<\/p>\n
It is gratifying to know that allover the nation, celebration of the bicentennial has been carried out with dignity and enthusiasm. It turned out that a majority of the American people are proud of our country despite its shortcomings.<\/p>\n
Do you recall how the prophets of doom were talking a year ago? They bewailed the whole idea of a celebration. They said we had nothing to celebrate. Instead we ought to hang our heads in shame because of Watergate and other revelations of wrong-doing in high places.<\/p>\n
What those Cassandras did not remember was that in 1876, when the United States celebrated its first hundred years with the big Exposition in Philadelphia, the situation was just as bad, and in some respects even worse. Just as the Exposition got underway, the presidency itself was captured by fraud. Although Tilden got a majority of the popular vote and a slight majority of that in the electoral college, it was Hayes who entered the White House. Congress was able to unseat enough of the Tilden electors to change the outcome against the vote of the people. Tilden, as Governor of New York, had broken up the notorious Tweed ring, and the leaders of that gang, determined never to forgive him, saw to it that he lost the presidency.<\/p>\n
In 1876, General Grant’s presidential term had just ended. Although the President himself was never shown to be involved, his administration was one of the most corrupt in our history. The Secretary of War was impeached for graft. The President’s private secretary was indicted as part of the ring trying to control the price of whiskey, and Jay Gould used cabinet and White House aides in his attempt to corner the supply of gold. The Speaker of the House was caught in a railroad financing scandal.<\/p>\n
It was all part of the nation’s absorption in getting rich quick. Instead of being devoutly religious and morally high-minded, as we today like to think were the Americans of a hundred years ago, most of the people were then worshipers of the almighty dollar, and many didn’t care how they made it. The oppression of the poor by manufacturers and merchants was as bad as Dickens described it in England in his character of Scrooge.<\/p>\n
To be poor in the United States in 1876 was to be desperate beyond the imagination of people today. When depression fell on the country in early 1876, wages, already at starvation level, were cut in half, and no one had even dreamed of such things as unemployment compensation or national welfare plans. While the fair was being held in Philadelphia, half the workers in New York City were jobless. When people did have work anywhere in the country, a ten year old child often worked a 14 hour day in mill or mine for 50 cents a day.<\/p>\n
The negro population was especially hard hit in 1876. Only a decade out of slavery, they were left to shift for themselves, as if emancipation was quite enough for one century. In ignorance and dire poverty, the Blacks were left a prey to the Ku Klux Klan.<\/p>\n
And don’t forget that 1876 was the year when the Sioux Indians, fed up with their exploitation by the white man, turned on their oppressors by wiping out General Custer’s troops at the Little Big Horn.<\/p>\n
Henry Adams, noted scion of Massachusetts’ Adams family, besides writing that delightful autobiography “The Education of Henry Adams,” also wrote a novel entitled “Democracy” that came from the press just as America reached its hundredth birthday. In it he has one of the characters say, “I am glad I shall not live another hundred years. The U.S. will then be more corrupt than Rome under Caligula.”<\/p>\n
Well, the nation did endure for another hundred years, and despite the continuation of corruption in high places that century saw great improvements – the abolition of child labor, the recognition of civil rights, the emancipation of women, public concern for the poor and the unfortunate. But I fear we must admit that one change the century did not bring. Most Americans still worship the almighty dollar.<\/p>\n
This program has frequently referred to Waterville’s first full-time physician, Dr. Moses Appleton. I have told you how he often contracted with heads of household for medical care of the family signed by Dr. Appleton in 1802. Recently I have seen the original of such an agreement, It reads: “lt is agreed between Moses Appleton and Jonathan Soule that said Appleton shall attend Submit Soule, daughter of said Jonathan, as physician, and if the said Submit shall be well so as to be free from danger of her fits at the end of twelve months, said Soule shall pay to said Appleton $20. If at that time she shall not be out of danger from her fits, the said Appleton shall receive nothing for his trouble.”<\/p>\n
A curious item in the library at the Redington Museum is a tiny paper booklet, four by two and a half inches, carrying the title, “A Book of Trades for Industrious Boys,” published at Providence, R. I. in 1847, by one George Daniels.<\/p>\n
