March 7, 1974
Page 5821
ERNEST C. MARRINER CELEBRATES 1,000TH BROADCAST
Mr. MUSKIE. Mr. President, in 1948, when I was practicing law in Waterville, Maine, a neighbor of mine, Ernest C. Marriner, agreed to broadcast a half-dozen programs on the local radio station, WTVL and WTVL-FM, to fill a vacant 15 minutes of air time between two popular radio shows, "Monday Morning Headlines" and "Drew Pearson Reports." Another neighbor, Carleton D. Brown, who owned the station, talked Keyes Fiber Co. into sponsoring the shows.
Those half-dozen "Little Talks on Common Things" were so popular that Marriner continued the broadcasts, and last month, WTVL, Marriner and Keyes Fiber celebrated the 1,000th broadcast of Marriner's Program. The station believes that the program and sponsor have set an endurance record for radio. As Brown said in introducing the 1,000th program February 10th:
Continuous sponsorship of a radio broadcast by a single sponsor for 1,000 weeks, using the same talent on the same program is a radio first.
Keyes Fiber, by the way, does not air commercials during the broadcast, but simply announces its sponsorship.
Mr. Marriner is now 82 years old, and serves as Colby College historian, after 37 years on the Colby faculty. He is also dean emeritus of the faculty at Colby. His "Little Talks on Common Things" are, mostly, historical lessons, homilies on the great and near great which help guide us as well as entertain us. And his little talks are, mostly, about Maine.
In his first talk he passed on the wisdom of Arthur J. Roberts, former Colby College president, who used to say:
In Maine, farming isn't an occupation; it's a misfortune.
In his 500th talk he related the story of a corporal in a Civil War regiment who was delivered of a child while on picket duty.
And in his 1,000th discourse, he told the following story about political power:
[O]ne day in 1889 a prominent Virginian, John Wise, burst into the office of the Speaker of the House, Thomas B. Reed of Maine, yelling out, "Who's running this government anyway?" Reed calmly replied, "Why John, the great and the good are running it of course." "Well then," said Wise, "the great and the good must all live in Maine. Here I come to Washington to do business with the Secretary of State, and I find he is Jim Blaine of Maine. I call to pay my respects on the President pro tem of the Senate, and he is Mr. Frye of Maine. I want to consult the Senate's majority leader and they send me to Mr. Hale of Maine. Then I must take up a tariff matter with the chairman of the Ways and Means Committee of the House, and who is he but Mr. Dingley of Maine. Then there is a naval bill I am interested in, and who chairs that committee but Mr. Milliken of Maine. I have to see about an appropriation for a public building in Richmond, and who's in control but Mr. Boutelle of Maine."
"Yes, John," said Reed, "the great and the good and the wise. The country is still safe," And out they went arm in arm to have lunch with the Chief Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court, Mr. Justice Fuller of Maine.
Mr. President, to commemorate both Dean Marriner's longevity and genius, I ask unanimous consent that the 1,000th, 500th, and first "Little Talks on Common Things," along with a biological sketch and two articles on the program, be printed in the RECORD.
There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in the RECORD, as follows:
[Program No. 1000]
"LITTLE TALKS ON COMMON THINGS" WITH ERNEST C. MARRINER, BROADCAST ON WTVL AND WTVL-FM ON FEBRUARY 10, 1974
INTRODUCTION
CARLETON D. BROWN: Back in the autumn of 1948, Radio Station WTVL in Waterville, Maine, invited Ernest Marriner, then Dean of the Faculty at Colby College, to broadcast half-a-dozen 15-minute Sunday programs, centering on common themes. That brief period has extended into 28 years, and the program you are about to hear is the one which was broadcast on the 1000th consecutive week of this series.
For more than a quarter of a century, this unusual program has put on the air a myriad of topics, most of them concerned with the social history of the State of Maine, and especially that of its Kennebec Valley. Little attention has been given to political events, but much to the way Maine people lived and talked from earliest pioneer days to the beginning of the present century.
The broadcasts have told about the early settlements, the construction of roads from Indian trails to turnpikes, the story of Maine's ten narrow-gauge railroad lines, the ocean-going schooners built in Maine, the old country stores with their sales of rum and gingerbread. Well-remembered is the story of a Maine murder case in which the expert witnesses were not doctors, but ox drivers testifying to the speed of a yoke of oxen on a dark night drive covering sixteen miles.
In the more than 25 years this show has been on the air, it has been sponsored continuously by the Keyes Fibre Company, internationally-known converters of wood fiber into molded household and commercial products.
Never once has a broadcast been interrupted by advertising. Only at the beginning and at the close is there a single sentence saying that the program is presented as a service to the public by a friendly industrial neighbor – the Keyes Fibre Company.
Continuous sponsorship of a radio broadcast by a single sponsor for 1000 weeks, using the same talent on the same program is a Radio FIRST – a First in this nation.
Be our guest now as we bring you "Little Talks On Common Things" with Ernest Marriner.
