USA > Massachusetts > Barnstable County > History of Plymouth, Norfolk and Barnstable counties, Massachusetts, Vol. I > Part 48
USA > Massachusetts > Norfolk County > History of Plymouth, Norfolk and Barnstable counties, Massachusetts, Vol. I > Part 48
USA > Massachusetts > Plymouth County > History of Plymouth, Norfolk and Barnstable counties, Massachusetts, Vol. I > Part 48
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Weary Willie Waterhouse Of Walla Walla, Wash. A peregrinating printer, And a good one, too, begosh!
This little scrap of verse was written by one of his pals-all the printers and country newspaper folks long in harness know him.
The tramp printers used occasionally to hold a "convention" when
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any number of them got together, and the ode of the fraternity was:
And when I die, don't bury me a-tall: Just pickle my bones in alcohol. Put a bottle of booze at my head and feet, So this body of mine will always keep.
True enough all the fraternity were much addicted to the "little brown jug," and that is how most of them got that way.
There was a time when tramp printers seemed to run in pairs, at least if one called another would soon appear. Sometimes their calls overlapped, if one of them happened to stay as long as four or five days in one office. When a country shop in former days got into a tight fix, it seems as if the tramp printers could get a sniff of the trouble and came along to help out. Some over thirty years ago the "Bridge- water Independent" ran a big special edition at the time the Normal School was observing its bi-centennial anniversary. The paper was owned by Elmer C. Linfield at that time and he was anxious to make the "Independent" carry the story of the celebration better than any other paper, but picking up extra compositors was next to impossible for a few days. The writer was beginning to "stick type" and as- sisted Arthur L. Willis, who is still a printer in Bridgewater, and the rest of the "gang," but the novitiate was of little use-a novitiate in a newspaper office is always called "the devil" and usually with good rea- son. Working all night was one way and this was done. Then along came Conway, took his faithful "stick" out of the pocket of his reefer, grabbed a "take" from the "hook" and went to work as if he had been sent for. That is the way in which the old-timers seemed to appear. They were a type separate and distinct and served their purpose, and we miss them, for most of them are gone. New print-shop methods pre- vent them from having any successors.
The "Brockton and South Shore Magazine"-The shoe industry in Brockton and all the neighboring towns, usually referred to as the South Shore District, is especially represented by the "Brockton and South Shore Magazine," which appears bi-monthly, setting forth the quality of the footwear manufactured in this shoe centre, noted for having reached the highest state of perfection. for the covering of human feet of any community since babies were born barefooted. The magazine is an unusually good sample of the printer's art and cir- culates with its messages, creating a desire for the latest and best in footwear, among shoe buyers far and near. The magazine is is- sued from the plant of the "Tolman Print" in Brockton, one of the largest printing and advertising concerns in the East, employing one hundred and fifty persons and operating sixty machines.
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The "Brockton and South Shore Magazine" stated in its first is- sue : "The purpose of this magazine is to acquaint the American people with the facts about this great industrial community in which various shoe companies are capitalized for about $100,000,000. Brockton and the South District is the cradle of the shoe industry. More good shoes are made in Brockton and the South Shore District than in any other place on earth. Hundreds of years of quality workmanship by born craftsmen make our shoes the best in the world. We are a com- munity of the most skillful and most intelligent people on earth. We know more, do more and live on a higher plane than the people of any other part of the world. That is why our products are the best."
The magazine first stepped into the arena of shoemaking journalism in May, 1926. The board of management consists of president and director, Arthur J. Chase; vice-president and director, George B. Hendrick; treasurer and director, Bernard B. Winslow; assistant treasurer and director, Albert R. Ewell; clerk and director, Lester D. Morse; director, Harold C. Keith; director, John S. Kent; director, William T. Card; and director, George M. Rand. These men represent manufacturing, banking, and advertising institutions in Brockton and the South Shore District. The magazine reaches 20,000 retailers and jobbers and carries the message of the shoe and allied industries of the Abingtons, Avon, the Braintrees, the Bridge- waters, Brockton, the Eastons, the Hanovers, Holbrook, Middleboro, Randolph, Rockland, Stoughton, the Weymouths and Whitman.
