Turner's Public Spirit, November 21, 1925

A look back in time to a century ago

By Bob Oliphant

Center. The Y.P.R.U. of the Unitarian church conducted a military whist party last week Friday evening. Edna Hamlin, Betty Prescott, Everett Millis and Walter Wright won the first prize with 64 points. Mrs. Mabel Carter, Maud Robinson, Amy Balch and Louise Chipman won the consolation prize. Refreshments were served by Mrs. Carter, Angie Parfitt and Marion Fletcher.

The local Y.P.R.U. sent a delegation of eleven to a joint meeting held in Chelmsford on Sunday evening by the Chelmsford society.

The W.C.T.U. will send the annual Thanksgiving donation of fruits, jellies, eggs, etc., to the Flower Mission, Boston. All those contributing to this worthy cause are requested to send their donations to the home of the president, Mrs. George Walker, not later than Monday.

The soloist at the Unitarian church on Sunday afternoon will be Mrs. Madeline Sargent, of Leominster.

The Oratorio society will hold their annual concert in the town hall on December first. They will be assisted by Mrs. Rebecca Andrews Lambert, soprano soloist, and Edward Holmes, dulcimer player. The Misses Lena and Nancy Holmes will give an exhibition of international dances. Horace Killum, of Haverhill, who has so successfully conducted the concerts in the past, will again act as director, which means that there will be a musical treat in store for all who attend.

The Merry-go-Round club of West Chelmsford held a dancing party in Abbot hall, Brookside, last Saturday evening, with a large attendance. Many local people were present.

This has been national education week and it has been observed during the week in all the schools of the town. Parents and friends were especially urged to visit the schools during the week.

Supt. Carter has distributed to the pupils copies of the picture entitled “Higher education,” from the pen and ink drawing of Harold Heaton in the October School Board Journal. The picture impresses on the young men a lesson in true patriotism which recognizes a respect for the rights of persons and property, obedience to law and order and decency, and portrays the boy who willfully destroys school property as disloyal to the flag and that citizenship for which the schoolhouse stands.

An enjoyable whist party was held at the home of Mr. and Mrs. William Parfitt on Wednesday evening of last week. Mrs. M. W. Jenkins and J. [E.?.] Sargent received first prize, while [paper torn, missing line or two]. Refreshments were served by Mr. and Mrs. Parfitt, assisted by Charles V. Robey.

The ninth annual roll call for membership in the Red Cross will be continued until Thanksgiving day. The people of the town are asked to renew their membership, and so continue the good work carried on year after year. One-half of the money received will go into the local treasury to help carry on the home service work. There will be no house-to-house canvass, but subscriptions may be given to Mrs. J. H. Fletcher at the Center postoffice; Mrs. Alice Wells and Miss Ruby McCarthy, in Graniteville; Miss May Lord, in Forge Village, and Miss Mary Donnelly, at Brookside.

At the last meeting of the Alliance the hostesses were Mrs. Charles Carter and Mrs. Arthur G. Hildreth.

Mrs. Carl Lydiard, who has been ill for some time, has gone to the home of her mother in New Hampshire.

There will be a meeting of the Tadmuck club in Library hall on Tuesday, November 24. By courtesy of the Prince-Walter Co., Lowell, a concert will be given on the new Orthophonic Victrola[1]. The speaker of the afternoon, Mrs. Margaret Cummings Mason, will give a talk on current events and there will be an exhibit of the work done by the basketry class. At this meeting tickets may be obtained for guest night, December 8, upon payment of refreshments fee. The club is working for the purchase of a balopticon[2] for Library hall, the use of which would be shared with the schools and with the community in library extension work. The fund is being started through commissions on magazine subscriptions and sales of ready-jell. Members or friends of the club who are interested may obtain further information regarding this from the chairman of the education committee, Miss May E. Day.

About Town. Mr. and Mrs. W. R. Taylor observed last Saturday afternoon in Boston and Sunday in Cambridge.

