The Negotiator

by George Mitchell

  Edmund Muskie broke the Republican dominance in Maine. He was elected governor in 1954, reelected in 1956, and then was elected to the U.S. Senate and reelected four times. Today the state is about evenly balanced and politically competitive: about a third of the voters are registered as Democrats, about a third are Republican, and a third are unenrolled Independents. Currently one U.S. senator is a Republican, and the other is an Independent, and one member of the House of Representatives is a Democrat, the other a Republican.

  In Maine, as in much of the country, the years between the Civil War and World War I can be summed up in two words: industrialization and immigration. The two were closely related. The textile industry—cotton and woolen mills—thrived wherever there was an ample supply of water and of labor; Maine had the water, and after the mills came, so did the labor. Dozens of textile mills sprang up on Maine’s rivers, and thousands of immigrants came to work in them: Irish, Italian, German, Swedish, Russian. But by far the largest number came from Canada, almost all of them French Canadians from Quebec. They settled in the industrial cities where the textile mills were: Lewiston, Biddeford, Sanford, Waterville. Some of them went to smaller, newer cities, like Millinocket, Rumford, and Westbrook, where the paper mills were also going up.

  Once it became feasible to industrially mass-produce paper out of wood, it was inevitable that Maine would become a center of papermaking. With over 90 percent of its land area forested, with large, fast-flowing rivers to generate electricity to power the mills and move the logs, and with a poor, rural economy desperately in need of steady jobs, Maine must have looked like heaven on earth to the makers of paper.

  WATERVILLE

  As the Kennebec River flows south to the Atlantic Ocean it drops sharply at several places. These natural falls, which create turbulence in the water, apparently were responsible for the river’s name. It was written “Quinebequi” by Samuel de Champlain, the French colonizer of North America who explored and charted much of the Maine coast. This was the French spelling of an Indian word that meant monsters, or dragons, which were presumed to inhabit the river and cause the rough waters at the falls. One of the falls, located between the modern communities of Waterville and Winslow, came to be known as Ticonic Falls, after the Indian settlement that once existed there.

  In 1754 a British military officer, John Winslow, established the first white settlement in the area. He built a fort at the juncture of the Sebasticook and Kennebec rivers and gave it a famous English name: Fort Halifax. The fort provided some measure of protection against Indian raids. Gradually more and more white settlers sank their roots into the fertile valleys on both sides of the Kennebec. In 1771 the town of Winslow was incorporated. The area on the west side of the river continued to be known as Ticonic until 1802, when it was separately incorporated as the town of Waterville. Until well into the nineteenth century Waterville was inhabited almost exclusively by Protestant Americans of English heritage. The first French immigrant came in 1827. Those who followed congregated at the southern end of the town, an area called “The Plains.” The number of French immigrants increased sharply just before the turn of the century. By 1900, according to one account, fully 45 percent of the city’s population was of French heritage. They, and smaller contingents of immigrants from other countries, transformed Waterville into a microcosm of the melting pot that America had become. One of those other groups, much smaller, numbering only a few hundred, huddled on the banks of the Kennebec River. They were known as the Syrians.

  THE LEBANESE

  Sometime in the late 1880s, probably in 1888, a young man named Abraham Joseph left the village of Choueir in Lebanon and came to the United States. He made his way to Bangor, Maine, where he earned a living as a peddler, selling clothing door to door. He peddled his way south to Waterville, where he stayed and opened a store, apparently the first Lebanese immigrant to settle there. Soon relatives and others from his native village, and nearby villages, followed. By the time the first restrictive immigration laws were enacted in the 1920s, there were about three hundred Lebanese immigrants and members of their families in Waterville. They settled there because they could find work.