Secretaries to the Great-Some Plymouth County newspaper men have enjoyed political preferment and others have added to the laurels of other officeholders. Joseph F. Reilly, secretary of the Brockton Chamber of Commerce, was secretary to Congressman Richard Olney in Washington, and was also vice-consul in Cuba for a considerable time. Previously he had been a reporter on the "Brockton Enter- prise" and other newspapers.
Albert Henry Washburn, a graduate of the Cornell University School of Journalism, was private secretary for President Andrew D. White of that university, later private secretary for the late Hon. Henry Cabot Lodge, previous to becoming Commercial Agent of the United States at Magdeburg, Germany; a noted international rela- tions lawyer, and ambassador to Austria. His home is in Middle- boro, and he has a summer residence and handsome, extensive estate at Falmouth.
Edward C. McAdams was a member of the "Brockton Enterprise" staff when Congressman Robert O. Harris wanted a good secretary and his good luck was the "Enterprise's" loss. McAdams started, in March, 1927, the first daily newspaper in Everett. He had previously gone from the "Brockton Enterprise," via Washington, to responsible
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positions on the "Boston Post," "Herald" and "Telegram," then to the "Lynn Telegram-News," of which he was managing editor.
Some of the old-timers can recall when Grover Cleveland became president of the United States, breaking the hold of the Republicans on the chief executive's chair. Plymouth County furnished his private secretary, Robert Lincoln O'Brien of Abington, then a reporter on the "Boston Evening Transcript." President Cleveland was not permit- ted to remain in his position at Washington many years but O'Brien remained as Washington correspondent for the "Transcript" and other papers, until he returned to become managing editor of the "Transcript." Later he acquired an interest in the "Boston Herald" and is at present its editor-in-chief.
John Gleason O'Brien, a reporter on the "Brockton Enterprise," went to Washington and became Washington correspondent for sev- eral newspapers, proved to the great and near great in the nation's capital that he was a real fellow and one day found he had been ap- pointed vice-consul in Italy, and was expected to find out why sour wines and olive oil from that part of southern Europe were in a class by themselves, and other diplomatic intelligence. While in Italy, car- rying with him the military title of major from the United States Army, he received a decoration from the king of Italy, and might, possibly, have been in line for Mussolini's job had it not been for the call of the press of America. He became identified with the plan of Cornelius Vanderbilt to conduct a chain of "something different" in news- papers, and has been an associate of the journalistic member of the Vanderbilt family ever since.
Will Irwin had become a Plymouth County resident at Scituate before the German Army started marching through Belgium on their way to Paris and other places which they never reached. Richard Harding Davis had also adopted Plymouth County, having his home in Marion. Mary Boyle O'Reilly, daughter of John Boyle O'Reilly, the relationship being mentioned not because she had not attained suf- ficient fame through meritorious achievements of her own, but to add one additional cubit to her worthy stature, was also a Plymouth County resident, at Marshfield. They all met in Germany, in a freight car, into which they were thrust by German soldiers. Miss O'Reilly was given her reservation first and, as she told the story, "While wondering what was to be done with me, the door opened and into my apartment was assisted someone whose very legs looked American; and I beheld the calm but indignant countenance of Will Irwin. We had hardly asked each other 'how did you get here?' when the door was again rolled back and we were joined by Richard Harding Davis. It was a real reunion. Then the train started and when it came to a stop we were on the border of Belgium. We were told that newspaper
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correspondents were not allowed with the German Army and we were to leave Germany. We walked across the Belgium line, halted, executed a right-about-face, and with our faces toward the country from which we had been excluded fervently repeated what have since become historic words: 'To hell with Germany!' "
There was another Plymouth County man in the war area in those days who, perhaps, knew as much about the causes, preparations, plans, and intentions of the war parties as any one individual in the world, outside of the war lords themselves. William Morton Fullerton, Paris correspondent for the "London Times," had served years of apprenticeship under the renowned Blowitz before succeeding him as the Parisian representative of "The Thunderer," knew and prac- ticed the methods of his diplomatic chief, and had "inside informa- tion" regarding most of the supposedly secret diplomacy of the Old World. He has been quoted as saying that had the German motor divisions and cavalry pushed forward without interruption, instead of remaining to help punish Belgium, they would have gotten into Paris. How long they would have been able to remain there, he is not quoted as giving an opinion.