What are the causes or the cause of the causes that has led to the closing of the J. V. Fletcher library on Sundays? It is closed as tight as the dark, solitary cell in the state prison in Charlestown, and I have been in both. Is it in violation of the true spirit of the Lord’s day to keep the library open a few hours Sunday afternoon; if so we are “straining at a gnat and swallowing a camel.,” [Matthew 23:24] for the town gave a decisive vote to permit noisy, rough and tumble sports on the Lord’s day. If it is the judgment of the town that the quiet hours of an open public library are more in violation of the true spirit of the Lord’s day than noisy sports, may the Lord have mercy on a town that hasn’t any better developed judgment after nearly 200 years of existence. Yours for an open library to offset too much other un-desirable openness, the Old Oaken Bucket farm.

Aside from the alarm note on forestry the census of 1925 for Middlesex county shows that field corn is a thing of the past, only 186 acres is now grown in the county. There is no argument in this to prove that it is wise for all hands to totally abandon the old-fashioned habit of raising old-fashioned New England corn.

At the military whist party given in the Unitarian church last week Friday evening by the Y.P.R.U., Edna Hamlin, Betty Prescott, Everett Millis and Walter Wright won the first prize by a score of 64. Those who won something else were Mrs. Mabel Carter, Maud Robinson, May Balch and Louise Chetham [sic, ‘Chipman’ is given above]. The program of the Y.P.R.U. contains a number of these parties to be given during the winter. Refreshments were served by Marion Fletcher, Angie Parfitt and Mrs. Mabel Carter.

Former Hamilton mills officials were arraigned Monday in the superior criminal court in Boston on indictments charging various fraudulent transactions in the conduct of the company. Each pleaded not guilty and were released on bail of $2500.

The Bay State Cotton Corporation of Lowell, having appealed to the assessors for a rebate on taxes and been given leave to withdraw, have appealed from this decision to the Middlesex county commissioners, which comes to a trial on Thursday, December 3. This is the first appealed tax case to be tried before the commissioners for ten years. Erson B. Barlow, of Lowell, as one of the county commissioners, cannot serve, according to law, and Capt. Sherman H. Fletcher, special court commissioner, of this town, will substitute. The point at issue is the claim of the company that “we have moved our machinery south.” What are they moving it south for? Are we not all stockholders in the statement of labor leaders that southern competition is a phantom, or is it labor leaders only who are stockholders in this phantom nonsense?

Mrs. Lucy A. Keyes [nee Lucy Ann Turrell, widow of Otis Keyes who died in 1888] quietly and happily observed her ninety-fourth birthday on Wednesday [Nov. 18] at her home on Providence road. She was born in Nashua [in Westford per the Westford Vital Records], but most of her life has been spent in Westford and Harvard. She is still in action and interested in life in all of its desirable phases.

The Read-Drew farm [164 Main Street] are spraying fruit trees, including pear trees. We do not know whether this is a dormant spray, or an alive spray or what animal is being treated by sprinkling immersion.

Let us not forget to remember that next week Thursday is our annual Thanksgiving day. Let us have will power enough to prevent the shady side of life from marring that day. Let us forget to remember that we ever heard of the prophecy of New England is due to another important earthquake, and its twin, there will be frost and ice every month in 1926, followed by severe droughts. Let us all be Lincolns on Thanksgiving day and not cross these bridges or lesser ones until we arrive. “A merry heart doeth good like a medicine” [Proverbs 17:22 ] is better than needless bridge building.

The fire department was called out late Tuesday afternoon for a small fire on Oak hill at the H. E. Fletcher Co.’s. There was no damage.

Surrounded by several timely educational reels the Extension Service feature picture for November, “Poor Mrs. Jones,”[3] will undoubtedly be considered one of the best ever seen in Westford town hall, where it will be shown Monday, November 23.

Thanksgiving will be with us on next Thursday. Correspondents and advertisers are asked to have their copy in the publication office early in the week. Church notices must be in by Tuesday.