MARRINER: As Little Talks reaches its 1000th broadcast, it may be appropriate to mention some unusual things about Maine. I could tell about Maine items of today: our famous lobster, never to be confused with the less tasty crayfish; about Aroostook potatoes so big that one will make a meal for a family; about our giant industries concerned with pulp and paper, about Maine's famous shirts and her equally celebrated steel grandstands, known all over the nation.
However, Little Talks has for a quarter of a century been concerned with Maine history. So let me tell you a few things about the State of Maine that may be new to you, not the kind of things told in the history books.
Everyone knows that New England's first permanent settlement was at Plymouth in 1620. Now, the most authentic record of that settlement is a contemporary account written by the settlement's first governor, William Bradford and entitled "Bradford's Relation." In that book Bradford relates that, after that first terrible winter at Plymouth, as the snows began to melt, the little colony was one day entered and greeted by an Indian who spoke English. Bradford does not tell us where that red man learned his few English words, but subsequent research has made it clear that he learned it at Pemaquid on the Maine coast, where British fishing fleets had been drying their codfish every summer for many years before any Pilgrim foot stepped on Plymouth Rock.
Bradford does tell us that, in the late spring of 1621, he sent the Pilgrim shallop to Pemaquid for supplies. Admittedly there were then no permanent settlement at Pemaquid. Why did Bradford think he could get supplies there? He makes it clear that he meant European goods, not Indian grain and furs. Bradford knew very well one or more British fishing fleets would be starting to dry their fish on the Pemaquid shore at about that time, and surely some of those ships could spare him supplies.
The first vessel ever built on the North Atlantic shore of what is now the United States was built in Maine, the same year as the founding of the colony at Jamestown, Virginia, 1607. A British colonizing party had established a settlement at the mouth of Maine's Kennebec River. It lasted only a year, but in that interval the colonists had built a sturdy sea-going ship.
Why do folks coming to Maine from New York or Boston always speak of going "down east?" Maine is north as well as east of Boston, and on a map north is always up, not down. Boston people invariably went down to New York and they still go down to Florida. Then why didn't they go up to Maine?
The answer comes from the days of sail. Off the New England coast the prevailing fair wind comes from the southwest. In colonial days sailing vessels were thus driven "with the wind" or "down wind" to Maine. To go in the other direction Maine craft had to go against the wind, or up wind to Boston.
Many competent historians, to say nothing of us common folk, don't know what was the first crop of early Maine settlers. It was ashes. The quickest way for a settler in the Maine wilderness to get land ready for sowing oats, the easiest grain to raise, was to fell and burn the trees, using only such wood as he needed to build cabin and barn and supply fuel for his fireplace. By one of those lucky accidents of history, the settlement of Central Maine towns coincided with the rapid growth of the wool industry in England. Wool has to be washed many times in its several processes from sheep to loom, and those washings took a lot of soap. Soap was made of potash, and potash was made from ashes. Enterprising men set up potash kilns at the larger settlements on Maine's big rivers, and to those kilns, in boats and canoes, on sleds and ox carts, the settlers carried their otherwise useless ashes, doing that for two or three years before they had any surplus grain to sell.
Compared with the big states of Texas and Alaska, Maine is of course small; yet she is the largest of the six New England states, so large that all the other five could be put within Maine and still have a few square miles left over. Visitors to the Maine coast and the valleys of the larger rivers, as well as to the narrow strip of Aroostook along the New Brunswick border, seldom realize how little of Maine they have actually seen. Ninety percent of Maine is still forest, and in that wilderness are located more than two-thirds of Maine's thousand lakes. Despite two hundred years of lumbering, careful conservation and scientific reforestation has seen to it that Maine still has a tremendous supply of available wood.
Some Maine products became known all over the world. Cans of Maine sweet corn have been found in the shops of Vladivostok. Maine canned blueberries could be bought in Istanbul. Today air express takes fresh Maine lobsters to the tables of London and Paris. Magazine readers have become familiar with pictures of the man with the eye patch, wearing a shirt made in Maine. Packages of fruits, vegetables, and eggs are on the shelves of supermarkets of a dozen countries, the trays all marked as made by Keyes Fibre Company in Maine.
Maine's most notable product, however, is not things. It is people. In 150 years of statehood, Maine's population has reached barely a million because she has done so much to populate other states. Maine boys went not only to the gold fields of California in the middle of last century; they went also to the prairies of Iowa and Kansas, on the Oregon Trail and to the Cinnamon Strip. In proportion to her population Maine did more than her share to develop the Great West.
One generation of a single Maine family, the Washburns of Livermore, furnished governors of two states, and at the same time three of the brothers were representatives to Congress from three different states.