From the few instances which have been mentioned, it has been made clear that Plymouth County has had a far-flung line of news- paper reporters. Wherever anything interesting has been going on in the world from the time of Benjamin Franklin to this morning, there has been a newspaper man on the job, and Plymouth County has been represented in a surprisingly large number of such places. There was only one reporter with the Yankee Division in the World War, but that one was Frank Sibley of Hingham, Plymouth County, repre- senting the "Boston Globe." Plymouth County reporters have been up in balloons and airships, down in submarines and coal mines, have been knighted by kings and the confidantes of the Bolsheviki, and re- mained "on the level."
Since newspapers began in America, not very long after the landing of the Pilgrims, they have helped materially in the marvels of progress in Plymouth County and wherever the printing press has taken any printable language. Today more than ever, to quote an editorial from the "Colorado Springs Gazette and Telegraph," "the newspaper is the sole source of information and knowledge for that vast multitude which limits its daily reading to one or more papers ; and a great majority of those who do not limit to the newspapers, turn elsewhere only for entertainment, depending upon their paper to keep them informed on the economic, political, scientific and social state of the nation and world. In any issue of a representative American newspaper one will find reports from the scientists, surveys of economic and political con- ditions, graphic pictures of all strata of contemporary society, a sum-
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mary of current history and a mirror of the wit and humor of the times. To the seeing the modern newspaper is a magic crystal in which the gazer can see the world pass before his eyes."
Into each newspaper edition are condensed hundreds of current events without geographical limitation, the essential portions of the writings and utterances of the day, and the latest addition to the "sum of human knowledge." If society is better informed today than ever in the past it is because there are more news- paper readers.
Communities are very much what newspapers make of them. Plym- outh County has been fortunate during all the years in having news- papers and newspaper men of the right sort, and what has been true in the days that have gone is especially true at present. The living editorial and news-writers constitute a county asset surpassed by no other profession.
CHAPTER XXVII HOME OF THE SHOE INDUSTRY.
Development of Shoemaking from Cowhide Boots to Twenty-one Faultless Styles for Modern Demands-Why a Weaver Rather Than a Shoemaker Was Hanged in Colonial Times-Style Show at Brock- ton Fair is Show Window for New England's Greatest Industry- The "Woman Shoe Worker is the Best That the Twentieth Century Has Produced of Her Type"-Machinery and Measuring Stick Revo- lutionized Processes-"Whipping the Cat" and "Bespoke Work"-La- bor Unionism and Shoemaking Psychology-Early Markets in West Indies-California and Australia-Cape Cod Boy Who Built a Hun- dred Million Dollar World-wide Business-Half of Boys in Blue Wore Abington Shoes-Brockton First Became Famous for a Dollar Shoe-Some Present-day Leaders.
Robinson Crusoe was monarch of all he surveyed. Walking one day upon the strand, wondering whether he would have fish for dinner or some wild beast would choose meat for his or hers, and, if so, whether he would be the "meat" his cogitations were interrupted by noticing a human footprint in the sand. Instantly, Robinson Crusoe began to think in terms of social intercourse. There was a human foot somewhere and something must be done about it !
Plymouth County was the Robinson Crusoe of the New World. There were plenty of human beings roaming about the country before the com- ing of the Pilgrims and they provided themselves with foot covering in the same manner as Robinson Crusoe, by making moccasins. But the first bare feet on a white man was a challenge to someone in the Plym- outh Colony to make boots and shoes. Perhaps there were bare white feet in the Virginia Colony also, but the people who landed there were in better financial circumstances and, for the sake of the argument we will admit the possibility they came with an extra pair of boots made in Eng- land, and so did not need the ministrations of a shoemaker as early as someone in Captain Myles Standish's army was drafted to prevent the Plymouth population from going on their uppers.
MAN AND HIS SHOES.
How much a man is like his shoes! For instance: both a soul may lose; Both have been tanned, both are made tight
By cobblers; both get left, and right; Both need a mate to be complete, And both are made to go on feet,
They both need heeling, oft are sold, And both in time will turn to mould.
