\nWhen I told you about the 25 maidens from Japan, I said we ought more frequently to think about the good things that are being done today, rather than concentrate so much on the bad things. Here’s another good thing in our present strife-torn world — a thing I suspect many of you never heard of. It is MFM — meals for mi Ilions.<\/p>\n
Before the war, when the depression was at its worst, a Los Angeles cafeteria owner named Clifford Clinton became greatly disturbed by abundance of food in the midst of hungry people, a situation which Norman Thomas once described as starving knee deep in surplus wheat. So Clinton worked out a plan for meals served at unbelievable low cost — five cents for a dinner of soup, a little meat, two vegetables and pudding. In six months he served a mi I lion such meals.<\/p>\n
The war lifted the United States out of the depression, but it left mi 1- lions of people in Europe and Asia the victims of famine. Clinton began to wonder why his Los Angeles experience could not be applied to the world situation. But he was up against something besides costs. In the hungry areas of the world there exist wide differences in tastes and customs, and especially divergent religious restrictions on certain foods. Then too there are the tremendous problems of shipping, refrigeration and spoi lage.<\/p>\n
In an effort to attack these problems Clinton made a gift of $5,000 in 1943 to the California Institute of Technology, for research in the development of a high protein food that was inexpensive to produce, did not need refrigeration, and was not subject to religious taboos.<\/p>\n
The man who came up with the answer was Dr. Henry Borsook, a biochemist.<\/p>\n
And what do you suppose he used as a source of the new food? One of the most plentiful of plant resources — the grits remaining from soybeans, after they have been processed for margarine and cooking oi Is. To this Borsook added certa in mi nera I s and vi tami ns. Thus, wi thout drawi ng at a lion the regu I ar sources of food supply, this sdentist produced a highly nourishing basic food. It could be served as a stock for soup, or be mixed with corn meal or flour, or simply used as a general nutritional supplement. And the cost per serving was three cents.<\/p>\n
To distribute this food there was created in Los Angeles fTMeals for Mi Ilions, Inc.!T in 1946. I n ten years it has served peop Ie in more than 100 countries. Its money has come entirely from individual citizens, many of whom contribute by putting aside for MFM three cents every time they sit down to a meal. Of course MFM hasn’t banished hunger from the earth. Probably as yet it has made only a small dent in the world’s oldest and toughest problem — famine.<\/p>\n
But it has made a start. As Norman Cous i ns puts it: !?MFM wi I I not save the world, but it speaks a language that people understand and respect. Food can’t so Ive a” our prob lems, but no prob lem can be solved without it. H<\/p>\n
This year when the school appropriation, sti II not as large as it ought to be, plays so significant a part in Watervi I Ie’s increased tax rate, it is interesting to note what was happening in our schools a bit more than 75 years ago, in 1878 and 1879. Contrasted with our present school appropriation of approxi mate I y ha I f a mi II i on do I lars, the tota I expense of operati ng \\~atervi I Ie schools in 1878, including $856 received from the state, was $5,182. In other words, the expense of school operation has increased one hundred times in the past 75 years. Of the $5,182, teachers got $3,980, the highest paid one being W. M. Barnes at the high school, who got $425 for the whole school year. The highest paid woman teacher was the wei I known Julia Stackpole at $400. So low was a teacher’s pay in those days that the whole $3,980 was divided among 21 teachers, some of whom, to be sure, taught only a single term, for the school commi ttee report for the year says: HAmong the teachers outs i de the vi ” age there has not been much permanence. The schools are seldom taught more than two terms in success i on by the same teachers.”<\/p>\n
The educational disputes of 1878 were about the same as they are today -for whom, why, and at what expense should the state provide education? The Watervi lie report of t 878 has th is to say:<\/p>\n
“The ri ght to tax its c i ti zens to support public education grows out of the right of the state to consult its own interests. The purpose is not to benefit the individual, but to assure the public welfare. Here the views diverge. Some contend that the state should go no farther than to provide the minimum education necessary to assure the state’s bare existence. Others hold that more than ordinary common schooling must be at public expense, for the highest good of the state is identical with the highest good of its individuals. An ignorant and uneducated people cannot long mai nta ina popul ar government. Yet to secure to the mass of the peop Ie a very hi gh state of educati on is for the present beyond the power of any government. n<\/p>\n
The Watervi lie report continues:<\/p>\n
“The fi rst view would limit tax supported education to the rudiments of the common schools. The other view would see established free schools of all levels, from the kindergarten to the university. Your committee are not in full accord with either view, but are convinced that between dangerous extremes there is a safe golden mean. We are convinced that there must be avai lable, at public expense, education beyond the common branches taught in what are now divided into the primary, intermediate, and grarmlar SChools. With this view the establishment of our public high school is in accord. Experience has taught us, however, that the courses of study usually selected for high schools are often too advanced, covering ground properly belonging to college. We have therefore modified the program in our own high school, to make it more sui tab Ie for a II the chi I dren. Your committee fee Is emphati ca I Iy that, in organ i zi ng a free high school, we have reached the I i mit to which any state ought to go in the direction of free popular education.:1<\/p>\n
More than once on this program we have referred to the two principal German settlements in Maine, at Waldoboro and at Dresden. The early name of the former was Broad Bay_ The latter was originally cal led Frankfort, later Pownalborough.<\/p>\n
The flow of German immigrants to America started in 1682 and was made up of the dissident Protestant sects like the Mbravians who sought refuge from religious persecuTion as wei I as opportunity to escape from a famine-stricken:<\/p>\n
war-ravaged land. At first these immigrants came mostly to Pennsylvania, under the protection of the liberal policies established there by Wi Iliam Penn.<\/p>\n
