<\/p>\n
A Waterville newspaper that our older French-Canadian citizens remember well was Le Maine Francais, published weekly by the Elm City Publishing Company at 17 Silver Street. Four issues of its first year of publication, 1912, are among papers recently secured by the Waterville Historical Society. Unfortunately they do not include the first number; the earliest is the fifth, which appeared on November 1, 1912.<\/p>\n
The paper was of course in the French language and it long competed with a similar paper published in Lewiston. Subscription was a dollar a year in the United States and $1.50 in Canada. It, like the Sentinel, was a paper devoted to the Democratic Party and on one page it contained a half-page advertisement calling for lowering of the high protective tariff voted by the Republican majority in Congress, and urging that the only way to accomplish the goal was to elect Democrats to the Congress, including the delegation from Maine. The ad attacked the profits of manufacturers, calling them grossly exorbitant. For instance, it claimed that gross sales by the American Woolen Company in 1911 were $419,000,000, yet the wages of the company’s 168,000 employees amounted to less than 17 percent of those receipts.<\/p>\n
Directly under a news story that also attacked the tariff was the ad of the Waterville Savings Bank. which said: “Place your savings in the Waterville Savings Bank, established in 1869, one of the oldest and strongest. Interest at four percent since 1907. Christian Knauff. President; A.F. Drummond. Treasurer; Trustees: J.W. Bassett, George K. Boutelle, Howard C. Morse, Frank E. Hammond. Edward W. Heath, Horatio R. Dunham.”<\/p>\n
Competing with the Waterville Savings Bank was the Augusta Trust Company, whose ad urged the French people to put their savings there: “Your first deposit can be only one dollar. But that dollar grows. You can watch your regular deposits grow to a large amount. Others have done it. So can you. It is easy after you once commence.”<\/p>\n
Interesting is the paper’s tabulation of the electoral votes of the 48 states in the coming election in November, 1912. Maine. which now has four votes in the electoral college, then had six. In other words, we had four members in the House of Representatives instead of two. Now, when California has nearly as many votes as New York. it is surprising to note the difference in 1912. New York then had 45 electoral votes. California only 13. only one more than Alabama. and actually one less than Georgia. We are also well aware today of the marvelous growth of Arizona and Florida. In 1912 Arizona had only one member in the House, and thus only three electoral votes. Florida’s vote was six, exactly the same as Maine’s.<\/p>\n
In 1912, next to New York, the largest states were Pennsylvania, Ohio, Illinois, and Texas. New Jersey then had the same number of electoral votes as Georgia, far less than the big five. In fact, outside those five, no state had as many as twenty votes. The total vote in the electoral college in 1912 was 531, with 266 necessary to elect a President. The eleven states of the Old Confederacy then had 126 votes, usually solidly Democratic. and much less interested in a third party candidate than they were this year.<\/p>\n
In another issue of the paper the Kennebec Trust Company on Common Street ran an ad partly in English, partly in French. The English part said: “Dear Sir – To have a business of your own some day, bank your money now. Respectfully yours, Our Bank.” The French words translate: “Make the business of banks your own. We pay four percent interest compounded three times a year.”<\/p>\n
Le Maine Francais itself advertised a big contest in which the first prize would be a Valiant automobile open touring car, valued at $900. Other prizes were a piano. a suite of parlor furniture, a kitchen range, and a gold watch. The ad does not say how the contest was conducted, but urges the reader to get information at the paper’s office on Silver Street.<\/p>\n
Under the heading “Notes Sociale” (local news) the paper announced the marriage of Blanche Breton to William Small, a meeting of the Father Charland Council that brought an attendance of 228, and that the paper’s editor, Joseph Marquis, was on a trip to Canada.<\/p>\n
Occasionally, at a loss for the French equivalent of some English expression, the paper inserted the English phrase in quotation marks, as when it said that the friends of Miss Christine Grondin had given her a linen shower.<\/p>\n
In its issue of November 8, 1912 Le Maine Francais was jubilant over the election of Woodrow Wilson, proclaiming it a great Democratic victory. Even more satisfactory to this Waterville newspaper was the fact that both houses of Congress would be controlled by the Democrats. The editor was especially gratified that Maine had gone for Wilson; but he also crowed about the election of Democratic governors in Massachusetts, New York and Connecticut.<\/p>\n
Wilson’s election, in respect to votes in the electoral college, was indeed overwhelming. He carried 40 states with a total of 445 electoral votes. Teddy Roosevelt carried five with 74 votes, and Taft ran a poor third, taking only three states with 12 votes. In fact Taft, the regular Republican candidate, carried only New Hampshire, Vermont and Utah.<\/p>\n
Just before Christmas in 1912 the Waterville Drug Store at 35 Main Street had a fire. Little was burned, but there was considerable smoke damage. So in the Maine Francais of December 27 the store advertised a big sale for the New Year holiday. Toilet articles, powders and perfumes, boxes of 25 cigars, and many other articles appropriate for gifts were offered at slashed prices.<\/p>\n
Another ad in the same issue was by Beane and Cross, men’s clothiers at 238 Water Street. They offered shirts as low as 38 cents, and the highest price for a deluxe shirt was $1.83. Men’s hats were from 79 cents to $2.25. A worsted suit could be had for $7.67, and the top price for the best Alfred Benjamin suit was $17.33. “This”, said the ad, “is our last call before the New Year, your last chance to economize. ”<\/p>\n