Plym-29
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With shoes, the last is first: with men
The first shall be the last; and when
The shoes wear out, they're mended new;
When men wear out they're men-dead too!
They both are trod upon, and both Will tread on others, nothing loth! Both have their ties, and both incline
When polished, in the world to shine, And both peg out. Now would you choose :
To be a man, or be his shoes?
-J. J. McNally
It is a far cry-or should we say a long walk-between the time when father pulled off his cowhide boots at night, with the help of a bootjack or the assistance of the boys of the family, placed them before the open fire or in close proximity to the kitchen stove, and sat around with his carpet slippers on his feet while the cowhides were getting dried, to the year 1927 when fashion dictates that a gentleman's wardrobe shall con- tain twenty-one pairs of shoes. Father was strictly in accordance with the times and actuated by methods born of experience when he sat a saucer of mutton tallow near the fire with his boots. When the tallow was warm and the boots were dry, he "greased" the boots in readiness for "putting on" the next morning. Tallow made the leather pliable and water-resisting. The boys of the family, and, perhaps, the girls, placed their boots or shoes near father's and all were "greased" to make the process of putting them on the next day less burdensome and, by the way, to preserve the leather. That was father's last "chore" at night, to "grease" the family footwear.
In the days of cowhide boots, the first essential was to have them made of leather which would wear, stoutly sewed or pegged. In the case of the boys of the family, the boots were sometimes "copper-toed," that is to say there was a tip of copper where the wear came when steering a sled in the process of coasting down the hills of the county in winter, and as a protection against kicking things in general. Some of the boots had red leather tops as a concession to the desire to social distinction and elegance.
But father has "greased" the family boots and gone to bed for the last time. A new day is here and one of its essentials is various pairs of shoes, each pair designed for a specific social need, as well as for purely utili- tarian purposes. The first footwear made in Plymouth County was suit- able for its days and generation and was made according to the customs of manufacture in vogue when Pilgrims packed a gun when they went to church. Now Plymouth County manufacturers turn out the twenty-one varieties demanded by social usage and they have in years past turned out footwear in all the styles and for all the uses which have marked the progress of the people for more than three hundred years.
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A few years ago there was a call for summer-weight or feather-weight shoes, as soon as the dandelions had been converted into wine and the voice of the turtle was heard in the land. A generation before sneakers had filled the bill fairly well, and there was a time when "baseball shoes" were in vogue, with their straps across the instep made of something else, causing the foot of the wearer to resemble a cranberry pie with an upper crust neither open-faced nor hunter-cased. But featherweights were formally introduced to the public in Plymouth County in the spring of 1926, when the Old Colony Advertising Club wished a pair on to the feet of Mayor Harold Bent of Plymouth County's only city. They have been popular for summer wear ever since.
There are smart sport shoes in various hues and weights and some dis- tinctly "doggy" shoes, popular with collegians and the younger set gen- erally. In these days of golf and other outdoor sports the average man has one or two pairs of shoes in his locker at the golf club or at the Y. M. C. A., if he plays a set or two of tennis preparatory to taking his plunge and shower. There are shoes with spikes and rubber knobs for various purposes on the links and courts, and another type of shoe affected by some of the men when they appear in the clubhouse or on the veranda. There are tans for the bridle path, walking shoes and yachting shoes for vacation purposes and slippers for Pullman wear, to say nothing of the footwear which will perhaps be in demand for airplane traveling by the time the ink is dry on these pages. So the shoe manufacturers have pre- pared to meet the demand for twenty-one pairs of shoes for the individ- ual without going out of the county, and then a man may consider him- self "all set" for business, dress, semi-dress, golf, sports, riding, home and travel.
Along with the manufacture of footwear the Plymouth County shoe- makers have educated the public fairly well to have several pairs of shoes to wear, merely as a matter of economy, since the more pairs of shoes a man has the longer they will keep their shape and the more com- fortable they will be to the feet, if worn in succession, and those not in use kept on "trees." This rule applies particularly to high-grade shoes, and high-grade shoes are the kind which are manufactured in Plymouth County and vicinity, as the world has often been told and the assertion proved, until it has ceased to be contradicted.