Maine has never had a national president and one only vice president, though she has twice had sons come very near occupying the White House. However, near the end of the 1880's Maine enjoyed peculiar prominence in Washington. Walter Emerson tells about it in his book "Latchstrings." He says that one day in 1889 a prominent Virginian, John Wise, burst into the office of the Speaker of the House, Thomas B. Reed of Maine, yelling out, "Who's running this government anyway?" Reed calmly replied, "Why, John, the great and the good are running it of course." "Well then," said Wise, "the great and the good must all live in Maine. Here I come to Washington to do business with the Secretary of State, and I find he is Jim Blaine of Maine. I call to pay my respects on the President Pro Tem of the Senate, and he is Mr. Frye of Maine. I want to consult the Senate's majority leader and they send me to Mr. Hale of Maine. Then I must take up a tariff matter with the chairman of the Ways and Means Committee of the House, and who is he but Mr. Dingley of Maine. Then there is a naval bill I am interested in, and who chairs that committee but Mr. Milliken of Maine. I have to see about an appropriation for a public building in Richmond, and who's in control but Mr. Boutelle of Maine.
"Yes, John," said Reed, "the great and the good and the wise. The country is still safe." And out they went arm in arm to have lunch with the Chief Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court, Mr. Justice Fuller of Maine.
Maine has had its share of inventive genius. I could tell you about the Maxim brothers and their famous guns; about the Stanley brothers, who invented both the dry plate for photography and the Stanley Steamer automobile; about the Lombard Log Hauler, with its first successful caterpillar tread, forerunner of the farm tractor and the war tank; but time permits me to tell you about only one Maine inventor, Martin Keyes. Envisioning the possibility of throw-away dishes made from molded wood pulp, Keyes suffered many disappointments and frustrations before in the first decade of this century, in a tiny mill in the little hamlet of Shawmut, Maine, he turned out the first usable and saleable dishes from wood pulp. That was the beginning of the Keyes Fibre Company, with plants now in five states and several foreign countries. Martin Keyes' half dozen sizes of PAPRUS plates have grown to more than a hundred items, including the famous CHINET line of disposable tableware.
I take great pride and satisfaction in knowing that, after 25 years, folks can still listen to the weekly broadcast of Little Talks because of the generous sponsorship of the Keyes Fibre Company.
Up Music Bridge Theme: Auld Lang Syne – 20 sets – then fade to Closing Announcement.
CARLETON D. BROWN: It has been a pleasure to be a guest in your home with the program you have just heard, "Little Talks on Common Things" with Ernest C. Marriner.
This broadcast was produced by Radio Stations WTVL-AM & FM at Waterville, Maine, and reached you with the good wishes of these stations and of Keyes Fibre Company, manufacturers of useful things molded from the cellulose wood fibers of trees.
Up Theme – Auld Lang Syne – run 30 sets, and fade.
[500th Broadcast]
LITTLE TALKS ON COMMON THINGS
(With Ernest C. Marriner)
MAY 21, 1961.
As improbable as it seems to me, this is indeed the 500th broadcast of Little Talks.
I cannot pretend that any of them have been important, but if they have given pleasure to any listeners over the years, I am sufficiently rewarded for the effort that has gone into their preparation.
An important aspect of this program is that it is one of very few radio programs in the whole nation that has continued for 39 weeks of each year, for thirteen consecutive years, under the same sponsor. Putting and keeping Little Talks on the air would have been quite impossible without the sponsorship of the Keyes Fibre Company. I am sure listeners appreciate that, from the day these broadcasts started thirteen years ago in 1948, they have never been interrupted by advertising. In a few simple words at the beginning and at the end, you are told that the program comes to you as a public service, not a commercial ad, of the Keyes Fibre Company. Never once has the Company in any way sought to control the contents of the program. I have been completely free to say anything I pleased. I assure you that whenever I have spoken about Keyes Fibre on these broadcasts, it has been entirely on my own initiative. But I want everyone to know that I am very grateful to that Company for making this program possible.
I am often asked where I get the material for the broadcasts, and I have often replied that it comes chiefly from listeners. Without the generous help of hundreds of persons, the program could never have reached 500 broadcasts. People have loaned me precious letters and family documents, account books and diaries, maps and scrapbooks, old newspapers and hand bills – every sort of written or printed record. Items have come not only from the Kennebec Valley and other parts of Maine, but from Massachusetts, Vermont, New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Minnesota, Texas and California. One very interesting item reached me from Alaska.
As you know, the program has resulted in the publication of two books, Kennebec Yesterdays and Remembered Maine. In those books are memorialized the narrow gauge railroads, the stage coach lines, the call of Maine boys to the gold fields of California, the old country stores, the disastrous river floods, the rigors of pioneer living, the squatters on the land, and many other topics. In each of those books is the story of a Maine murder case.
During the past four years, since the publication of Remembered Maine, what have been the topics that received most favorable reception? By far in the lead has been the subject of Maine railroads – not only the narrow gauge lines about which much has been added in the past four years to what I had already told in the two books – but also much about Maine's broad gauge railroads. We have discussed the origin of the Maine Central the adventurous building of the Portland and Ogdensburg, which became the Maine Central's Mountain Division. We have seen how the prosperous Bangor & Aroostook grew out of the old Aroostook R.R. We have talked about the Battle of the Gauges, about the first M.E. locomotive, about railroad postmarks and railroad souvenirs.
