Yesterday…

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10 years ago – Feb. 6, 1993

(As reported in the Bangor Daily News)

ORONO – Ross Perot has resurrected his presidential campaign as United We Stand and starts Saturday with three stops in Maine. He plans to hit the road to enlist support for his group of political gadflies.

The first leg of what promises to be several forays from Dallas will feature speeches in Orono, Rockland and Portland.

“It’s unbelievable the number of calls that have been coming to here, Rockland and Portland,” Stephen Bost, statewide director for Perot’s organization, said in a phone interview from his Bangor office.

Perot’s first stop will be in Orono at the Maine Center for the Arts. University officials are anticipating large crowds at the elegant concert hall.

“We expect to be turning them away,” said Joe Cota, events coordinator for the Maine Center. Perot will speak from the stage in Hutchins Concert Hall and video monitors will be set up at a couple of spots in the building to accommodate the overflow. The building’s capacity is 1,950.

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BANGOR – Gov. John R. McKernan will be guest speaker at the Husson College Business Breakfast Feb. 11, at the Dining Commons, One College Circle.

McKernan received his law degree in 1974, and won re-election to the Legislature, where he was chosen to serve as assistant Republican floor leader. He then served two terms in the U.S. House of Representatives and became Maine’s 70th governor in 1987, the first Republican in more than two decades to hold that office. He was re-elected governor in 1990.

25 years ago – Feb. 6, 1978

BANGOR – Details of President Jimmy Carter’s visit to Bangor on Feb. 17 have been kept under a basket to date, and it has made some city officials a bit anxious to learn more.

Mayor Arthur Brountas sent a telegram to the president last week, thanking him for selecting Bangor as a place to visit, but no reply had been received yet. Brountas said Sunday afternoon he had not heard anything more about the president’s visit. City Hall knows nothing specific either, he said, and inquiries to Sen. William D. Hathaway’s office have been cordially uninformative.

It is sure, however, that the president will visit Bangor. He will attend a $500-per-plate fund-raiser at the Penobscot County Country Club in Orono and he will attend a town meeting-type gathering at Bangor Auditorium – all this on Feb. 17.

But who gets to attend the “town meeting,” described by Democratic Party regulars as nonpolitical, is only speculative. In other presidential visits across the country, the president’s advance team has run a public lottery by advertising in local newspapers for interested people to submit their names.

Then the appropriate number of names is drawn out of the barrel and the people picked are “checked out” by the Secret Service. Democratic Party members have been busy trying to get the number of people admitted set at 2,500, but the White House has mentioned a figure closer to 600, according to local informed sources.

50 years ago – Feb. 6, 1953

BANGOR – Comparative figures are all things to all people. They aid astronomers, are the stock-in-trade of gamblers, harass high school students and promote the sale of aspirin. But when applied to the Bangor YMCA, they add up to just one thing – progress.

The YMCA program – which has grown to international proportions – was founded 100 years ago by people with an idea. A simple idea – that the principles by which Jesus lived would remake the world if translated into living actions by others on a large scale.

Two years after the Civil War drew to a bloody close a small group of Bangor people formed the local organization. In 1890 after a 23-year struggle, a rambling brick structure rose on Hammond Street where it stands today. The YMCA had a home.

In 1952 total attendance at activities climbed to a spectacular 127,487. And the figure skyrocketed to that dizzy height in a city that could muster 31,558 for the 1950 census.

Any nonprofit organization such as the YMCA finds its finances comparatively flexible. The Bangor organization is no exception. Income for 1952 was $72,583.85, but expenditures reached the $72,510.47 mark. The Community Chest provided $11,990 or 16.5 percent of the total.

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BANGOR – Nearly 2,000, or 34.2 percent more persons, visited the Maine Employment Security Commission office here last month than during the previous 30-day period. January office visits numbered 6,609 compared with 4,925 in December.

Manager George R. Rees said Thursday that 1,828 Bangor men and women were seeking part or full-time jobs at the close of January. When the month began the figure stood at 1,431. Percentage-wise the increase stands 27.7 per cent.

Rees attributed the one-month jump to recruitment of workers for an out-of-state defense industry that used extensive newspaper advertising to attract workers.

The office made 263 placements in January, one agricultural. In December nine of the 258 placements were in farm occupations. Non-farm placements were up 5.2 per cent.

Ninety-four more jobs were open at the beginning of February than on the first of the year. The Bangor office listed 703 unfilled jobs Feb. 1, as compared to the 603 openings the previous month. The increase was due largely to order for wood workers, according to the office manager.

100 years ago – Feb. 6, 1903

BREWER – While Andrew Carnegie is passing around the public libraries it might be a good plan for Brewer to hold out her hand for one. If she will provide a site and vote to raise $1,000 a year for running expenses, she can have one for the asking, value $10,000. This is an opportunity that must be taken soon or it will be lost perhaps forever.

It would be a very light burden on the taxpayers compared with the lasting benefit to the city, adding about one-fortieth to the taxes on the present basis of assessment. In other words a man who pays a tax of $100 would, in case Brewer should accept a Carnegie proposition, pay $102.50, and the average citizen who pays from $25 to $75 tax would contribute from 63 cents to $1 a year.

Here seems an opportunity for the numerous literary clubs of the city to show their strength and influence in the agitation of this most desirable innovation. Regret is often expressed that Brewer is far behind many small villages in that it has no public library.

A mere tithe of the interest and time devoted to the secret societies would in short order secure Brewer a public library which would be a lasting ornament to the city and a monument to the public spirit of the citizens.

Who will be the first to start the project?

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OLD TOWN – It has been suggested that a reform be made in the method of closing up the business of the city at the end of the year; that all reports be filed and made public before the municipal election. This is the method in other places.

The public is in the dark until the printed records appear, and a long time after election, the reports not even being given out for publication.

It is suggested that following the method of procedure in other cities that every report, from those in charge of the city departments be presented to the city council at the last regular meeting of the year. In this way the people can judge before election as to the efficiency of those in charge of departments and determine whether they should be continued in office or not.

It is probable that some action looking to a reform in this line may come up at the next meeting of the city council, as a number of the aldermen have for some time realized this loose method.

Compiled by Matt Poliquin