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STATE LassE..chusetts
OF WORKER Christabel Kiuuer
/1.DLRESS Fitchburg, kassachusetts
SUBJECT Living Lore
1\:ALE AND ADDRESS OF INFORMANT: Frederick Savage)
Harvard, Lassachusetts
Lr. Frederick Savage of Still River, a part of
Harvard is eighty years old, but as stronL and vigorous
in appearance and manner as a man thirty years his
unior. He is a handsome old man, tall, well-built
with a keen eye that misses nothing, and a decisive
Lamer tempered by a delightful sense of humour.
Although his formal education stopped at the age of
ten, Iir. Savage is a student, spending much of his
time studying and reading. He is keenly interested
in world and local affairs .h.d 1_,; constantly writing
diatribes on various and sundry subjects for the
local papers. He has written and privately printed
several books including the History of the Town of
Harvard, where he spent his early life and where he
has now returned after years of living in the West
and South. He is a Yankee from way back and proud
of it.
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STATE kassachusetts
1:ALE OF WORKER Christabel Kidder
AMRESS Fitchburg, Massachusetts
2UBJECT Living Lore
NALE AND ADi:REJS OF INFORLANT: Frederick Savage,
Harvard, kassachusetts
There is nothing.wishy-washy about Lir. Savage.
He says what he thinks and says it with decision.
There is no reluctance or fear on his part of
expressing opinions and giving advice. He knows
all the answers and doesn't mind telling you so.
His favorite theme is the *good old days" which
he thinks had it all over the present when life
is lived too fast and in too much of a muddle.
Notwithstanding his decisive manner Lr. Savage
is extremely personable. As a raconteur he has
few rivals for his fund of anecdote :6 seem inexhaustible
and his manner of telling the tales fascinating'.
he is a great letter writer and numbers among his
correspondents some distinguished andwell-known
people. He is ver.;,, friendly and eager
you at Loi, e `21ere is little difficulty in inter-
viewing him for he just talks and talks and talks
ict elways on subjects desired, but anyhow he talks.
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STATE Massachusetts
NAME OF WORKER Christabel Kidder
ADDRESS Fitchburg, Massachusetts
SUBJECT Living Lore
NAME AND ADDRESS OF INFORMANT: Frederick Savage,
Harvard, Massachusetts
Mr. Savage has had three wives. His present
one is a native Californian, a dainty little creature
with a soft voice and a gentle manner, who is com-
pletely dominated by her big husband. Her apologetic
looks when *Frederick" cusses, only eggs him on to
more frequent and more colorful phrases. At eighty
and in the presence of his wife, Mr. Savage doesn't
mind saying he likes the ladies and they like him.
There's not a doubt that if the present Mrs. Savage
were to follow her predecessors to the grave,
Mr. Savage would be "on the market" for a fourth.
He tells you with a roar he prefers Californian or
Southern women *they're lots easier to handle
and quieter" than the northern girls.
Name: Christabel Kidder
Title: Liting Lore
Assignment: Harvard
Topic: A. Yankee Roamer Speaks
His Mind
M. Frederick Savage settled himself in a deep armchair
C2-
and started to talk. There was little need to ask questions,
and to attempt to guide the conversation was impossible. Mr. Savage
wouldn't be "steered." He said what he wanted to say, in the
way he wanted to say it. His wife's various attempts to make
him "conform" were brushed aslde Ulth bellows of impatience and
the command to "quit jabbering and keep quiet."
He looked at me with keen eyes and announced:1)"I can
tell you the cause of this Depression. Don't know why everyone
says, 'My, Goodness: How did this depression happen.' Easy
to see how it came. Don't know why it didn't come sooner.
In the first place I don't think that people today know the
meaning of the word SCOUOMY. At any rate, there's only a
very few in the world who know how to practise it. The depression
e,
really began along in the early ninetten hundreds when these
A
damned unions began to form. Most of the men employed in/parge
manufacturing plants, including the railroads, joined in lath
some union so they could compel the cortoanies they worked for
to pay them higher wages. Right there, the good reeling was
destroyed between the men that did the hiring and the men that
worked for them. They commenced to have strikes, stand up
strikes and sit down strikes. That wasn't good either for
labor or for the owners of the mills, who had millions in-
vested in their buildings and railroads. Both the laboring
Name: Christabel Kidder Assignment: Harvard
Title: Living Lore Topic: A. Yankee Roamer Smaks
His Mind
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man and the financier spent their time figuring haw they could
beat each other instead of having good feeling. The owners began
to pay out their money for all kinds of new machinery to do away
with having so many men working. Then, you see, there were more
men to work than there was work for them to do..and things kept
getting %4orse..and the bad feeling kept getting worse. And, as
I say, no one practises economy today. And people aren't self
reliant the way they used to be. There's the damn story in a
nut,shell.
"Now there's lots of men who have tilt, brai.-16 to think up
plans, but they fail because they can't put them through.
People are pleasure crazy today. A man lets his best thought-
out -schemes come to nothing oust because he puts them on one
side because he wants to pla:) golf or go to some fool shindig.