Almost as popular as the railroads, have been stories about Maine's famous race horses of the 19th and early 20th centuries. Naturally Waterville's famous horse, world champion, Nelson, has led the list, but quite as famous in their day were the bitter competitors, General Knox and Hiram Drew, whose matched races drew immense crowds.
The other subjects, each of which supplied material for several programs were the diary of Charles Keith of Winslow, and the voyage of William Heath around the world. The Keith story is important because it covers nearly thirty years of daily records, and is especially informative about the Winslow Congregational Church. The Heath narrative is one of the most amazing stories ever recorded about a Maine boy, and it comes from that boy's own diary, telling in detail how he shipped out of San Francisco alone for Honolulu, just before his 16th birthday in 1850, and how he unintentionally went on to China and around the world before he returned to his Maine home just after his 17th birthday.
Local listeners were especially interested in the story of John McKechnie, the man who surveyed the lots along the river for the Plymouth Company, who was this community's first physician, and who built its first mill.
Several broadcasts devoted to two well remembered political figures attracted attention. Both of them were belligerent Democrats – Ben Bunker, published of the Kennebec Democrat in the 1880's and William R. Pattangall, publisher of the Waterville Sentinel in the early 1900's. I contend that one of the most brilliant works of political satire ever written in Maine is Pattangall's Meddybemps Letters.
Other stories that listeners tell me they enjoyed were the California adventures of Thomas Flint, the young medical student whose testimony clinched the conviction of Waterville's Dr. Coolidge for murder; the pre-Revolutionary journeys down to the Kennebec and the Androscoggin of the military engineer, John Montressor; and several broadcasts dealing with that splendid, upright and industrious sect, the Shakers.
Some of the old time things we have mentioned in recent years on the program have been ox helves and beetles, bridle chains and scantling, sulfur matches and sarsaparilla, tobacco tags and hardtack, rag peddlers and street sprinklers.
The different persons we have mentioned, only in the last four years, have been more than 200.
We have had much to say about the leading families of the Kennebec: the Gardiners, the Norths, the Conys, the Langs, and the Burleighs; the Appletons and the Redingtons, the Plaisteds and the Heaths, the Boutelles and the Gilmans, the Moors and the Stockpoles; the Geralds, the Connors, the Totmans, and the Laurences; the Clevelands and the Coburns, the Jackmans and the Whipples. Recently we have paid fitting respect to our Central Maine men in the Civil War, to whom as a part of the Union forces, we owe the fact that we are now a united, not a divided nation.
Are the topics exhausted? Have we said all there is to say? Have the nearly one million words that have gone over the air in these 500 broadcasts exhausted the discoverable historical information about ordinary living in Maine towns and villages? By no means. On the contrary, new information continues to pour in, and I assure you there is enough to keep this program going for some time to come.
To show you how true it is that something new is always coming along, let me tell you for the first time about a letter written by a Civil War soldier almost a hundred years ago. The letter was written from the camp of the Fifth Maine near White Oak Church, Va., on April 19, 1862, by James Littlefield of Greenwood, Maine, the town in which is the village of Bryant's Pond. The letter was addressed to Littlefield's female cousin, Miss Martha Rice, at Waterville. She later married a Bickford and became the mother of Bertel and Webster Bickford of North Belgrade. Martha Rice Bickford herself died in Smithfield in the 1880's.
The greater part of the Littlefield letter is confined to the ordinary details of life in the Civil War camps, with which many other letters have made us familiar. It contains the usual gripes, such as "It may be all right to make pack mules of us poor devils, but I cannot see it in that light." But what distinguishes the letter is the writer's sudden injection of astounding news. Let us have it in his own words.
"I will tell you of a strange circumstance that happened here a few days since. Perhaps you will think it rather an indelicate subject, but I must tell you about it and ask you to excuse me. A corporal in a New York regiment near us, while on picket a few days since, was delivered of a child. Perhaps you will think that incredible, but such is a fact. He, or I should say she, came with the regiment as a soldier and has been with it since its organization. Her sex has remained undiscovered until now, but most likely she will now get her discharge. I think she ought to have a pension in order to bring up the child in good style."
For a chance to see that amazing letter I am indebted to Richard Sturtevant of North Belgrade, who with his brother Laurence Sturtevant, has already supplied many interesting items for this program over the years.
Another recently found item is a letter written by Robert E. Pattison, when he was President of Waterville College in 1838. The letter was addressed to a very good friend and trustee of the college, William King, who 18 years earlier had been Maine's first governor. To Governor King the Waterville College president said: "I am very anxious to spend a few weeks at Harvard University, that I may make myself acquainted with whatever they have that is peculiar. This I cannot do except in the winter vacation. Besides this, friends in Boston have notified me that, if I will visit them, they will do something for the college. I can accomplish both objects by a single journey."