In the first decade of the 18th century something happened to give unusual impetus to the German migrations to America. When Queen Anne came to the throne of England in 1702, her government took stern measures to prevent further British migration to America, contending that England needed her people at home. But Queen Anne’s ministers knew it was important to have colonies in America settled steadi Iy and increasingly. So they put on an active campaign to secure settlers from Germany. They circulated al luring pamphlets throughout the Rhineland. So lavish were the covers and decorations that those pamphlets became known as the Golden Books of Queen Anne. The result was most gratifying to the promoters. In the two years of 1708 and 1709 more than 30,000 Germans came to the American colonies.<\/p>\n
This immigrant traffic led to flagrant abuses. As the traffic assumed highly profitable proportions it became vigorously competitive, and the owners and captains of The ships developed techniques which closely resembled the odious practices on slave ships of the time.<\/p>\n
Every conceivable kind of trickery was used by the promoters of the German migrations. Even supposed clargymen were bribed to help in the deceptions. The Germans were more easi Iy induced to join a migrating group if a minister accompanied the expedition. The promoters didn’t take the trouble to secure real ministers. Often they shipped some fellow who could pass himself off as a clergyman.\u00a0 That practice, says historian Jasper Stahl, accounts for the charlatan p reachers who caused so much d i ssens ion in the \\t\/a I doboro co lony in its ear I y years.<\/p>\n
Bad as were living conditions in Germany at the end of the Thiry Years War, the passage across the Atlantic and the conditions on arrival were even worse. When the ships reached Phi ladelphia or Boston, they were often fi I led with scores of passengers stricken with sma I Ipox and other diseases. In the crowded quarters of those ships the fi Ith was unbelievable. In 1720 a ship arrived in Phi ladelphia, after a crossing that took six months, with the few surviving immigrants living on rats and vermin. The horrors of the average passage in an immigrant ship were only slightly less revolting.<\/p>\n
Furthermore, those German travelers were subjected to al I manner of exploitation. The captain and crews of the ships plundered the dead and robbed the living. Ches\u00b7ts were rifled; money was stolen; and the suffering passengers were made to sign papers which made them practically slaves of the shipowners.<\/p>\n
The worst of these vi Ie tricks concerned food. Many a captain saw to it that the voyage took longer than it should. Since it was common practice to require each emigrant to carry his own provisions and prepare his own food on the voyage, it was to the captain’s advantage to see that the passengers~ food gave out. Then they would have to buy food from the ship’s stores, and at whatever exhorbitant prices the captain chose to set.<\/p>\n
But suppose a passenger had no money to buy food. Did he have to starve? Not quite, though some of them probab Iy did die of malnutrition. What happened to most of them was a fate only slightly removed from slavery, the lot of the indentured servant. When one of those ships reached port, indenture sales were held right on the deck. Citizens of the port would gather, to bid at auction for the wretched immigrants who owed for food purchased from the ship’s stores.<\/p>\n
It was almost exactly like the notorious slave auctions. Just how it was done is described by one historian thus: “The usual terms of sale depended somewhat on the age, strength and health of the persons sold. Boys and girls had to serve unti I the age of 21. Many parents found it necessary, in order to pay for the wretched food on the ship, to sell their own chi Idren, as they had been accustomed at home to sell their cattle. Often persons of adult age had to sell Themse I ves into bondage for five or more years to get off the sh i p. IT<\/p>\n
The German settlement at Waldoboro in 1742 was fostered by the persistent efforts of General Samuel Waldo and a few men associated with him, who seoured The Rhineland to secure emigrants. By that time the worst conditions of the passage had been mitigated by legislation of the Massachusetts authorities and by agreements among the promoting companies. Yet among about 100 Germans who reached Broad Bay in the ship Lydia in 1742, some forty of them were so poor That they arrived already indentured as servants to General Waldo for various periods of years.<\/p>\n
The story of that first and the subsequent German settlements at the head of Muscongus Bay and along the Medomak River — not only at Waldoboro but also in what are now the towns of Thomaston, St. George, Warren and Union — makes fasci nati ng readi ng, and the best p lace to read it is Jasper Stah I ‘s T7History of Broad Bay!!. It is a huge two-volume work, thoroughly documented and interestingly written, and there is a copy of it in the Watervi lie Public Library.<\/p>\n
One last comment on those Waldoboro Germans. Their lot was made harder, as time went on, by the difficulty of language. Most of them knew no English, and the settlements both west and east of them were made by English speaking people. The dominant settlement at Pemaquid, the growing vi Ilage at Damariscotta, the thriving trading posts at Castine and Machias, knew not the sound of German words. Language isolated the German settlers at Waldoboro, and they were stubborn about it. For a ful I century they resisted English language services in their Lutheran church. In fact it was that resistance which finally spelled the doom of that church and saw its third generation Germans desert it for the Engl ish-speaking Congregational church.<\/p>\n
Those Germans of Waldoboro were an honest, hard-working, valiant people.<\/p>\n
Today their descendants are among the leading citizens of Knox County. Every time I stop at the old German church on Route 32, just outside the present Waldoboro vi I lage, and walk among the ancient gravestones in the churchyard, I realize how much Maine owes to the persecuted folk of the Rhineland who listened to the cal I of Samuel Waldo two hundred years ago.<\/p>\n
Year: 1956<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Read the script for “Little Talks” program #318, broadcast on November 11, 1956<\/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":[790,35296],"tags":[],"builder_content":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7676"}],"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=7676"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7676\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7676"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7676"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7676"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}