November 17, 1970
Page 37549
MAINE NEEDS MORE SUMMER RESIDENTS LIKE GARDINER MEANS
Mr. MUSKIE. Mr. President, one of Maine's most distinguished summer residents is Dr. Gardiner C. Means. Noted economist, author, presidential adviser, and enthusiastic outdoorsman, Dr. Means has not been content merely to enjoy the summer beauty of our State. By vigorously maintaining that Maine can and must find a suitable balance between economic development and environmental protection, Dr. Means has articulated what all of us who love Maine know and feel. And as a valued member of the Maine State Planning Council, he is contributing his energies and talents toward helping Maine to promote policies for sound future growth.
Mr. President, the Maine Sunday Telegram of October 25 contains an article entitled "Maine Needs More Summer Residents Like Gardiner Means," written by Marc A. Nault. I am proud to have Gardiner Means as a part-time constituent.
I ask unanimous consent that the article be reprinted in the RECORD.
There being no objection, the article was ordered to be printed in the RECORD, as follows:
MAINE NEEDS MORE SUMMER RESIDENTS LIKE GARDINER MEANS
(By Marc A. Nault)
A majority of Maine's summer residents have by now long departed their coastal and lakeside retreats for the cities and suburbs with little thought about the state save for the memory of its stunning natural beauty and a particularly pleasant summer too soon ended.
Preoccupied with their own good-paying jobs and professions that will permit them to return next summer, few are aware of the struggle many Maine people have in getting through the cold, snow and expense of winter; or the biennial dilemma the legislature faces in pruning heavy budget requests to within tax revenues limited by a fragile economy; of the frowns that mark the countenance of voters at annual town meetings over the high cost of local government and education services. No, the summer people experience the glory of summer but miss out on the economic agony of a Maine winter.
One unusual exception is a remarkable man of 74 whose interest in and concern for Maine's year round residents doesn't end when he closes his rustic cedar cottage on Yellowhead Island in Machias Bay within view of the controversial supertanker port proposed at Machiasport. He is Dr. Gardiner C. Means, internationally respected economist and avowed conservationist, who summers in Washington County and maintains a permanent home on a small farm in Vienna, Va., some 20 miles from Washington, D.C.
Dr. Means' name has been associated with the Machiasport oil refinery proposals for his advocacy of thorough pollution control safeguards and the concept of locating any refinery inland, an idea credited as setting a precedent for the landmark site selection law passed by the 104th Legislature.
But few, if any Maine residents know anything else about a man whose counsel is sought in and out of government here and abroad, nor of the influence he has had on recent state economic and environmental planning policies as a member of the Maine State Planning Council.
Not given to flamboyance, unless you could call the bright red felt L. L. Bean hunting hat he wears daily while summering in Maine flamboyant, Dr. Means is a studious and probing man with none of the stuffiness one might expect of his Exeter and Harvard (B.S. in physical sciences, Masters and PhD. in economics) background.
His short physical stature and healthy good looks belie an agility that would shame many only half his age. But one of his favorite summer pastimes in recent years was canoeing with his wife along the Maine coast for days at a time, camping out on isolated landfalls with only the bare essentials of equipment and food stores.
It was the canoeing trips that led gradually to Washington County waters from Bath and Boothbay.
Yellowhead, a ten acre island at the head of Machias Bay, was one of the places they used to canoe to. Then owned by friends from the Washington, D.C. area, the Means purchased it in 1963.
This strong personal tie to coastal Washington County spurred the Means, who are both professional economists (Mrs. Means a former Vassar professor, uses her maiden name, Dr. Caroline Farar Ware in her professional work) to learn more about the area. His interest and background caused Dr. Means to be invited by Governor Kenneth Curtis to join the State Planning Council.
When the refinery proposals were unleashed in the summer of 1968, Dr. Means undertook an intensive study of the economic and environmental impact of the project and was named by the governor to serve as chairman of the air and water pollution subcommittee for Machiasport planning.
"No one asked harder questions than did Gardiner Means," wrote conservationist Frank Graham in the July 1970 issue of Aubudon Magazine, in referring to the role Dr. Means played in the Machiasport discussions.
Throughout the debate Dr. Means has maintained the position that a "balance can be struck between economic development and environmental protection."
Washington County, Graham suggested, is a testing ground for the proposition that people do not count for less in the conservationists' scheme of things than do birds and trees.
His belief in this conviction, that people do count, led Dr. Means to establish the Bucks Harbor Skiff Company in 1965 – three years before the Machiasport proposals highlighted the chronic plight of Washington County residents. The aim was to provide winter work for lobstermen.