Why did Pattison say he could make no extended visit to Harvard except during the winter vacation? The answer is that, in 1838, the long vacation of the college year came in the winter in order that the students might have opportunity to teach a full term in the public schools during the winter. The college year was then composed of three terms. The fall term began in September and closed just after Christmas. Then came the long vacation, with the spring term opening early in March and closing in May. It was followed, after recess of only one week by what was then called the summer term, from late May to the middle of August. The year ended with the commencement exercises about August 20th.
President Pattison's letter to William King had the following postscript: "You, Judge Weston and Mr. Marsters were appointed at our last meeting a committee to solicit aid of the Legislature at their approaching session. I hope, dear sir, that it may come before that body at a favorable time, for although I am far from sanguine as to the result. I hope that something will be done. Mr. Boutelle will supply all necessary facts."
The Mr. Boutelle referred to was Waterville's leading citizen, Timothy Boutelle, who was then treasurer of the college. Every year, after Maine became a separate state, the struggling new college at Waterville got a small grant, never more than $3,000 and often as little as $1,000. But those grants ended in 1833, and even with the prestige assistance of William King, President Pattison's attempt to secure another grant in 1838 met with failure.
Now, as we close this 500th broadcast, I want to express my appreciation of Carleton Brown, President of Kennebec Broadcasting Company and Manager of this station WTVL. To him and to his staff, especially the several young men, who from time to time have announced this program, I am profoundly grateful.
[First Broadcast]
LITTLE TALKS ON COMMON THINGS
(With Ernest C. Marriner)
November 14, 1948.
The uncommon and unusual excites and thrills us, but all our lives we are touched with ordinary things that are significant and sometimes even spectacular. Abraham Lincoln once said: "God must love the common people, he made so many of them," So it is that we common people, both he who speaks and those who listen, are asked to think for a few minutes about life's common things.
There is an old saying that begins "as inevitable as ..."; you know the rest of it. Yes indeed, one of life's most commonest things is taxes. A prelude to these programs therefore came last Sunday evening when the Mayor of Waterville, Hon. Russell Squire, presented the sound, unanswerable case for a local taxation survey. The mayor explained the decision of the city government to employ professional valuation experts to survey all real estate holdings in Waterville and establish new evaluations for tax assessment. Every local citizen should approve. Tax valuation ought to be on an impartial, scientific basis. Perhaps some day we shall see that this is only a beginning and that all our municipal services should be operated by business methods under an impartial administrator, responsible to no political party. The taxpayer is interested not only in paying a fair tax in comparison with his neighbor; he is interested also in getting maximum services for his tax dollars. In local democracies we make haste slowly; but in the long run, partisan interests cannot prevail over the common interests. Let us be grateful that we have a mayor and a city government willing to make a start in that direction.
How common, yet how mysterious is the miracle of birth. A future king of England was born today, amid age-old ceremony, in Buckingham Palace. What sort of an England will he rule? Is the old England dying, the old empire fading away? The little prince in Buckingham Palace, now only a few hours old, may symbolize for Old England what Tennyson wrote at the end of his Idylls of the King. The Round Table of the glorious knights had fallen apart; King Arthur was dead; the sword Excalibur had sunk into the sea. As old Sir Bedivere watched the flaming sword drop beneath the waves, "the sun rose, bringing the new year." For the little prince, may someday the sun rise bringing England a new era.
One of life's commonest things is hunger. How easily most of us satisfy it in this American land of abundance. But how very hungry we city folks would get if it were not for the farmer. In our persistent cry for better urban services, he is often forgotten. So I want to share with you a bit of writing that recently came to my attention. I have a neighbor who occasionally hands me copies of a weekly newspaper published in his native Scotland. It is the Peebleshire News, put out in southern Scotland just north of the English border. In its issue of June 11, 1948, appeared an editorial that applies equally well to the farmers of Maine. Here is part of it:
"Our rural people pay high taxes, sometimes in excess of the cities, and yet they do not have the same services. People are moving away from the farms of Scotland. If this depopulation continues, rural Scotland may become a national park for which the industrial areas will have to pay. We see towns and cities extended, eating up more and more agricultural land, and we take it as a sign of progress. Gone is the day of praising healthy life on the farm."
That was published in far-away Scotland. Perhaps it doesn't apply to Maine. Never having lived on a farm, I cannot claim to be sure about it. But I do know that a shrewd observer of Maine life who was brought up on a farm, had a very definite opinion. That observer was Arthur J. Roberts, President of Colby College, who used to say: "In Maine, farming isn't an occupation; it's a misfortune."
Let us who live in the city ever be mindful of our dependence upon the farms: Let us support vigorously every effort to extend modern services to the rural areas.
Is devotion a common thing? Isn't it unusual? Not at all. We see it all around us. A mother lavishes sacrificial devotion on her child. A father goes without things for himself that his family may have more. Not all employees are clock-watchers. Many are devoted to their work.
