Here we are aga in after a summer’s rest to your ears from these broadcasts\u00a0about old time things. This is our eighth consecutive season. Folks keep\u00a0asking me if material hasn’t pretty well run out, if we haven’t exhausted every\u00a0conceivable subject of the old days. Not at al I. Thanks to you listeners, who\u00a0keep putting me in touch with new material, we can keep the old program going\u00a0for a few weeks yet. Seriously, there is material enough around to keep a program\u00a0like th is on the air for years to come.<\/p>\n
I want to take the occas i on of th is first program of the new season to\u00a0thank the Central Maine Garden Club for the honor which they did me in July.<\/p>\n
Their wonderful floral exhibit at the old Winslow Congregational Church was\u00a0set up a round the theme of my book HKennebec Yes te rdays ” \u2022 The I ad i es had shown\u00a0marvelous ingenuity in adapting flower arrangements to various chapters of the\u00a0book. One of them had found a genuine century-old rum bottle to use as a flower\u00a0vase illustrating The chapter t!Rum and Gingerbread”. If the ladies did not\u00a0serve genuine rum for refreshment at their exhibit, tney Ulu ;:)~IVt:l ut:liiclous\u00a0trulT punch, and with it honest-to-goodness gingerbread. For this fine tribute\u00a0to the book and the rad i 0 program I am especi ally indebted to Mrs. Sh i r ley\u00a0Holmes of the County Road, whose hundreds of varieties of African violets have\u00a0won her renown al I up and down the Kennebec Val ley.<\/p>\n
Mrs. Holmes and her husband operate a large dairy farm on the land where\u00a0stands one of the very old houses of this region — the Frye-Davis house, about\u00a0which I have this to say in !fKennebec Yesterdays!l:”Just outside of Watervi IIe 1\u00a0on the old county road that passes over the Cedar Bridge beyond the Thayer Hospital,\u00a0is a large farm, house known as the Frye-Davis house. The original\u00a0structure was bui It by Winthrop Morri I I about 1770. When that house was already\u00a0a hundred years old l it was called Half-way Housel because it was a regular \u00a0stop for change of horses about half way on the stage route from Augusta to\u00a0Anson. ”<\/p>\n
During the summer all sorts of important and spectacular news has jumped\u00a0at us from the headlines. President Eisenhowerl not the Russians, got the spot\u00a0light at Geneva; The Air Force has a new secretary; Adlai indicates he is going\u00a0to run again in 1956. Yes 1 a lot has happened since we left the air last June.<\/p>\n
One newspaper story of the summer struck me with special force. As you know,\u00a0this program has stoutly defended private enterprise against the encroachments\u00a0of government operation. We are glad to see that the final report of the Hoover\u00a0Commission has taken the same stand. But it is not that report of which I\u00a0speak. The news story to wh i ch I refer appeared on the front page of the New\u00a0York Times of SundaYI August 7. It told how it had been possible for the Rockefellers\u00a0to make benefactions of three bi Ilion dollars whi Ie actLtally giving of\u00a0their own funds one bi II ion.<\/p>\n
Now a lot of people have lost money in stocks l especially in the crash of\u00a01929. But there is plenty of evidence to show that the purchase and long hold~\u00a0ing of conservative stocks brings fruitful increase with the years. As the\u00a0Times puts it, ”How a total of one bi II ion dollars in contributions has come to\u00a0equal three times that amount is an interesting example of the way money reproduces\u00a0itself when properly handled. A sum invested at six per cent compound interest\u00a0reproduces itself in twelve years. The Rockefeller investments did much\u00a0better than that.<\/p>\n
So much for the Times quotation. Now let us see what happened to one of\u00a0the major Rockefe II er benefact i ons 1 the Rockefe Iler Foundat ion. The elder John\u00a0D. established the foundation in 1909 with 72,569 shares of Standard Oi I of New\u00a0Jersey, having a total value of $50,000~000. When the government forced the\u00a0great Standard Oi I empire ~o be divided into 23 different companies, the holdings\u00a0were I ikewise divided. The 72,000 shares of Standard of New Jersey stock\u00a0had become, through stock dividends and splits and new companies, a total of\u00a010,000,000 shares in the 23 companies, at a total value of $743,000,000. The\u00a0original Rockefeller gift of $50,000,000 had increased to $743,000,000; in ‘other\u00a0words it had multiplied itself 15 times in 46 years.<\/p>\n
The enemies of old John D. said that he was giving away money late in life\u00a0after years of miserly penny-pinching. Not so. All his long life, from ear-\u00a0I iest youth, Mr. Rockefe Iler gave away money. In 1855 he went to work as a\u00a0bookkeeper for a firm of commission merchants at 50 cents a day. Yet out of\u00a0that he gave five cents every Sunday to Sunday School and ten cents a month to\u00a0foreign missions and corresponding amounts to several other causes. In his\u00a0first four months as a bookkeeper he gave away $5.98, whi Ie in the same period\u00a0he spent only nine dol lars on clothes. During his first ful I calendar year of\u00a0work, 1856, he gave away $19.31. By 1860 he was giving over $100; by 1865 his\u00a0contributions had reached $1,000. Twenty years later his gifts reached $155,000\u00a0in 1885, and in 1890 for the first time he gave away half a mi I lion in a single\u00a0year. The very next year his gi fts reached the mi I I i on mark. Long before the\u00a0days of income tax deductions Mr. Rockefeller had given away many mi I lions.<\/p>\n
As the Times told us, the total spending from the accumulations of the\u00a0Rockefe Ilers’ gifts of one b i I I i on has a I ready reached three bill ion do II ars.<\/p>\n
That amount is difficult to comprehend. It means giving at the rate of more\u00a0than $3,500 a day for every day since the birth of Christ.<\/p>\n
