Turner's Public Spirit, February 9, 1924
A look back in time to a century ago
By Bob Oliphant
Center. The next meeting of the Tadmuck club will be held in Library hall on Tuesday afternoon, February 12, at 2:45. The speaker of the afternoon will be Mrs. Charles Wheeler, district director. Mrs. Charles Wright will give a report on the citizens’ conference and Miss Blanche Lawrence will give a talk on Whittier and will read one of his poems.
The Ladies’ Aid of the Congregational church will hold an all-day session at the home of Mrs. A. H. Sutherland on Thursday, February 14. A large attendance is desired.
Miss Eleanor S. Colburn has accepted a position as assistant supervisor of music in the schools of Concord, N.H.
Homer M. Seavey announces the engagement of his daughter, Miss Marjorie Mitchell Seavey, to Frederic Knowlton Johnson, son of Mrs. Minnie T. Johnson, of Winthrop, formerly of Littleton. Miss Seavey is a graduate of Boston university and is at present teaching Latin in the Salem high school. Mr. Johnson is a graduate of the University of New Hampshire and is now a member of the firm of Ayer Motor Sales, Inc., Ayer.
Mrs. Abbot Robbins [nee Bertha C. McCoy], of Watertown, has been the recent guest of her parents, Mr. and Mrs. Fred L. McCoy.
The firemen held another of their enjoyable suppers on Tuesday evening.
The Woman’s Alliance will hold an all-day meeting at the home of Mrs. J. Herbert Fletcher, Thursday, February 14. All members and any others who are interested are cordially invited to attend.
The Laymen’s league will hold a meeting in the Unitarian church on Sunday evening at seven o’clock. At eight o’clock Dr. Finnegan, of Lowell, will speak on the Schick test and the public is cordially invited to hear him.
On last Sunday Mr. and Mrs. Frank Banister and daughter Frances observed their birthdays. It is rather singular to have three members of the same family observing their birthdays on the same day.
At the Congregational church on Sunday morning there will be a memorial service for ex-President Wilson, and in the evening the pastor, Rev. Edward Disbrow, will hold a Lincoln service.
The Choral society held their second rehearsal at the Unitarian church on Thursday evening. On next week Thursday evening the meeting will be held in the congregational church, at which time the society will be organized. It is expected that several from Chelmsford will join with the local singers.
The teachers of the William E. Frost school had a visiting day on Monday, at which time they visited the Bedford and Arlington schools.
Master Cyril Blaney, who has been at the Lowell General hospital since his accident of last week was brought to his home on Wednesday of last week. The many friend hope for a speedy recovery.
John Wilson, a civil war veteran, and one of the well-known older residents of the town, suffered a severe shock [i.e., a stroke] on Wednesday, his left side being badly affected.
Mrs. Roberts, mother of Mrs. A. H. Burnham, is reported as having had a shock last Sunday.
A number of the young folks of the William E. Frost school enjoyed a sleighride party on Wednesday evening. They were chaperoned by Miss Blanche Lawrence.
Town Meeting Warrant. There are fifty-nine articles in the town warrant to be acted upon at the annual meeting to be held at the town hall on Monday. Besides the usual articles calling of appropriations for schools, highway, police, health, fire and moth departments, etc., there are a number of other articles which will prove of interest to the voters, among which are the following:
Article 36. To see if the town will vote to appropriate the sum of $400 and elect a director [for support of the state agriculture and homemaking extension service], under the provisions of Sections 40 to 45, Chapter 128, General Laws.
Art. 37. To see if the town will rescind the vote taken at the last annual meeting to withdraw from the present union school system and employ a superintendent for the schools of the town only.
Art. 38. To hear the report of the committee chosen at the last annual meeting to investigate and report relative to making additions to the schoolhouse in Graniteville.
Articles, 39, 40, 41 and 42, to see if the town will vote to erect a new ten-room schoolhouse on land to be acquired between Forge Village and Graniteville, to erect a new six-room schoolhouse on the land that the town has already voted to acquire at Forge Village; to build a four-room addition to the present four-room schoolhouse at Graniteville; to build a six-room addition to the present four-room schoolhouse at Forge Village; equip and furnish the same.
Art. 43. To see if the town will vote to borrow $125,000 to meet the expense to be incurred in erecting schoolhouses or making additions to existing schoolhouses and furnishing and equipping the same under the provisions of one or more of the four preceding articles and will vote to petition the General Court for authority to borrow a sum of money over and above the debt limit sufficient to carry out the provisions of the vote.