Dr. Means personally designed a lightweight fiberglas skiff and put its production under the management of Bucks Harbor lobsterman Floyd Colbeth.
Some 200 skiffs have been built and sold, and although the company has suffered from a lack of marketing know-how and has been slowed by technical problems, hopes remain that full production can be resumed and a more intensified marketing campaign undertaken.
Another project Dr. Means intends to examine more closely this winter is how to grow commercial crops of the highland cranberries that are native to Washington County. He also is interested in how lobster farming can be conducted, particularly in raising the baby lobster and fry through the critical period when it is prey to natural predators.
Dr. Means makes no predictions on the outcome of his studies but gives every evidence of being unwilling to merely enjoy his Machias Bay surroundings without trying to assist in overcoming the economic deficiencies of the area.
This is the kind of challenge he has faced and grappled with throughout his professional career, first in work he did with the Near East Relief organization after World War One. Assigned to Turkey, he says this is where he gained his first experience in managing a conglomerate – a series of small businesses such as carpentry, blacksmithy, shoe making and weaving.
The weaving experience stimulated him later to take a two year course at Lowell Textile School and eventually to establish a successful specialty blanket weaving company. Throughout this period, Dr. Means was confronted by the question, "Why don't things work right?" in the economy. To satisfy his concern he returned to Harvard to study economics and it was there that he met the future Mrs. Means, who also was doing post graduate work at Radcliffe.
Through his wife he met Dr. Adolph Berle, a lawyer on the faculty of Columbia University who invited Means to assist him in a study focusing on the separation of ownership and management of corporate enterprise.
However, Dr. Means came to realize that they were studying the separation of ownership and control of corporations, a significant development in the American economy. This work led Berle and Means to co-author a major economic treatise, "The Modern Corporation and Private Property," which concluded that a corporate revolution had been going on in which more and more economic activity was coming under the control of the nation's 200 largest corporations.
Published in 1932 at the bottom of the depression, the book spelled out the profound implications this concentration of control had on legal and economic theory, practice and government policy.
The book became widely accepted as a classic in its field and served a significant role in the development of the Securities and Exchange Act passed by Congress to protect investors from abuses by corporate management. It also became part of the Roosevelt New Deal Doctrine.
What followed for Dr. Means was a series of high-level policy-making assignments in the Roosevelt Administration. Dr. Means notes with a modest degree of pride that he was one of the earliest to become concerned about consumer protection, now a major goal in the federal administration. He authored a study of "The Consumer and the New Deal" while a member of the Consumer Advisory Board.
In addition to the recognition earned by the Berle-Means classic, Dr. Means went on to develop the concept of administered prices for which he became known throughout the economics profession. It established an alternative theory to that advanced by the Keynesians to explain persistent unemployment in a free enterprise system.
In addition to his numerous assignments in government, Dr. Means has authored several books on economics including one which he coauthored with his wife, "The Modern Economy in Action." He says he has three additional books in mind he intends to write.
Perhaps the highest recognition accorded this son of a Congregational minister who was born in Windham, Conn., and who lived for a brief time during his youth in Madison, Maine, came when the Harvard chapter of Phi Beta Kappa accepted him to membership in 1968 – some 50 years after receiving his doctorate – for outstanding professional achievement and contributions to economic learning and practice during his career.
But none of this mantle of honors shows when Dr. Means is in the Machiasport area. Attired in his rumpled sun tan trousers, worn deck shoes, open jacket and ubiquitous red felt hat, he is readily accepted and at home with the lobstermen and clam diggers as they talk together about the economic problems of Down East Maine.
A measure of his acceptance came this summer when many Machiasport natives became concerned about his failure to show up at the usual time in early June for his summer stay on Yellowhead.
Actually, he had an appointment before a Congressional committee in Washington late in July. But he stayed a little longer in September to accept an invitation by Sen. Edmund S. Muskie to testify in Machias at the Machiasport oil pollution hearings.
Even in his testimony, Dr. Means offered little that would inform the audience of his prestigious credentials. He introduced his remarks with the following modest, straightforward note:
"My name is Gardiner C. Means. I am an economist and summer resident of this area. My wife and I own Yellowhead Island which is within two and one-half miles of the proposed port. Also, I am actively concerned with the development of the economy of the Machias area. I am thus involved on both sides of the pollution problem. Will pollution be so bad that I should oppose the project in order to protect our island or can it be kept so low as to justify supporting the project for its advantages in building up the region."
It is the same dilemma other Washington County residents face and Dr. Means could well have been speaking for them trying to seek answers, exercising caution, suggesting safeguards, hoping that somehow it might be possible to help the local economy without damaging the area's beauty.
Maine needs more season residents like economist and conservationist Gardiner C. Means and his wife.