Liquor Violations. Oh, how refreshing to be confirmed whether in the Episcopal church or in the every-day statement of facts. Such confirmation of every-day facts relating to the enforcement of national prohibition was made by Mr. Sheldon in his address last Sunday evening before the Laymen’s league: “Liquor law violations were nine-tenths the work of aliens.” The names of most of this class who come before our district courts for promotion to prison or a fine, or both, are so long and crooked that you cannot pronounce them without catching your breath and starting all over again, and several that I have seen do not look as though they had brains enough to equip a well trained modern monkey. And it is strange that bright and highly endowed editors [2-3 words missing] and most sensibly [paper torn, line or two missing] keep up a constant wail and frothing for the repeal of national prohibition in the name of the invasion of personal liberty, and let crooked-named aliens muss up the nation with drunkenness. These editors ought to be proud of their clients. It’s enough to send out headache pills by the ton to listen to these personal liberty arguments.

Aside from these arguments they are bright, brainy editors, but this craze for rum in the name of personal liberty, if carried out, would send our ship of state, cargo, crew and all hands down into the muddy waters of frog pond beginnings. Beware of injecting too much personal liberty into civilization for the lack of self control. Our daily living is still limping lame as the result of the lack of self control; hence we have to rely on law to substitute for our undeveloped condition until we get a better grip on the moral forces of our lives. Do not let us be so senseless in our heads as to repeal the laws that do help to make society and life generally safer. The liquor laws are better enforced than our laws against murder, theft and other crimes and other misdemeanors.

Under misdemeanors I will add the violation of traffic laws and rules governing automobiles, and trucks, whereby we killed 19,000 people in the United States last year and injured 500,000, and still the violation continues and the wreckage continues and all the rules and regulations are as much of an infringement of personal liberty as national prohibition.

What say, Mr. Het Up Editors and other rum-lovers, to being consistent and repealing the safety laws governing motor traffic for it would take an army at least of one man to every mile of road in the United States to enforce even the speed laws, and where the roads were very crooked, as most of the older roads are, it would take eleventeen men to a mile to see all that is going on. The consistency that would repeal national prohibition in the name of personal liberty does not go the length of its tether and advocate of safety laws generally.

Scarcity of Lumber. It is certainly interesting reading under “Middlesex County Extension Service Happenings Hereabouts,” as reported in last week’s paper. It is valuable as giving us our bearings and one of the most important bearings is “Forestry.” Here we are, face to face with facts that are no credit to our workable judgment. Massachusetts using annually over 900,000,000 feet of timber and importing 85% of it, and the percentage constantly increasing, and 3,000,000 acres in Massachusetts that are suitable only for forests, and they are not growing what they are suited for. Where, oh where, is the class in kindergartenism that is any more void of wisdom than this large class of over-grown-up adults who have got the waste acreage to raise our timber, but with their extremely selfish viewpoint of no consideration for the future, have cut our forests for the dollars that were in it without any attempt at reforesting for the future?

So here we are, reaping what we have sown—an unprovided future lumber supply. We have cleared out New England, started in on the southern forests which are fast diminishing, and the western forests are expected to last but thirty years longer (which is twenty-five years longer than they were ever considered before). It does not take the brains of a statesman to prophecy where we are headed for; an ordinary geared-up talented hum-drum brain could foresee our forestry bearings and I repeat, if a kindergarten class could not catch on they should be dismissed as a hopeless lot of incurables, and all this forestry unwisdom of nearly prohibitory prices for lumber and the waste land to grow it in our dooryards.

Someone ought to start a class in adult kindergartenism. And why haven’t we been re-setting forest trees? Because it takes years to grow forest trees and we might be in the reformed garden of Eden before our forest trees could be turned into dollars. This is the age of quick cash, and a hill of potatoes or pumpkin vine or morning glories grow quicker than chain lightning for cash compared to a forest tree that takes years to cash up. Quick terminal cash is what has depleted our lumber and failed to replace it. What we need for our forest and much else is a far-seeing future whose terminals are the eternities. We have been politely and wisely informed, “No man liveth unto himself and no man dieth unto himself.” [Romans 14:7] and our depleted lumber is a sad monument of the reversal of that. Everyone lives and dies to himself.