Articles 44 and 45, to see if the town will vote to establish an additional hydrant on a private way known as Roosevelt avenue; to establish an additional hydrant at Edwards Corner.
Art. 46. To see if the town will vote to install additional street lights as follows: Two on Palermo street; two on Pershing street; three on Storey street; two on Central street; two on Roosevelt avenue; one on Orchard street and four on Depot road.
Art. 47. To see if the town will authorize the selectmen to enter into an agreement with the Abbot Worsted Company to widen the street and bridge at the canal of this company in Forge Village.
Art. 49. To hear the report of the committee relative to the establishment of a war memorial and see if the town will appropriate a sum not exceeding $6000 to erect such memorial.
Art. 50. To hear the report of the committee on by-laws, a copy of which is to be printed in the annual report.
Art. 54. To see if the town will authorize the selectmen to lease premises for the location of the town scales and provide for the use and maintenance of the same.
Art. 55. To see if the town will accept the sum of $2000 to be known as the Emily F. Fletcher Lecture Fund, and other personal property bequeathed under the will of Emily F. Fletcher.
Art. 56. To see if the town will vote to light the Westford Home with electricity.
Art. 57. To see if the town will authorize the taking of gravel from the Westford Home for highway or other purposes.
Art. 58. To see if the town will vote to sell the land and buildings owned by the town situated on the southerly side of Union street [now E. Prescott St.].
Art. 59. To see if the town will vote to accept Section 20 Chapter 39 of the General Laws authorizing the election of town officers and voting on the question of granting licenses for the sale of certain non-intoxicating beverages by precinct voting at the annual meeting.
About Town. Wallace Johnson has finished cutting his twelve-inch Burgess pond ice, and Westford, Forge Village, Graniteville and the rest of us can defy hot weather without having the supreme court of the United States issue an injunction restraining us as they do unconstitutional moonshiners and Teapot Dome folks generally.
The price of milk dropped one cent per quart February 1. I take this opportunity to notify you, as it is possible that you may not be able to find it out any other way.
“For the first time in many years a condor, the giant bird that lives in the Andes Mountains in South America, has been seen in the San Joaquin Valley of the Sierra Nevada Mountains of California. The bird, which has a wing spread of ten feet, arrived recently from ‘the great somewhere’ to visit the Sequoia National park. Condors are nearly extinct in North America and are protected by law against hunters, and this one has the further protection of the National park, and park officials hope it will remain.” Condors were once plentiful all over the mountainous sections of North America, but the unrestrained and indiscriminating hand of man with his shotgun and traps has exterminated them, and when anyone tries to draw a warning from the sad lessons of extermination you are met with “don’t be needlessly alarmed; there is no danger of extermination.” Thus do we foster and build up bird life.
As a hearing on juvenile criminality and the value of the Boy Scout organization as a deterrent of crime, I wish to briefly quote again from my Florida paper, the Mount Dora Topic: “Of the great number of boys brought before the juvenile judge only 1-100 of 1% either are or have been scouts. This overwhelming conviction that scoutship is a deterrent of crime. The Boy Scout organization is the most effective yet devised to instill respect for law, love of home and devotion to church. Scouting is not reformatory, but preventative. It is not a cure, but a deterrent and carries him through his dangerous and most impressionable age when he is most in need of adult leadership.” There is no question but what the movement is wholesome and savors of “Ye are the salt of the earth,” [Matthew 5:13a] and as such is a helpful and hopeful movement to offset the moonshine brine audits.
Let those who worry about any shortage of revenue to run the government if we adopt the Mellon tax reduction bill read this, right fresh from Florida, from the Mount Dora Topic, one of Florida’s progressive papers: “A farmer from Connecticut moved to Florida a little over a year ago. He writes that there is money in Florida soil. On 240 square feet in his backyard he produced and sold $130.50 of produce or at the rate of $19,000 per acre [sic, $23,686 per acre], and he intends to produce $19,000 on an acre this year. With these prospective incomes is it any wonder that Mellon wrote that his tax reduction bill lets the manufacturers out and the farmers in?
Mr. and Mrs. Phillips, near Westford station, gave an entertainment party last week Thursday evening. It proved to be a house full of delights, people and refreshments.
The dreaded hoof and mouth disease has broken out in England and is still uncontrolled, although all cattle affected are killed. This having failed, isolation is to be tried. Some of us recall when it raged in Westford and some other towns and upset the dairy business quicker than a kicking cow could upset a pail of milk.
