Cape needs to act now for the future

BY JIM MORSE

1932 and 1933 were perhaps the worst years of the Great Depression, with unemployment reaching almost 25% (for comparison, unemployment just before Covid and since recovery has been between 3.5% and 4.2%), hundreds of “Hooverville” shantytowns appearing around the country, and no sign that things were going to get better.

That was the state of the world when the residents of Cape Elizabeth recognized and acted on the need for a new school. They didn’t have to take on that expense. They could have, quite reasonably, said “not now, we’re in the middle of the worst depression in a generation”.

Instead of a new school, they could have built an addition onto the Town Hall that then housed high school students. But they didn’t. In that dark time, when no one knew how long the darkness would last, Cape voters thought about their kids, and about the future, and not just about their own pain. The Cape we enjoy today is the product of their confidence in the future. The Cape of 50 years from now depends on our being as bold and forward-thinking as they were.