  Around the turn of the century Waterville was the fastest-growing city in Maine, growing from a rural town to a small industrial center. In 1876 the Lockwood-Duchess cotton mill opened; in 1900 the Riverview (later Wyandotte) Worsted woolen mill; in 1892 the Hollingsworth and Whitney paper mill in Winslow. Waterville became a rail center as well, with the expansion of Maine Central Railroad’s maintenance and repair shop. Immigrants from Lebanon streamed into the factories. Although the work in the textile mills was hard, hot, noisy, and low-paying, to most of the immigrants it provided a level of income previously unimaginable and, above all else, the chance to become an American. In addition to the two textile mills in Waterville, there were several others (as many as a dozen at the industry’s peak) in the Central Maine area. It was common practice for workers to move from one mill to another as work at one slowed down and work at another picked up. My mother worked at most of the mills at one time or another. Today there are no textile mills in the area.

  The three hundred immigrants from the Middle East and their families living in Waterville in the 1920s were known as Syrians. They did not describe themselves as Lebanese, nor did anyone else, until later, when the independent nation of Lebanon was created. Over time, as a Lebanese identity became established in the Middle East, the name began to be used more frequently in this country and the name Syrian fell into disuse.

  SEEING MAINE

  In 1938, just before we moved from Head of Falls to Front Street, a major event occurred in our lives: my father bought a car. Although it was an old 1929 Chevrolet, for us it was an unbelievable luxury. He kept the car for just a few years, until gas rationing began during World War II, and then he had to sell it. Many years then passed before he bought another car. But for the few years he owned the old Chevy, a window opened for us. For the first time I traveled outside of Waterville.

  I do not recall my parents ever taking a trip while I was growing up, what I would now call a vacation. They had time off, of course, but that was usually spent working on or around the house. Once in a while during the summer, however, in the few years that he owned the old Chevy, my father took us to visit other places in Maine. These were always day trips, never overnight, and my mother prepared and brought along all the food we would need.

  I vividly recall three places my parents took me to see: Moosehead Lake, Bar Harbor, and the Maine coast in the Belfast area. Moosehead Lake is Maine’s largest inland lake. It was then about a three-hour drive north from Waterville. What I remember about that trip is that I was car sick all the way, so it seemed to me to take about three days. From that day until very much later in life, I was unable to read in a moving automobile without getting dizzy, and I always thought of the trip to Moosehead Lake. Finally, after entering the Senate, out of necessity I forced myself to read in the car, at least briefly, but I still can’t do so for more than a few minutes at a time.

  The other two trips also made lasting impressions on me, but they were positive. Bar Harbor is located on Mount Desert Island, now about a two-hour drive from Waterville. My father wanted to show it to us, along with the adjacent Acadia National Park. It was my first view of the Island, which since has become an important part of my life.

  Belfast is a small city on the Maine coast, about an hour’s drive from Waterville. My father liked to visit it because there was an outdoor pool nearby where we kids could swim, and just to the south, along Route 1, was Lincolnville Beach, a local public beach right on the ocean (not a common thing on that part of the Maine coast, north of Portland). Just to the north is the small town of Stockton Springs. There, on the west bank of the mouth of the Penobscot River, is a place called Fort Point, where a lighthouse stands. As lighthouses go, it is not an especially impressive structure, being short and relatively squat. But when my father took me there it was the fir
st lighthouse I’d ever seen. It made a powerful impression.

  The first lighthouse in the United States was built in Boston Harbor in 1716. In all over 1,200 have been built in this country, along the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, the Great Lakes, and the Gulf of Mexico. But Maine is the Lighthouse State—an unofficial title, self-proclaimed, but deserved nonetheless. More than sixty lighthouses guard our rugged coast, from Kittery to Calais. The people of Maine, myself included, have a powerful emotional attachment to lighthouses. We’re not alone. For many people these structures serve chiefly as romantic reminders of a time past, a time before radar, sonar, and on-ship electronics combined to diminish the need for sailors to use lighthouses to navigate safely.