William C. Edwards is cutting off a large lot of handsome pine lumber and teaming it to the Proctor Lumber Company in North Chelmsford. This lot is bounded on the south by the Plain road and extends north to Lake Nabnasset. The Shepley swamp lot which he bought as part of the estate of the late Angus to Butterfield [sic] of Ayer is all cut off.
Human Life vs. Animal Life. H. W. Flavell, formerly of Westford and Groton, who recently went to Florida, has had the kindness and wisdom to send me a Florida paper, the Mount Dora Topic. I wish to quote a few items of general interest under the “No fence law in Florida,” and free range law for cattle. A cow worth about $15 derailed a Pullman express train killing the engineer, severely injuring the fireman and doing thousands of dollars’ worth of damage to equipment. Four of the Pullman cars left the rails, two of them lying across the tracks. Fortunately no passengers were injured, as nearly all were in the rear cars that remained on the rails.
Let us, several thousand miles from this accident, remember that Florida is not the only place in the universe where altogether too often and needlessly so, where human life plays second fiddle to animal life. We don’t have to go outside of Massachusetts to find owners of dogs defying the law relating to hydrophobia and exposing human live to its fatalities, or defying the speed limits at sixty miles an hour around curves and intersecting roads, and left-hand side of the road driving. Run over you? Yes! Your life is not worth any more than that $15 Florida cow. Defying laws and constitutions is getting altogether too contagious an epidemic and cheapens human life down to the lower levels of animal life. True, in Florida there was no law to defy but the absence of law to defy often does the trick just the same. I think of old it has been asked, “How much better is your life than a sheep?” Well, the way we defy law and constitution it is not worth as much as a sheep.
Bankrupt Farmers. We hear so much and see so much and don’t know so much either but what we can learn more about the bankrupt and hard financial pressed farmers that some figures are presented here from the Department of Agriculture, Washington, D.C., entitled “How farms were lost by the titled. How many farms were lost by the slump in farm prices?”
“The Department of Agriculture has been trying to find out what proportion of farmers in the corn and wheat-growing states have lost their farms during the period of the slump. Some 2400 farmers in the upper Mississippi valley were asked to report on conditions in their neighborhoods. The inquiry covered fifteen states, and [was] to contain data on 100,000 farmers. The following were the findings: Of 69,000 farmers who owned their farms 5800, or 8 ½% lost their farms, and 10,400, or 15%, held on through the leniency of creditors, although actually insolvent. Thus nearly one-quarter of all the owning farmers reported upon came into serious financial straits during the lean years 1921 and 1922. Tenant farmers naturally fared worse. Out of 26,000 reported upon, 14% lost their farms and 21% more were able to hold on only through the leniency of creditors, giving a total of 35% in financial distress during the period. Applying the percentages to the total number of farmers in the fifteen states it is estimated that of the total 2,289,000 owner and tenant farmers, 230,000 [10%] lost their holdings and nearly 400,000 [17.5%] more experienced acute financial losses, which put them at the mercy of creditors.”
Now here is an offset against bankrupt farming from farming caused by speculating in inflated prices outside of farming that is wise for you to heed, Mr. Government, before you make us all pay too much tribute to the bankrupt class that farming did not bankrupt: “Inquiry shows that about one-fifth of those who lost their farms did so primarily because they bought land at inflated prices during the land boom period, while approximately 5% held to their holdings as a result of unwise investments in enterprises other than farming. On this basis about 175,000 farmers who were either legally or practically bankrupt had to leave the scene of labors in spite of the fact that they had not been speculating either in land or non-agricultural ventures. In the northwest and elsewhere farmers were going bankrupt and tenants moving on empty-handed long before the slump that ended in the spring of 1923. Agriculture, like other labors, has its turnover. Moreover, it is only fair to add that all lines of production suffered more or less during the same period.”
Just why the government should be asked to give special aid to speculative farmers any more than to the speculative bucket shops of Wall street is beyond some of our befogged brains or any other class of speculators. If the government is going to the financial rescue of speculative farmers, I want them to go to the rescue of speculative speculators and unfortunate manufacturers, and those who sell peanuts and those who tinker clocks, and hewers of wood and drawers of water, and those who preach and fail for want of listeners, and those who spill ink as newspaper reporters.