Devotion is a precious common thing, but it rarely hits the front pages of our newspapers. It is eventful, therefore, when a great metropolitan newspaper gives space to the devotion of a man who died 150 years ago. Last Monday, filling two columns of the first page, and running over to fill an entire inside page of the New York Times, was the story of the long-lost Boswell Papers. In the 18th century, James Boswell wrote what is considered the greatest biography in the English language, his life of Samuel Johnson, writing it as an act of devotion to the man with whom he spent day after day, recording the acts and sayings of the man.
After Boswell's death, his precious notes and journals became scattered and neglected. For more than a hundred years no one knew whether they still existed or had been destroyed. Then began another story of devotion. Col. Ralph Isham, a young officer in the First World War, determined to spend his time and fortune collecting every scrap of paper connected with Boswell. During the past 25 years he had gathered those papers from dusty rooms in Scottish castles, from an old croquet box, from barrels in mouldy cellars, from trunks in cobwebbed attics. The arrival of the whole collection in the United States, on its way to Yale University, was the occasion of the New York Times' story. Waterville is interested in this discovery, because at Yale the papers will be studied and eventually published by a Colby graduate, Dr. Frederick Pottle.
Dr. Pottle will prepare for modern readers not only details of the association of those two men, Boswell and Johnson, but the contents of hundreds of letters addressed to Boswell by the great men of his time, such as Joshua Reynolds the artist, Alexander Pope, the aged poet, and members of the royal court.
The whole story is a serial of devotion, of Boswell to Johnson, of Col. Isham to the public cause of finding the missing Boswell papers.
Another common thing is hero-worship. Every boy has a time in his life when he adores some man and wants to be like him. Many of us have felt the stirring influence of some person whom we have come to idolize. Yet, did you ever stop to think how rarely it happens that we ever know personally and intimately anyone who can truly be called great? Have you ever had a speaking acquaintance with a truly great man? Perhaps you have and do not know it, because really great men seldom advertise their greatness.
So, perhaps without being aware of it, many of us in Central Maine have known well a great man. For Rufus Jones was truly great – a great mystic, a great Quaker, a great teacher, a great humanitarian, a great soul. Shortly before he died, a friend said to Rufus Jones, "You must write one more book, a book that will help modern folks who have the scientific outlook to find their
way back to vital religion. Many people have stopped going to church because what they hear there is at sharp variance with that they know."
So now, a few months after Rufus Jones' death, appears his last book, "A Call to What is Vital," a book which he says he wrote in sympathy with folks who say "I'd rather see where I'm going than remember where I've been."
In this little book of 140 pages that great world citizen, a native of Maine, interprets the dynamic force that activated his own wonderful life, a religion that accepts the facts of science, but clarifies those facts by revelation and by faith, by what the Quakers call the inner light.
In simple, impressive prose, this great son of Maine bids us heed the greatest story ever told and emulate the greatest life that ever lived.
And now, at the close of this first Little Talk, we say as the old preachers used to say, "Here endeth the first lesson."
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH
ERNEST C. MARRINER
Native of Maine. Born, Bridgeton, 1891.
Graduate of Colby College; Honorary degree of L.H.D. from Colby and from University of Maine.
On faculty of Colby College, 1923-1960, as Professor of English, Dean of Men, Dean of Faculty, and College Historian.
Author of four books on Maine history and biography, and of articles in Down East, Maine Life, and other publications.
For 23 years, 1949-1972, member of the Maine State Board of Education, and twice its chairman.
Chairman of state-wide commission appointed by Governor Reed in 1964, to present to the Legislature a plan for State Archives. Chairman of Archives Advisory Board, when Archives became an agency of state government in 1965.
Present Activities: Historian of Colby College; Member, State Archives Advisory Board; President, Waterville Historical Society; Trustee, Maine League of Historical Societies; Chairman, Board of Trustees of Thomas College; Trustee, Waterville Public Library; and Member, Central Maine Library Council.
"Little Talks on Common Things" First Broadcast, November 14,1948; 1000th Broadcast, February 10, 1974; Program now in its 26th consecutive year.
From the Maine Sunday Telegram,
[Feb. 10, 1974]
DEAN MARRINER PRESENTS 1,000TH BROADCAST TODAY
(By Irv Faunce)
WATERVILLE.– Back in 1948, Sunday night radio was definitely "prime time."
At 6 o'clock there were 15 minutes of the fast paced patter of Walter Winchell and at 6:30 the pointed commentary and journalistic diggings of Drew Pearson.
But for Carleton Brown, owner and station manager at WTVL here, that 15-minute hiatus between the "big-leaguers" presented a problem. He needed a show, a good one. And that show would need a sponsor.
Brown, a 1903 Colby graduate, went to his friend and former teacher Ernest Cummings Marriner who, at that time, was dean of the faculty and professor of English at the college and a veritable "walking archive" of Maine history.
"He had a voice that had the ring of Franklin Roosevelt in those days," Brown is fond of recalling. "It had a timbre of believability."
Dean Marriner, himself a 1913 Colby graduate who in 1963 was to write the definitive history of the college, agreed to do some sort of show in that time period. When pressed by Brown for a catchy title, Marriner waved him away saying off-handedly, "We'll call it 'Little Talks On Common Things.'"