  But there was a time when lighthouses served an important role, when the building and operating of lighthouses as aids for rendering safe and easy navigation of any bay, inlet, harbor, or port in the United States was one of the principal activities of the federal government. One of the very first undertakings of the first Congress, which organized on April 6, 1789, was to officially launch America’s lighthouse system. In July of that year Representative Elbridge Gerry of Massachusetts introduced legislation that called for the establishment and support of navigational aids. It was passed by the House on July 20, amended by the Senate on July 31, and signed into law by President Washington on August 7, 1789. The act created a federal role in the support, maintenance, and repair of all lighthouses, beacons, bridges, and public piers necessary for safe navigation; it also commissioned the first federal lighthouse. It was our nation’s first public works law.

  For most people the term public works project means highways, bridges, dams, and public buildings, but two hundred years ago they included—prominently—lighthouses. As the first secretary of the Treasury, Alexander Hamilton was responsible for the care and superintendence of the lights. He took this responsibility seriously. Many orders and contracts concerning the lighthouse service were personally approved by Hamilton, George Washington and Thomas Jefferson.

  The value of lighthouses to the development of maritime shipping and transportation in our country can never be measured. Countless ships have made safe passage off our shores and on our lakes because of the beams of light from the towers standing at land’s end. The architectural beauty of these structures cannot be fully appreciated without recognition of the skill of the engineers and workers who built them in what were often hazardous places and against almost insurmountable odds. Nor do most of us comprehend and appreciate the sacrifices made by the lighthouse keepers and their families. They devoted—and in some cases jeopardized—their lives for the safety of others. Lighthouse duty was difficult: lonely, boring for long periods of time, and dangerous in times of crisis. For two centuries these impressive structures and the men and women who served at them have come to symbolize stoicism, heroism, duty, and faithfulness—characteristics that Americans admire in themselves and in others.

  In 1989 the Coast Guard completed the automation of lighthouses. One of the last to be automated was the Portland Head Light. Located in Cape Elizabeth, just south of Portland, it is one of the most beautiful and most photographed lighthouses in the country. Protecting mariners against the rock-bound coast of Maine, it is a superb example of the grace and beauty of lighthouses.

  Unfortunately that beauty is endangered. As automation has progressed, more and more lighthouses have been left without keepers, easy targets for vandalism and damage caused by erosion and storms. That is why in 1988 I introduced legislation to establish a Bicentennial Lighthouse Fund. Timed for the two-hundredth anniversary of the federal government’s establishment of a lighthouse construction and maintenance program, it provided limited federal funds that, when joined with state and privately donated funds, have been used to repair and preserve lighthouses throughout the nation. Many lighthouses were already listed in the National Register of Historic Places; the legislation authorized a survey of others, which resulted in several more being included in the Register. It was a modest bill, one of the least noted pieces of legislation I authored while serving in the Senate, but it was one that brought me great pleasure and is a warm memory.

  When I was notified that the president had signed the bill into law, my mind returned to the summer day many years ago, when I stood with my father before the Fort Point Lighthouse. As he did with other subjects, he had read up on this one, and he described to me what lighthouses were, what they did, how the lights worked, and the history of this particular light. He loved knowledge for its own sake, and he loved sharing it with us for our sake. As I reflected about that day, I thought my father would have approved of my effort to preserve the lighthouses.

  BOWDOIN

  One of the luckiest days in my life was the day I first walked onto the campus of Bowdoin College. My parents knew the hard life of those who lacked learning, so their central goal in life was the education of their children. But in my senior year in high school, because of my father’s unemployment, there was little talk of my going to college.

  One day that spring my father told me that he had received a call from the man who ran the division at the utility where my father had previously worked. His name was Hervey Fogg; he had asked that I go to see him. Neither my father nor I knew what it was about, but I went because my father felt it would not be polite to decline. Although I did not know Mr. Fogg, it soon became clear that all he wanted was to help me. He told me that he had gone to Bowdoin College and he encouraged me to consider it. He assured me that it wasn’t too late to be admitted that year. In fact, he said, he had already set up an appointment for me with the director of admissions.

