‘Brain drain’ is as old as Maine

A century ago, Maine didn’t know whether to boast or lament that 200,000 of its sons and daughters lived in other states. Some had accomplished great things. Maine was seventh in the nation in the number of listings in “Who’s Who” even though it was only 30th in population. More than two-thirds of these native celebrities lived elsewhere, according to an analysis in the Bangor Daily Commercial on March 15, 1906.

The perennial fear that Maine is losing its best and brightest residents to other parts of the country – the “brain drain” problem – is almost as old as the state. Well before the Civil War, thousands of Mainers began heading west looking for cheap, fertile farmland, gold mines or other opportunities. The Pine Tree State’s population growth failed to keep up with the rest of the nation beginning in the 1830s, and the population actually declined during the Civil War decade. By 1900, the state’s delegation to the U.S. House of Representatives had decreased by half, from eight to four representatives, a reflection of Maine’s shrinking national presence.

Many Mainers worried about the impact of this trend on the economy. In 1906, however, a few of the state’s boosters thought they saw reason for optimism. Maine’s population was increasing a bit faster than it had been. For one thing, fewer natives were leaving for the West, these observers noted.

“The Western boomer is not of late a familiar figure in our midst,” William T. Haines, a future governor from Waterville, told members of the Maine State Board of Trade on that March 15 a century ago. His talk was optimistically titled “The Rising Industrial Tide in Maine.”

Ironically, the trade board was holding its meeting that day in Boston at the new clubhouse of the State of Maine Club on Beacon Hill. Located near the Massachusetts Capitol, it was a symbol of the flight of bright young men and women from Maine to the big city. Its Massachusetts membership reportedly had been capped at 500 because so many refugees from Maine wanted to join.

The flow of people to the West may have decreased, but it certainly hadn’t stopped, nor would it. A telling headline in the Bangor Daily Commercial on Nov. 1, 1905, for example, reported “Quoddy Folks Go West: Party of 45 from Washington County Towns Left Tuesday for California to Reside.” The railroad had provided a Pullman sleeper car for their comfort at least as far as Chicago. These “excursionists,” mostly from Lubec, were reportedly planning to purchase land to raise fruit or to work in the fruit canneries.

Every week or so, the Bangor papers ran stories about Maine men who had gotten rich out West. The obituary of Amos Roberts on April 2, 1906, was one example. Roberts, “a California pioneer and man of affairs,” had left Bangor in 1852 in the California Gold Rush. He had made and lost several fortunes working as a miner, a clerk, a hotel owner, a sheriff, a sheep breeder and a financial speculator. Two sisters still lived in Bangor. Stories like these still fueled enthusiasm for the journey west as the 20th century dawned.

There was another problem besides Western migration facing Maine. Investment capital was heading West as well, complained William T. Haines in his speech. Instead of investing their money in business endeavors here, rich Mainers were investing in gold mines and cattle ranches. “We have the Colorado gold mine schemers still with us in a greater or lesser degree,” chided Haines.

This trend can be traced in the newspapers as well. On March 7, 1904, the Bangor Daily News reported on the doings of the Mountain Meadow Mining Co. in Crystal, Colo. Two of its owners, former Bangor-area men Col. James T. Stewart and ex-Mayor W. Porter Nelson had come to Bangor to attend a meeting of the mine’s board of directors. Half the mine was owned by the flamboyant Bangor politician Flavius O. Beal and other Bangor men.

More than a year later, on Jan. 24, 1906, a story appeared reporting how Beal and some other businessmen, including County Attorney Hervey H. Patten, had just returned from California where they had been looking over the Big Creek Gold Mining Co. for possible investment.

The BDN was thoroughly disgusted by this Westering obsession. In an editorial titled “Maine Is Good Enough,” the paper complained, “Our state has been drained of money and men by many advertising promoters. We have peopled California and Oregon and Kansas and Iowa with our sons and daughters. We have lost millions in Western farm mortgages and in various inflated schemes for getting rich quickly. In our opinion, it is time to stop and carry on a little homemade thinking.”

A factor definitely giving Maine’s population a small boost at the beginning of the 20th century was the tide of immigration sweeping the nation. Too often the natives took foreign workers for granted or ridiculed them. But William T. Haines recognized the value of immigrants to Maine.

“I may say that our population is today as cosmopolitan in its character and makeup as that of any state in the nation,” said Haines. “In any crew of men at work in our numberless industries may be found the native stock, the French, the Irish, the Scandinavian, the German, the Russian, the Swede, the Italian and the Dane, while the Armenian, Syrian and Greek have found our climate and conditions favorable to their existence.”

Nobody today would call Maine’s population cosmopolitan. The percentage of immigrants here has shrunk precipitously compared to the nation. But back in 1906, men such as Haines knew the value of foreign workers, even though many Mainers were uncomfortable having too many of them around then as now.

Wayne E. Reilly can be reached at wreilly@bangordailynews.net.