What have the Rockefeller benefactions to do with old time things? Just\u00a0this. In the first place, Mr. Rockefeller’s first giving was in 1855, exactly\u00a0one hundred years ago. In the second place, it represents an important feature\u00a0of the American Way of Life — the responsibility that men of great wealth feel\u00a0for the best use of their mi Ilions in the public welfare.<\/p>\n
Now let us get back to some 0 I d time th ings nearer home. Fred 0 liver of\u00a0Vassalboro has a copy of an amazing broadside 158 years old. It advertises the\u00a0first elephant ever seen in America. The old handbi I I, published in Boston in\u00a01797, ba I I yhooed the arri va I of the big pachyderm with the fo II ow i ng words:<\/p>\n
“The Elephant, according to the celebrated Buffon, is the most respectable\u00a0quadruped. In size he surpasses al I other terrestrial creatures, and by his\u00a0intelligence is as near an approach to man as matter can approach spirit. A sufficient\u00a0testimony to the intelligence of this animal is that, the proprietor\u00a0being absent for two weeks, the moment he arrived at the door of his apartment\u00a0and spoke to the keeper, the animal’s knowledge was beyond any doubt confirmed\u00a0by the cries he uttered, ti II his friend came within reach of his trunk, with\u00a0which the animal caressed the man to the astonishment of all who saw him.<\/p>\n
ttThis most curious and surprising animal is just arrived in Ebston from\u00a0Ph i I ade I ph i a \u2022 He will stay here but a few weeks. He is on Iy four years 0 I d\u00a0and we i ghs about 3,000 pounds, but wi I I not come to his fu I I growth ti I I he\u00a0shall be between 30 and 40 years old. He measures from the end of his trunk to\u00a0the tip of his tai I 15 feet 8 inches, round the body 10 feet 6 inches, round the\u00a0head 7 feet 2 inches, and round the leg above the knee 3 feet 3 inches. He eats\u00a0130 pounds a day, and drinks all kinds of spiritous I iquors. Some days he\u00a0drinks 30 bottles of porter, drawing the cork with his trunk. He is so tame\u00a0that he trave Is loose and has never atte~ted to hurt anyone. He appeared on\u00a0the stage at the New Theatre in Phi ladelphia, to the great satisfaction of a\u00a0respectable audience.<\/p>\n
“A convenient place has been fitted up at Mr. Valentine’s, head of the\u00a0market, for the reception of those ladies and gentlemen who may be pleased to\u00a0view this greatest natural curiosity ever presented to the curious 1 and is to\u00a0be seen from sunrise to sun-down, every day in the week, Sundays excepted.\u00a0“The elephant having destroyed many papers of consequence, it is recommende\u00a0ed to visitors not to come near him with such papers.<\/p>\n
“Admittance, One Quarter of a Dollar, Chi Idren Nine Pence. Boston, August\u00a014, 1797. n<\/p>\n
It is generally believed that this old advertisement is for the first elephant\u00a0ever brought to the United States. He is said to have cost $10,000, but\u00a0repaid the investment many times over.<\/p>\n
Another famous elephant of early Ameri can days was HOI d Bet”. In 1815 a\u00a0Yankee skipper named Bai ley went auction-crazy in london. For $20 he bought\u00a0an elephant — an elderly female called Old Bet. Bai ley had a brother in \\’lestchester\u00a0County, New York, who had seen that first elephant, described in Fred\u00a0Oliver’s old\u00b7 handbil I and had heard that exhibiting the creature had made a\u00a0lot of money for the owner. So when the skipper brother arrived in New York\u00a0with Old Bet, the Westchester brother paid him $1,000 for her. She was smuggled\u00a0through the countryside at night, so as to give no one a free look. For a fee\u00a0Ba i ley showed her in barns a II the way up into Connecti cut. The pub Ii c responded\u00a0so wei I that Sai ley was able to expand into a menagerie with monkeys\u00a0and other foreign beasts. He was well on his way to a fortune when Old Bet\u00a0caused a farmer’s horse to run away. Furious, the farmer grabbed a gun and\u00a0k i I led the elephant. Though grieved at his loss, Ba i ley was gratefu I for a I I\u00a0that Old Bet had done for him. With the money she had earned him, Bailey Duilt\u00a0d red brick tavern at Somers, New York, and named it the Elephant Hotel. He\u00a0also erected a wooden statue of Old Bet, painted it a shining si Iver, and\u00a0mounted it on a high pedestal on the lawn in front of his hotel. There it\u00a0sti II stands, a reminder of how one Yankee made his money 140 years ago.<\/p>\n
In “Kennebec Yesterdays” I make some comments on the subject of pie for\u00a0breakfast. Miss Mabe I True of Dover-Foxcroft sends me a de Ii ghtfu I story on\u00a0that topic, and with her story we’ll close the program tonight.\u00a0A Maine woman was reporting on a supper at which she had been a guest.\u00a0“Sakes alive”, she said, “you just oughta seen the sweet food. Layer cake,\u00a0fruit cake, gingerbread, sugar cookies, tarts and apple pie. Now pie for dinner\u00a0you got to have, and pie for breakfast is no more’n what’s right, but\u00a0pie for supper — that’s just downright puttin’ on airs!”<\/p>\n
So, tonight we’l I put no more airs on the air, but say Good Night for\u00a0old times’ sake.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Read the script for “Little Talks” program #270, broadcast on September 11, 1955<\/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":[755,35296],"tags":[],"builder_content":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7534"}],"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=7534"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7534\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7534"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7534"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7534"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}