  A week later I set off for Brunswick. I was sixteen years old, had traveled little outside of Waterville, had never been on a train or a plane. My mother made several sandwiches, which I carried with me. My parents didn’t own a car then, so I got up very early in the morning and walked to the outskirts of Waterville to hitchhike to Brunswick. Within minutes I got a ride, and the driver took me right to the campus. Since I was several hours early for my appointment, I walked back and forth across the grounds, memorizing the name and location of every building. Then I went to the Office of Admissions to meet the director, Bill Shaw. Although I was very nervous and felt out of place, he was kind and thoughtful. When I told him that my parents couldn’t afford to pay my tuition, he was reassuring. “Don’t worry,” he said. “If you’re willing to work, we’ll figure something out.” He ultimately admitted me and then helped me with several part-time jobs that enabled me to get through college.

  Many others also helped me. One of them was Mal Morrell, the director of athletics. Although I was not a very good basketball player, Mal treated me as though I were an All-American. I think he initially confused me with my brother Robbie, who really was an all-star. I’m sure Mal figured it out after he watched me play a few games. Still he encouraged me and he arranged a succession of jobs for me, one of which was driving a truck for the Morrell family business, still operating in Brunswick.

  I had just gotten my driver’s license, had only driven a car a few times, and had never driven a truck. On my very first morning of work, a foreman asked me if I could drive. When I said I could, he pointed to a large flatbed truck parked nearby and said, “Take that truck up to the cement plant in Thomaston, pick up a load of cement, and bring it back here.” I looked at the truck, gulped, walked over to it, and climbed up into the cab. I had never been in a truck. I looked at the dashboard, the gear shift, and tried quickly to figure out how to operate it. It seemed like seconds to me, but the pause must have been longer because the foreman yelled, “Are you okay?” “Oh, yes,” I assured him, as my heart raced and my hands got sweaty, “no problem.” It took me quite a while to back the truck out of the yard and onto the street. It was a terrifying experience to drive that huge flatbed truck fifty miles up the Maine coast on U.S. Route 1, a very busy highway, to Thomaston. There the truck was loaded up with dozens of ninety-pound bags of cement, and I t
hen drove it safely back down to Brunswick. One of my proudest accomplishments at Bowdoin was that I got through four years without wrecking any of Morrell’s vehicles or equipment.

  I had many other jobs that kept me busy and enabled me to earn enough money to get through. In my sophomore and junior years I was the steward of the Sigma Nu fraternity house, managing all of its operations; my compensation was free meals for those two years. In my senior year I moved from the fraternity house to a dormitory, where I served as a proctor; my compensation was a free room for that year. Most important, for three years I had the concession for the basketball program. At home games every person entering the gym was handed a free program. I sold advertising space in the program to local businesses and arranged for the printing and distribution of the programs. I did well in sales and in controlling costs, so the profit margin was high; that covered most of my tuition payments.

  I also worked every summer and was able to save enough to cover the rest of my tuition. Most difficult was the summer of 1953, between my junior and senior years, when I worked two full-time jobs. From eleven in the evening until seven in the morning I worked as a night watchman at the paper mill located just across the river from our home. Then, from seven-thirty in the morning until three-thirty in the afternoon, I worked on construction on what was then the new Colby College campus. Colby was originally located near downtown Waterville, just a few hundred yards from our home on Front Street. In the late 1940s and early 1950s the college moved to its present location on Mayflower Hill, on the outskirts of town. My primary job that summer was to build a large terraced lawn in front of Foss Hall, a women’s dormitory. I still feel a sense of pride in “my lawn” every time I drive past it on my way across the Colby campus. It was hard, hot, heavy work. I had been working from an early age, but this was much more difficult than anything I’d ever experienced. There was no baseball, no book reading that summer. I struggled to fall asleep in the late afternoons and early evenings, and then struggled to stay awake on the job at night.