 19, 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\/7355"}],"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=7355"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7355\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7355"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7355"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7355"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}