Somewhere in that formula there was a magic ingredient that contemporary packagers of entertainment would no doubt want to lay their finger on because today Dean Marriner will present his 1,000th consecutive broadcast of "Little Talks On Common Things."
What is more, the sponsor for today's presentation will be the Keyes Fibre Company of Waterville, the very same firm which originally agreed to pick up the tab in 1948.
And this has been no hard-sell package. According to Brown "the program has never been used to 'sell soap.' We open and close with an acknowledgment of the sponsor but never once have we interrupted the Dean's program for a commercial message."
Brown, along with his son David who is now station manager, is convinced that all this represents radio history and perhaps a slot in the Guinness Book of World Records – Longest consecutive string of radio broadcasts and the longest running show under one sponsor.
Accordingly, today's show will be heard by a statewide network of radio stations eager to focus attention on the Dean's accomplishments. "Little Talks" will be heard on stations in Rockland, Farmington, Bath, Bangor, Presque Isle, Portland, Lewiston, Biddeford, Augusta, Sanford, Poland Spring and Calais.
State Sen. Paul Huber of Rockland has introduced into the Maine Legislature a resolution honoring the Dean and his contribution to state and national radio history. A text of today's show will be made a part of the Legislature's record and will be read into the Congressional Record by U.S. Sen. Edmund S. Muskie.
As it has for all these years, today's show will focus on a fascinating variety of Maine topics. It will be in its usual time slots of 1 and 6:15 p.m.
Dean Marriner will be talking about ventures of early pilgrims to the coastal settlement at Pemaquid; about the first vessel ever built on the North Atlantic Shore (it was built in 1607 at the mouth of the Kennebec); and of the origin of the term "Down East."
He will describe the first money crop for Maine settlers (it was ashes) ; will give a quick look at Maine geography and the state's exports (the most notable of which the Dean claims is people); and finally will present this vignette about inventor Martin Keyes–
"Envisioning the possibility of throwaway dishes made from molded wood-pulp, Keyes suffered many disappointments and frustrations before, in the first decade of this century, in a tiny mill in the little hamlet of Shawmut, he turned out the first useable and saleable dishes from wood pulp.
"That was the beginning of the Keyes Fibre Company with plants now in five states and several foreign countries."
Passing milestones has by now become somewhat routine for Dean Marriner who, at the age of 83, continues an active deeply involved pace.
He is Colby's historian and chairman of the board of trustees at Thomas College. Colby named a dormitory for the Dean and the Thomas library carries his name. He served Colby as librarian, bibliographer, professor of English, dean of men and of the faculty.
He was principal of Hebron Academy before that, served as chairman of the State Board of Education for 20 years and as a chairman of the Maine Archives Committee.
[From August 1961, U.S. Radio magazine]
CAN A SPONSOR BE SILENT AND SELL?
Fourteen years ago, on a tiny station in central Maine, an experiment was tried that went one step beyond the soft sell. It was the silent sell.
The Keyes Fibre Co. of Waterville, Maine, a manufacturer of paper products, was in the market for a vehicle that would boost its status with the local community. The company turned to radio, but added an unusual twist: it decided to sponsor a program without commercials.
The program turned out to be a gold mine in the heart of the Maine lumber country. It is now New England's longest running show with the same sponsor.
For more than 500 broadcasts, the program, Little Talks on Common Things, has yet to broadcast its first commercial. The man who delivers the "little talks" is Ernest C. Marriner, a former college professor who speaks like Franklin D. Roosevelt. For 15 minutes every Sunday, Marriner chats about the folk and folklore of the state of Maine.
The program was an early success. Sen. Margaret Chase Smith in a tribute to Marriner printed in the Congressional Record this year said the show is "undoubtedly the most popular local radio program in the state of Maine."
Sponsoring a program without commercials is not a foolproof method of improving local public relations, but Keyes found the key by identifying itself with a respected member of the community. This was the strategy from the beginning.
Recalling the early attempts to garner a sponsor for the program, Carleton D. Brown, president of WTVL Waterville, said, "We were convinced that in Ernest Marriner we had found a colorful local personality who could build stature for both a good sponsor and for our station, so we selected Keyes as our best potential. They had the money, and we felt the company management had a good record of community responsibility.
"We proposed that the concern undertake a public relations program sponsorship. We knew that Marriner had the capacity of achieving an unusually high degree of believability with any audience, particularly a radio audience. We pointed out to Keyes that they could get a franchise on what could be an extremely valuable insurance policy."
Marriner was not a professional performer when he began his broadcasts in the fall of 1948. In fact, he originally appeared on the program in response to a plea from Brown, his close friend and neighbor. Brown needed a temporary replacement for a 15-minute spot on Sunday evening.
"It will only be a few weeks," Brown told Marriner, who was hesitant about going before the microphone. "I didn't care what he talked about as long as he would talk," Brown recalls.