Well, those are some of the things I find in the 1912 issues of that local French language newspaper of Joseph Marquis’, Le Maine Francais.<\/p>\n
Another attempt at journalism in Waterville is more of a mystery. In 1897 someone here started a monthly eight-page sheet called “Questions”. Its first issue, also among those recent papers at the Waterville Historical Society, was dated November, 1897. Its editorial announcement said: “Here we are. We shall not ask you now what you think of us. Realizing, in spite of competition, that there is always room at the top, we propose constantly to grow better. We offer a digest of world news, educational features, short stories, and notices of new books. Next month we hope to open our department of Questions and Answers. We shall endeavor to answer questions on any subject, so send them in. We shall also offer prizes for the best answers to questions of general interest.<\/p>\n
This paper, called Questions, was in no sense a local newspaper. It contained not a word of Waterville news. In fact every item in it was what newspaper men call “boiler plate”, material furnished ready to print by some national agency. Probably it was a paper that was actually printed in some metropolitan center, then sent to various cities for distribution, with a local heading and local office. In the Waterville case the supposed publisher was the Questions Publishing Company, with the address simply Waterville, Maine. Where its office was located we do not know. Subscription was fifty cents a year. How long this publication lasted is likewise a mystery. Perhaps the city never saw more than this first number.<\/p>\n
Ten years later another monthly magazine was started in Waterville, and that one did have a longer, though not very lengthy, life. It was a bigger publication than Questions, having in its issue of January, 1908, twenty pages. The title was “Sawyer’s'” and it was published by a company well remembered by our older citizens, the Sawyer Publishing Company on Chaplin Street, a firm operated by Samuel Sawyer.<\/p>\n
It was a concern in which George Fred Terry once had an interest. Sawyer’s was not an expensive magazine. It cost only two cents a copy, or fifteen cents a year. It was called a magazine for the home. Sawyer sought agents for the publication. Like the old Youth’s Companion. he offered alluring premiums for anyone who would sell subscriptions. He said: “Send me just one new subscription and I will send you free anyone of ten recent novels.” The ten books have now all been forgotten, but two of the authors are remembered: A. Conan Doyle and Anna Katherine Green. Alas, it was not Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes that Sawyer offered, but a now quite forgotten book, “Alabama Joe”.<\/p>\n
Leading author in that 1908 issue of the magazine was the redoubtable Laura Jean Libby, the first installment of whose “Beautiful Florice or the Victim of Fate” Sawyer presented to his readers.<\/p>\n
Like the earlier magazine Questions, Sawyer’s had no local ads, and some of its advertising would today be considered questionable, though it was quite usual 60 years ago. For instance, there was Dr. King’s Treatment for every sort of disease. He would cure malaria, heart disease, rheumatism, dyspepsia, lung troubles, and piles. He bellowed in his ad: “Sick people, let Dr. King help you at his own risk. Send no money. Test it free. You pay only if it works.” It would be interesting to know what it was that that quack sent to the gullible who responded to his ad.<\/p>\n
Some of the ads were for the lovelorn: “Marry rich. Big list of descriptions and photos free.” “Marry wealth and beauty. Directory free. Pay when married.”<\/p>\n
“Would you like addresses of pretty rich ladies or handsome wealthy gentlemen who want to marry? We will send a list free.”<\/p>\n
A strange ad was for gold teeth. with the injunction “Fill your own teeth with a gold-plated shell that fits any tooth.”<\/p>\n
The magazine had at least a dozen ads for ways to cure the drug habit. One such ad said: “Habitina does it. It will cure you of the morphine habit at only two dollars a bottle. Send for free sample.”<\/p>\n
Another monthly magazine with a Waterville date line, of which the Historical Society has a copy, was the American Home. which circulated even more cheaply than Sawyer’s, only ten cents a year. That it was centrally published, then distributed in various cities, is revealed by its more honest date line than we found in either Questions or Sawyer’s. That line read: “Waterville, Maine and New York City, January, 1902.” The magazine announced it wasn’t stringing readers along with serials. but “Every story complete.” There is no Waterville address for the publication, but subscriptions and correspondence could be sent to the American Home either at Waterville, Maine or at 525 Temple Court Building, New York City. The page size of this paper was larger than Sawyer’s, but it had only 16 pages compared with Sawyer’s twenty. Unlike Sawyer’s, the American Home carried no ads at all, in that respect being like the old Readers Digest in its early days. The contents was chiefly fiction of the most sentimental, mushiest kind.<\/p>\n
And with that closing comment about some of the periodicals published in Waterville more than half a century ago, we must say goodbye until next week.<\/p>\n
Year: 1968<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Read the script for “Little Talks” program #785, Broadcast on December 8, 1968<\/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":[1199,35296],"tags":[],"builder_content":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8874"}],"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=8874"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8874\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8874"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8874"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8874"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}