A Noted Man. In my last week’s news in reference to Davis it should have been Dawes, familiarly known as “Hellen Maria” Dawes, of whom Rev. Wilson Waters, of Chelmsford, says, “He is a man who doesn’t care for tradition or convention; he goes ahead and gets there. He worked hard as a young man and built up his own success. In Evanston, Ill. he found a bankrupt gas company. He purchased the plant and built it up, and in so doing he learned much about the manufacture of gas and oil. This was the basis for his present holdings in Washington, Texas and Alabama. In Boston and Chicago he built hotels for down and outers, helping them to get onto their feet again. In Chicago he built a hotel for women who for a time were in financial straits. He is noted for his philanthropic work. Following the death of his son, Rufus F. Dawes, he adopted a boy and girl whom he is now bringing up. At the time that the people of this country were adopting the French orphans of soldiers killed in the world war, he adopted ten of them. Finally Gen. Dawes is a violinist of unusual ability and has composed music which Fritz Kreisler deems worthy of praise and has played several of Gen. Dawes’ compositions.” Such is Gen. Dawes under the nom-de-plume of “Hellen Maria,” commissioner to Germany in the work of reparations.
Church Notes. First church (Unitarian)—Sunday service at 4 p.m. Special music by chorus choir under the direction of Miss Eleanor Colburn. Preacher, Rev. Frank B. Crandall, the minister. Subject, “The secret of the burning bush.” Church school at 3.
Members of the parish are invited to the dance given this Friday evening by the Ayer Y.P.R.U. and on Tuesday evening by the Ayer chapter of the Unitarian Laymen’s League, both to be held at Hardy’s hall.
On Sunday the preacher will give an interpretation of the famous story of the burning bush, pointing out applications to the problems of everyday.
Graniteville. The board of registrars held their last meeting before the annual town meeting last Saturday afternoon and evening. About 155 new names were added to the voting list this year.
The annual town meeting will be held in the town hall on Monday. As there are several candidates for the different town offices the meeting promises to be a very lively affair. Over fifty articles are to be acted upon in the town warrant this year. The mills of the Abbot Worsted Company will be closed for the day and it is expected that a very heavy vote will be cast.
Joe Wall, local fish and game warden has recently released twenty-seven snowshoe rabbits in the different covers of this vicinity. These rabbits were received from Bucksport, Me., through the efforts of the Lowell Fish and Game association.
The regular meeting of Court Graniteville, F. of A., was held on Thursday evening with a good attendance.
The Mendelssohn male quartet of Lowell, assisted by Alice Livingston Gage, reader, gave a concert in the M.E. church on Thursday evening, February 7, under the auspices of the M.E. church choir, that was largely attended and proved to be very enjoyable. The quartet was composed of Harry Patten, first tenor; Harry Pascall, second tenor; C. Harry Howard, first bass; Harry Needham, second bass. The concert consisted of solo, duet and quartet singing. All have excellent voices, and that being their second appearance here they really scored a bigger hit than on their first appearance. The reading of Mrs. Gage proved to be a very interesting factor in the program.
The Abbot Worsted soccer team had no trouble in defeating the Pacific club of Lawrence in an American cup game at Forge Village on last Saturday, 4 to 0. The Abbots are now qualified to meet the Fore River club of Quincy in the fourth round.
The members of the Y.M.C.A. met in the M.E. church vestry on Tuesday evening. The church choir held a rehearsal in the church on Wednesday evening at 6:30, followed by a meeting of the Brotherhood at 7:30. There was a meeting of the official board of the church held after the concert on Thursday evening.
The “ground hog” must have seen his shadow on February 2, for we have been having a touch of real winter ever since.
Notes:
“The Schick test, developed in 1913, is a skin test used to determine whether or not a person is susceptible to diphtheria. It was named after its inventor, Béla Schick (1877–1967), a Hungarian-born American pediatrician.” See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schick_test.
President Wilson died after a long illness on February 3, 1924, aged 67, and is buried in Washington National Cathedral, the only President to be buried in Washington, D.C. President Lincoln was born February 12, 1809
The Teapot Dome Scandal of 1921-1923 under President Warren G. Harding was a bribery scandal over leases for the Navy petroleum reserves at Teapot Dome, Wyoming, that involved members of Harding’s administration. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teapot_Dome_scandal.
The Teapot Dome Scandal of 1921-1923 under President Warren G. Harding was a bribery scandal over leases for the Navy petroleum reserves at Teapot Dome, Wyoming, that involved members of Harding’s administration. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teapot_Dome_scandal.