Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1905-08-11
DO NOT KNOW US.
"A Writer in the Argus Hands Out
Hot Shot In Article. barbarian
Ignorance About Maine"

Arp,Is Cha -les T.. Allen Of Dresden has
a lively and interesting article upon
| BARBARIAN Ignorance About Maine"
from which we make the following ex-
tracts:
The railroad man Of the Argus,
quoted. some days ago, from letters
received by Mr.. Boothby, in which sin
guIar questions are asked relating to
Maine. Those questions read as II they
might have been written by somebody
| i'm the vicinity Of Boston. for II one
thing more than another marks deter
mined, persistent stupidity, that thing
| is the wilful ignorance of many Boston
people about Maine; although in jus
| tice to the BostOnese, men and women
| who have gone from Maine to live in
and near Boston, have sometimes so
conducted themselves, by words and
| deeds, as to intensity this Grass ig-
norance. For they, as well as many
| who still claim a home here. indus
| triously decry their native state and
it's people, while they look with kind
| Of awe upon those who. coming from
Boston and from other places. more or
less overgrown. fiaunt their self-as-
serted superiority i'm urfaces i'm the
pie and our newspapers have habit
of ignoring Maine men and women OF
ability. until somebody else discovers
them, and then, and not until then,
we cackle about what we have pro-
duced. For proba bly,. nowhere else
on the earth, is a prophet less hOnOred
in his own country. than in Maine. So
marked is this characteristic with us,
that writer's Of prominence have COM
mented upon it, as was the case when
one wrote a review of the works Of the
late John Neal. and regretted that he
did not leave Maine and become really
famous as he deserved to be.
Massachusetts parks are frequently
adorned with statues Of Massachu
sets men,-as Webster, Horace Mann,
Sam Adams, Garrison, and many 9TH
ers. Our comparative poverty may
serve as some excuse for the paucity
of these memorials i'm our midst: but
one may wonder if Longfellow would
have been thus honored had he lived
and died in Maine instead of acquir-
ing fame in Cambridge
From the days when the Bay State
Tor colony rather by treachery than
by any other means, obtained political
control in the eighteenth century, of
what is now Maine, to the present time,
this district has been looked upon by
them in much the same way in which
some of our people regard the Philip
pine islands, and their inhabitants. Mas
sachusetts clergymen say we neglect
our churches, and they send us Bible
agents and tract distributors 1t was
a Boston clergyman-now a church pre-
late who said that many of us were
like heather. Their papers caricature
us. If man dies from the effects of
escaping gas in a Boston hotel, it must
be Maine man.
When the mayor Of Portland went
to Boston with party to look at the
Park system, the cheap wit Of a Bos-
ton Herald reporter. could prompt him |
to write naught but Stiffness. One is al
most tempted to say that Mayor Bax-
ter's party was served right. Why should
any Portland man study Boston's park
system? The Puritan city, which was
.awkardly built to begin with. has alb
sorhed the really beautiful towns which
border it. ana with their aid has evolved
rather ambitious park scheme. which
at present is sort of affair of shreds
and patches. which may he thing of
real connected. continuous beauty about
the time the Panama canal is dug by
President Roosevelt. Portland is capa
able of dong better. l once heard an ar
can artists went abroad to copy works |
fist declare that just so long as |
American artists went abroad to copy
works of the Old Masters we in Ameri,
ca would have no art of our own |
And it is well known that Americans |
with more money Than sense, will when |
abroad. eagerly grab any impossible |
Madonna or musty saint on canvas if it |
purports to be after one of the Old |
Masters |
The AMI les of Boston peope-some |
of them. of cOurse-when in Maine are |
often amusing. l once CHANGED to he |
in Augusta on Sunday. with one who |
was in our State for the first time |
AS We strolled along the street and met |
the church-goers. he exclaimed. honest |
ly. by. the ladies seem to dress as |
we'll here as they do in Boston," l re- |
member another. who, we walked |
from the State House northerly along |
State street stopped suuuenly and with |
a look Of wonder said. This is a fine |
street. these are really beautiful houses, i
Why It looks like" naming a suburb |
of Boston. 1t is really finer than lis the |
place he named. l have been asked by |
men in Boston if they couldn't come /
down and shoot bears on my farm |
Wonder has been expressed at the cars |
and equipment of the Maine Central
railroad which passed my house at a |
distance. and / have wondered il they |
might be led to admit that rolling
stock was better than is that which |
usually serves the Boston suburbanite. |
1 said that these traits were charac-
teristic of many Boston people If 1t
is hot. or II 1T is cold that's down
east weather II fools permit Them
selves to be robbed by Boston sharp
ers. they are of course down casters"
If one wants to go to the wilderness. |
he thinks of Maine as only wilderness.
People from other sections are different.
They are sometimes ignorant, but not
wilfully so. They don't object to learn
ing something.
For instance a Baltimore gentleman