While this is true for the men, as regards a variety of styles and kinds of shoes for various purposes and in sufficient numbers to give them time to rest, women demand as many kinds of shoes and in various col- ors, since hats and hosiery as well as gowns call for complementary col- ors in footwear. The smart appearance of apparel in general requires corresponding smartness in footwear for both sexes. Shoe manufacturers find it a part of their business requirements to cater to these demands as
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well as all the others which enter into the problem. As has been said by a famous editor of the present day "Clothes do not make the man but they are about all one can see of a man to judge him by, in business hours, except his face and hands;" and many men are judged today by their footwear. Furthermore it is claimed that there is something about . the footwear made in this section which has a distinction and finesse all its own which marks the well-shod man, and it is as much a recom- mendation in sartorial distinction to say a person wears shoes made in .Brockton and the South Shore District as to say a women gets her gowns from Paris.
First Shoemakers Arrive-Plymouth County has looked to "Home talent" to supply its needs in footwear ever since Peregrine White was born barefooted on the "Mayflower." All the babies born since have fol- lowed Peregrine's example in the New World. There is no record that there was a shoemaker on the "Mayflower" on its first trip, but when it made its second voyage there were at least two who set that down as their occupation. These two, Thomas Beard and Isaac Rickerman, were the earliest shoemakers on record in this country. They set up their benches, cut the upper and sole leather from the hide with a shoe knife, stitched the upper with awl and waxed end, hammered the sole on a lap- stone, sewed it on by hand, and put on the finish with a wooden shoulder stick. This was seven years after the "Mayflower's" first arrival at Plym- outh, and most of the boots and shoes brought over from Holland had become sadly worn. As a matter of fact this was the story in regard to all the clothing and, had it not been for the shoes, left by those who died in the general illness the first winter, many of the Pilgrims would have been walking "on their uppers" before the arrival of Messrs. Beard and Rickerman.
As time went on there were more weavers than shoemakers in propor- tion to the requirements, especially from the fact that weaving of cloth was one of the household industries in every log cabin. The "Newport News" of a date of February, 1849, says : "In the days of the blue laws of New England a shoemaker was condemned to be hanged for something he had done ; but, on the day appointed for his execution, they discovered that he was the only shoemaker in the place ; so they hanged a weaver in his stead, for they had more weavers than they knew what to do with." This story may not be historically correct in its details but it is a good illustration of the demands of the times-for shoemakers, and not to be denied a victim to furnish entertainment on the day of a Thursday lec- ture, when church and state were one.
Shoemaking retained for a hundred years after the coming of Thomas Beard and other early shoemakers, the methods which had been in use in Europe. The hammer, awl, knife, lapstone and shoulder stick for
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finishing edges were practically all the tools used. The present fac- tory system has been largely developed since the Civil War. Previous to that time, little door-yard shops were scattered throughout the county, in which neighbors gathered and bottomed the shoes or boots from the ' fitted uppers and understock, secured from the manufacturer in a nearby city or larger town. Everything was done by hand, whether lasting, peg- ging, trimming, edge setting or what-not. Today, with modern machin- ery, many with individual motors, the process of making shoes is as much the antithesis of former methods as can be shown in any industry.
Brockton, in Plymouth County, is the centre of a district which pro- duces more good shoes than any other district in the world. This locality is the cradle of the shoe industry. New England stands supreme as the shoemaking section of the United States, producing the greatest quan- tity and best quality of footwear; Massachusetts continues to hold first place among the shoe-manufacturing States, with a yearly production of approximately 72,000,000 pairs; and Brockton and the South Shore Dis- trict set the style and furnish the cream. There have been statements made in other parts of the country about the decadence of the shoe in- dustry in Massachusetts, where the wish has been the father of the ludi- crous statements. It may help some to remember that in 1926 Massa- chusetts produced nearly one-fourth of all of the shoes that were manu- factured in the United States, exclusive of rubber footwear. It made 24.2 per cent of the men's shoes, and 27. 7 per cent of the women's shoes, and a comfortable percentage of both were manufactured in Plymouth County and neighboring towns.
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