Church Notes. First Church (Unitarian)—Sunday service at 4 p.m. Preacher, Rev. Frank B. Crandall, the minister. Subject, “The way of thankfulness.” Church school at three.

The Alliance, Laymen’s League and Y.P.R.U. are planning a parish rally with a supper and entertainment to be given on the evening of the parish meeting.

Graniteville. The Abbot Worsted soccer club will play the Whittalls of Worcester in a state cup game in Worcester on Saturday afternoon.

The movies were largely attended on Tuesday evening when the special attraction was the Hawaiian Trio.

The members of the Westford Oratorio society are planning a concert in Westford early in December. The members are rehearsing faithfully once a week for this event under the direction of Horace W. Killum of Haverhill. The society will be assisted at this time by Rebecca Lambert, soprano soloist, who proved such a success in the presentation of “The Bohemian Girl,” the outdoor attraction in Forge Village last summer, in addition, Edward Holmes has been heard in these selections over the radio from station WEEI on several occasions. The Misses Nancy and Lena Holmes will also entertain with dances. An orchestra will be in attendance, and the members are working hard to make this concert a real musical treat.

Forge Village. The many friends of John Edwards, who has been confined to his home by illness, will be glad to learn that he is improving rapidly.

Jack Dundas, who broke a bone in his foot in the first Abbot Worsted-Whitetall game, is able to be about again, although it will be several weeks before he will be back in the game.

Mrs. David Lord is recovering from a slight illness.

This week has been observed as Education Week in all the schools and special programs were given in the various rooms. Visitors were present in goodly numbers at Cameron school showing their interest and enthusiasm in the work accomplished by the children.

Tuesday evening at Abbot hall in addition to the regular program the Hawaiian trio of radio station WEEI, Boston, gave a most enjoyable concert to a very appreciative and enthusiastic audience.

Alexander Scott has returned to his work after having been confined to his home with a severe cold.

Mr. and Mrs. Redmond Hartley of Pleasant street are rejoicing over the birth of a son [Daniel] born Monday, November 9.

[The condolences of the townspeople] is [are] extended to Miss Abbie M. Blaisdell in the recent loss of her father [Albert C. Blaisdell] who died Saturday morning [Nov. 14] at his home in Wamesit [Tewksbury]. Miss Blaisdell was a very popular teacher at the Cameron school for thirteen years. She left there to teach in the Talbot school, North Billerica.

Abbot Worsted and the Whittall team of Worcester met for the third time at the Abbot field last Saturday. A fast game was played ending in a tie, and it is expected that the two teams will clash at the Whittall field next Saturday.

Schools will close next Wednesday noon for the remainder of the week for the Thanksgiving holiday and weekend.

The meteor that has been the cause of much discussion was seen by Melvin Edwards and Mr. W. C. Precious.[4]

Extension Service

The Middlesex County Extension Service annual meeting was held in Waltham, Saturday, November 12, with Ayer, Westford, Littleton, Groton, Pepperell, Townsend, Boxboro, Acton and Shirley well represented by farmers and homemakers. …

 

[1] “The Victor Orthophonic Victrola, first demonstrated publicly in 1925, was the first consumer phonograph designed specifically to play electrically recorded phonograph records.” See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Victor_Orthophonic_Victrola.

[2] The balopticon was an early stereopticon or projector made by Bausch + Lomb Optical Company. The name derives from the company’s name. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bausch_%26_Lomb.

[3] “Poor Mrs. Jones (1926) is a 46-minute, black-and-white comedy, drama and family silent film produced by the United States Department of Agriculture in 1925 and released in 1926 [sic]. … The USDA produced this film as 1920s propaganda promoting agriculture and farm life as more virtuous and wholesome than life in the city.” See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poor_Mrs._Jones!

[4] A fireball meteor was seen at 10:28 a.m. in the skies to the north of Boston on November 15, 1925, including a sighting at Vesper Golf Club on the Merrimack River. See https://adsabs.harvard.edu/full/1926PA…..34..421F.