I've travelled a lot in this country and I can tell you the
L.a4ority of people are living beyond their income. They don't
think they're living unless they have every damned thing hitched
to them either by cash payment or the installment plan. When
I was young, back in the sixties, there was no such thing as a
'standard of living.' Each man set his own standard of what
he coald afford in running his household or business. Course
there were business failures once in a while but you didn't
often hear of the average working man making a failure of life."
Ir. Savage paused for breath but before I could get a word
Lif-he was off.
(2)
KALE: Christabel Kidder
TITLE: Living Lore
ASSIGNIILLT: Harvard
TOPIC: A Yankee Roamer Speaks
His Mind
"In this modern age people think they're progressing but they're
not. No sir, not by a damn sight. The people in the towns, the
cities and the states ain't so well off financially, morally physically
or mentally as they were in the sixties or seventies when common sense
was. used in regulating everything.
"Most people today are looking for someone to support them without
work and if they keep that idea in their heads much longer most of us'll
have to live in a cave or a dug -out or old shacks. A crust of bread
and a handful, of corn meal will look good to us. Work, work, work
and hard work from sun -rise to sun -set, mixed with common sense,
supports the people and the Government. And if they don't follow that
rule, they're going soft and they'll decay. It ain't that human nature's
changed much. Folks are just the same inside. .just the same as when
Adam met Eve in the Garden of Eden. It doesn't make any difference
whether a woman wears wool, cotton, or silk stockings, short or long
dresses., hoop skirts or bustles or earrings, or diamonds, or has her
dress held together with hooks and eyes or buttons or a lot of safety
pins, she's just the same inside as she ever was. The only difference
is she wants more because there's more in the world to want. The men
are just the same, too. They all look, dress, and shave alike, their
coats and pants and shoes and hats are all alike...but they
They don't want to work so hard and they want more for what
"Children should be taught to be self-reliant but they
And they ain't taught to mind, either. I've heard a lot of
mothers bribe their children to be good with candy. They're rude, too.
A child should be taught to be kind and considerate to his father and
mother and all elderly people. Kind words to elderly people is like
want more, too
they do.
ain't.
damn fool
(4)
Name: Cnristabel Kidder Assignment: Harvard
Title: Living Lore Topic: A Yankee Roamer Speaks
His Mind
candy to children. They appreciate it. Young people ought to remember
that they'll be old, too, sometime. Most children are coddled too much
and so they grow up expecting it. They ought to be made more self-
reliant."
Mrs. Savage, as tiny and quiet as her husband is tall and loquacious,
broke in with the remark, "Yes, self-reliance is really the answer to
most of our problems, don't you think."
"Hell, no," her husband let out a bellow. "You got to have
somethin/else. ou got to have honesty, too. Honesty in dealing pays
better than trickery in the end. It's funny but the meanest trickster
in the world gets by because he pretends he's honest. We can't get away
from honesty. It's the standard of living today just as it always was.
My grandfather, Captain Charles Tyler Savage always told me that no one
can serve you as well as you can serve yourself, and that you've got to
learn everything that you expect to know. I was taught to be truthful
and self-reliant and all the people I ever worked for were. I went to
work on a farm when I was ten years old at five dollars a month. I
worked sixteen hours a day, from four in the morning till eight at
night and .I never thought I was abused. In August, when I was twelve,
I went to Akron, Ohio t+ork. I farmed and I was a chore boy in a
hotel, worked in a flour mill nailing headliners on flour barrels, I
did some surveying, too and worked in a stone quarry... I got a dollar
a day for that and paid three and a half for board and room. Then I
was in the hack driving business and then I went to Northfield as
foreman on a large stock and tobacco farm. I've been a teamster and
fired boi4.ers and run steam derricks. All hard work but I liked it.
(5)
Name: Christabel Kidder Assignment: Harvard
Title: Livina Lore
Topic: A li Roamer Sneaks
gi
A man today would think he was killed if he worked as hardai I did...
but what I'm getting at by all this, is that no one I ever worked for
expected anyone to help them out of a tough spot. Men and women worked
hard, made long days and each and everyone of them had learned by bard
experience that if they got stuck in the mud or a snowdrift they had
to dig themselves out or they could stay there. The Government wasn't
cuddling people and giving to them and making them spineless then.
In 1870 the farmers in Ohio bad a wonderful crop of wheat. And they
needed every cent they could get. They worked hard. Even the women
and children cutting and setting up the wheat in stocks of twelve
bundles each. Then came most two weeks of rainy weather. The whole
crop was almost a total loss for every kernel of wheat had a sprout
on it. They never asked or expected the Government or anyone else to
help them out. In 1873, when I was in Akron working on a large farm
the crops were entirely eaten up by grasshoppers. They even ate
the cotton lining all out of my vest when I left it on a rail fence.
Not a farmer thought of the Government helping him out. In 1876
I was working on a large tobacco farm in Northfield, Massachusetts,
side of the Connecticut river. The man I worked for had sixteen
acres. He kept four men by the month and several more by the day.
It cost a lot of money to raise and care for and fertilize sixteen
acres of tobacco. It was already to harvest in one or two days.