Marriner did talk – and hasn't stopped since. He has talked about everything from Waterville's first murder to the history of Maine's narrow gauge railroads.
Soon after Marriner took to the air, happy listeners swamped the station with letters. The volume of mail has been so huge that since the third broadcast, the grey-haired former Colby College dean has found it unnecessary to do his own digging for material.
Listeners send him old letters, newspapers, dairies, account books and maps, keeping him submerged in a pool of Maine folklore.
In one broadcast, Marriner told about a letter sent to him that was written by a soldier in the Civil War. Marriner explained that "the greater part of the letter is confined to ordinary details of life in the Civil War camps, but what distinguishes this letter is the writer's sudden injection of astounding news." He then quoted from the letter:
"I will tell you (the writer's cousin) of a strange circumstance that happened here a few days ago. Perhaps you will think it a rather indelicate subject, but I must tell you about it and ask you to excuse me. A corporal in a New York regiment near us, while on picket a few days since, was delivered of a child. Perhaps you will think that incredible, but such is a fact. He, or I should say she, came with the regiment as a soldier and has been with it since its organization. Her sex has remained undiscovered until now, but most likely she will now get her discharge."
Throughout the 14 years, Keyes has remained quietly in the back ground as a silent partner. In his 500th broadcast in May, Marriner paid tribute to his sponsor. "An important aspect of this program," he said, "is that it is one of the very few radio programs in the whole nation that has continued for 39 weeks each year – and under the same sponsor.
"Putting and keeping Little Talks on the air would have been quite impossible without the sponsorship of the Keyes Fibre company. I am sure listeners appreciate that, from the day these broadcasts started, they have never been interrupted by advertising. Never once has the company sought to control the contents of the program. I am completely free to say anything I please."
Keyes believes this policy of nonintervention has paid off in better community relations. This was the company's original goal in sponsoring the program and Keyes intends to maintain its policy of no commercials.
The company's view is explained by John S. Parsons, the advertising manager. "The program developed from quite a different point of view than the sale of products. In fact, we have never commercialized this program in any way but have considered it as a community relations vehicle throughout. It has unquestionably built many friends for Keyes," he said.
Most of Marriner's programs usually begin and end with the short announcement that "This program is brought to you by your good friends, Keyes Fibre Company of Waterville and Shawmut." From time to time, Keyes will use the show to encourage support of various community fund-raising drives.
Besides supporting the Marriner program, Keyes relies heavily on radio to push its consumer line of molded paper plates. Last year, the company ran a spot campaign during the summer in nine major cities throughout the country.
Parsons explained that they have found "local radio particularly effective for warm weather promotions, when we want to push our molded paper plate and dish line for picnic and other outdoor uses."
Most of the advertising budget is allocated to trade magazines because the bulk of Keyes' product sales are made to institutions, supermarkets and shippers.
The company produces more than 300 different varieties of paper products, including fruit packing materials, egg flats and egg cartons. The company's domestic sales last year totaled more than $19.5 million.
Regional sales offices are scattered over the United States from Boston to San Francisco and as far south as Jacksonville. Keyes also has licensed operations in Canada, England, Ireland, Denmark, Norway and Australia.
The company was founded in 1903 in Shawmut, Maine, where it still maintains its ground wood pulp mill. The principal manufacturing plant is located in nearby Waterville.
Since the late forties the company has been literally bursting at the seams. Increased sales prompted the company to build a plant at Hammond, Ind., to serve the middle west. In 1957, Keyes doubled the capacity of the Hammond plant. Meanwhile, the company modernized its Waterville plant to speed up production.
Keyes is far from finished. Last month, the management announced that ground had been broken in Sacramento, Calif., for a multi-million dollar pulp molding plant. The new plant will be the largest industrial addition to Sacramento in the last nine years.
Keyes expects to open the plant in the middle of 1962. The factory will manufacture molded paper products for the food industry, including plates, pre-packaging meat and produce trays, food service trays, cake circles, apple packs and egg trays. It will serve 11 western states as well as Hawaii and Alaska.
The company estimates that about $5 million worth of products will be produced annually for the first few years.
More than five years of planning and research backed up the company's decision to launch its latest venture in Sacramento. The management made the choice after an extensive study of several possible west coast locations.
Keyes is a company on the move. And one reason for its success is its desire to maintain friendly relations with its local community, particularly with the local labor force. This spurs its continuance of a radio program without commercials.
WHY KEYES FIBRE SPONSORS A PROGRAM WITHOUT COMMERCIALS
Keyes fibre 14 years ago decided to embark on a radio program that was designed to foster community respect for the company. For more than 500 broadcasts it has maintained this policy of attracting community interest and developing good will. This is the Keyes Fibre philosophy as explained by John S. Parsons, the company's advertising manager:
He says: "The program on WTVL developed from quite a different point of view than the sale of products. We have never commercialized this program, but have considered it as a community relations vehicle . We have never attempted to promote the company's line of products via the program, although we have used the program to encourage support of various community fund-raising drives ... It has unquestionably helped build many friends for Keyes ..."