The first occupation listed is that of printer. The book says: “This is a very useful trade. All your story books and schoolbooks are made by him. The types are first put in little cells of a wooden frame called a case, one letter to each cell. The printer picks out one by one the letters he needs to form words, lines and pages. After thus setting up as much as will fill one side of a sheet of paper, he carries it to the press, where a boy inks the type. Then the press is screwed down over the paper and upon the frame of type. Benjamin Franklin was once a letter printer’s boy.”<\/p>\n
Next attention is given to the bricklayer. We are told the bricks are made of clay and sand put into molds, then placed in the sun to dry before being baked in a large oven called a kiln. “It is the fire that makes them hard. A bricklayer builds chimneys.”<\/p>\n
The third occupation heralded is that of sailor. We read: “Some boys think a sailor’s life, seeing the world, is easy, but they know nothing of the trials and hardships of the sea.”<\/p>\n
“It is easier to make bricks, shoe horses, or build houses than it is to make children love their school and be attached to their lessons. If you have not learned how to do that, you had better try, for otherwise you not only make school hard for the teacher, you also make it useless for yourself.”<\/p>\n
On the back of the little volume we learn its price, 6 cents, and we also learn that Daniels produced other books for children, some for as little as 3 cents, others costing as much as 12 cents. Some of his offerings were Book of Beasts, The Little Traveler, Evening Pastimes, Picture Alphabet, and Book of Politeness.<\/p>\n
The summer of 1976 was the last to see log drives down the Kennebec. It has already been more than 40 years since the last drive of long logs went down the river, but thousands of cords of pulp wood have continued each summer to supply the several pulp mills on the Kennbec. Now even the pulp wood will be carried overland to the mills. At its peak of lumbering operations, the Scott Paper Company moved 200,000 cords down the streams, using big rafts of the logs towed across Moosehead Lake in the process.<\/p>\n
The old time drives, after the winter cutting, took place in the spring. No wood was then left boomed as was done later. Care was taken to see that there was no dumping or driving when game fish were spawning. New hauling roads will be built into the cuttings, and next summer will see big loads on the highways to the mills.<\/p>\n
One of the leading books of the spring season was Anne Lindbergh’s “The Flower and the Nettle,” one in the series she has been compiling from the copious diaries she kept over the years. It is now more than 40 years since her first-born son was kidnapped and killed, and even before that she had begun her informative diaries.<\/p>\n
What I find especially interesting in this latest of Mrs. Lindbergh’s books is her references to Maine. She truly loved our state, and her comments about it are very complimentary. Writing her mother from London in 1936, she said: “Your North Haven letter makes me homesick for Maine, with the wind blowing all the trees white. Today’s weather here would have been called a ‘smoky sou’wester’ in Maine. It is nice to associate Maine with being happy, isn’t it? I am glad that Charles and I were there on our honeymoon. At least we were in Maine waters. He says some day we must get a place in Maine. But probably not in North Haven, as it is getting too thickly settled. I should love to get Leadbetter Island (that was nearer Vinalhaven) but I am sure Charles thinks it too unsettled. However, the mail boat goes right by the front door twice a day.”<\/p>\n
After the tragady of the kidnapping and the familiar hounding by the press during the Hauptman trial, the Lindberghs took refuge on the little island of Ileac off the coast of France. There she wrote in her diary: “Ileac is wild and beautiful and on the sea. It is France, which is fun. But it will never take the place of Maine for me. It has not the associations and is really not the same kind of place. Maine is, and will become more and more, because of easy accessibility, a vacation place, a holiday land, even for a week end country holiday. It will always be home for me more than any other place.”<\/p>\n
Here is another diary item also written on Ileac. “I talked with Charles about plans for the summer. Shall we go home, get our feet in America again? I want to take the children to Maine. I hate to give up Ileac after we have made it our own place. But we do not want to lose touch with America. I feel that quite strongly, especially for the children. I want to give them a lovely summer in Maine.”<\/p>\n
Year: 1976<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Read the script for “Little Talks” program #1094, Broadcast on October 3, 1976<\/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":[35493,35296],"tags":[],"builder_content":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9646"}],"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=9646"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9646\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9646"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9646"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9646"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}