Then came a hail storm and every leaf of that tobacco was riddled.
The loss was ten thousand dollars but the man took it and didn't
Christallel Kidder Assignment: Harvard
(6)
Title: Living Lore Topic: A Yankee Roamer Speaks
His Mind
expect the Government to help
C:Fr. Savage paused, then pounding the table dramatically, shouted
"There's just three things that make men greatlintuition, honesty and
initiative and our Government has taken those virtues away from
millions of laboring men and from thousands of business men. Now
you take this Social Security thing and the Old Age Pension. It ain't
right. It'll take all the initiative and git-up-and-git out of young
folks. If they know they'll have something to lean on when they're
old, they won't work and believe me, a man who doesn't work for it,
-shouldn't get it.
"There's an old saying that a man is the architect of his life and
believe me) it's the truth. For a long contented life, first of all
you have to work hard, be honest, honest to yourself, toward others
and to God. The success of life isn't just accumulating the almighty
dollar, but to be independent and able to look every man in the face
and say, I don't need anybody's help. I can do it myself.' That's
what's the matter with the young people today. They can't do it
and they don't seem to care.
"But Frederick there's a great many people today who can't help
being in the position they're in. It isn't their fault if they're out
of work and have to depend on others. de sho-Lad be sorry...." little
ijrs. Savage's quiet refined voice was drowned out by a blast from
her husband.
"hell, who said I wasn't sorry for then. _Course I'm sorry
for the poor fools. I don't mean its their fault that is not
-Name: Christabel Kidder
Title: Id-vinkLoi.4
(7)
Assignment: Harvard
Topic: A. Yankee Roamer Sneaks
HIS Mini
entirely. They just didn't use their heads getting tied up with unions
and crying for government aid. I don't believe in unions never saw
any good in 'em and never belonged to one in my life. And Hell, I don't
believe in the Government feeding the men and their families when they're
out of work by their own will. It's got so no man can sell his labor
for what its worth without joining a union. You hear a lot of talk about
things being un-American. By God, that's un-American if anything is.
And it's un-American for Washington to be telling the business men what
to do and how to do it. America isn't a free country anymore like it
was when I was young and when people not only supported themselves but
the Government too. I tell you if a man will work and not avoid it and
will economize, he'll get along.
"Let me tell you about my aunt Lucy Bancroft Thatcher. She was a
widow and boarded with my grandfather, Captain C. T. Thatcher for many
-years. She was fine woman and liked by everybody. She had a big
correspondence and wrote hundreds of letters every year and never bought
even one envelope. She used to open the envelopes she received very
carefully turn them wroniside out and paste them together with glue
and have them all ready to put her letters in to send away. No one ever
saw her use a match to light a lamp or a candle. She made lamp lighters
out of her old letter twisting them into little short sticks. She kept
a stack of them on the mantle in the parlor and in the kitchen.
"You don't find such women today. Sometimes I figure they're
getting crazier every year. Now you take a woman moving into a new
house. Ninety-nine out of a hundred wouldn't think of moving into a
house unless it has hard wood floors. Then what do they do Hell,
(8)
Name: Christabel Kidder
Title: Living Lore
Assignment: Harvard
Topic: A Yankee Roamer Speaks
His Mind
they rush out like the devil's after them to buy fancy rugs to cover
the floors all up. And they're always bellowing about lots of air and
sunsnine and then they put draperies up and pull down the shades for
fear the sun'll fade the rugs and tie curtains. Hell: And they all
belong to a lot of clubs where they're supposed to do a lot of
intellectual talking and listening and what do they do when they get
home. Discuss the latest world situation or now to bring up their
kids? Not on your life. The damn fools can only tell you what some
other woman had on and now they wish they could have the same thing.
"You know whatQf. Savage leaned forward holding my eye with
a scorching look and dropping his vabe lower, pronounced solemnly.]
eVnat this world needs is more thought of God. I was born in
Northfield, the same town as Dwight Moody. I heard him preach when
I was seventeen. He said it was good for a man to walk with God
and I've always remembered it. I try to live right each day look to
God for guidance. I tell you you may be smart enough to fool people
but you can't fool yourself or God, for he's given each one of ua a
conscience, and for your own good and the good of others, use it.
"Travel mane see God much clearer than I ever did before.
Only a great Power that we can't comprehend could make the Grand Canyon
or Mount Power. When I used to sit up on the cliff in the Mission Hill
Garden and see the Pacific all so blue and look up Mission Valley for
some forty miles and across the valley to the mountains I knew there
was a God and he was a good God. I sit for hours sometimes and think
(9)
Name: Christabel Kidder
Title: Diving Lore
Assignment: Harvard
Topic: A Yankee Roamer Speaks
His Mind
of God and I'm thankful for his Loving care and know that His hand
is everywhere."
Eihs. Savage's rapid transition from dogmatic blustering to this
solemn thoughtfulness left us gasping. Before we could collect our
wits, a neighbor drove into the yard with a load of wood. In an
instant Mr. Savage was on hip feet and out the door swearing a streak.
Mrs. Savage running after him with a warm coat and hat was lost in the
bedlam. The interview was apparently over for this time.