The Vermont watchman. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1883-1911, 1884-12-31
Notes and Notions.

PROVIDENCE JOURNALS: cit is said
that farming does not pay. But who
ever hears of farmer failing? The
Rhode Island farmer lives, as a rule, in
comfort. He is as independent as man
can be in world where we are all, to
some extent, mutually dependent. His
industry is represented, not in the in
crease of another's wealth, but of his
own. In some respects farmers life
may be hard, but even in the city there
is no royal road to riches"
New YORK SUN: Mr.. Blaine's
friends continue to abuse the president,
but they seek to show that he is luke
warm as a protectionist, rather than
that he was lukewarm as a supporter of
Mr.. Blaine. They are sure that Mr..
Arthur didn't strain himself to help
Mr.. Blaine, but they feel that it will be
discreet not to excite Mr.. Chandler,
since that bold tar has announced his
intention of shivering his timbers and
raising the biggest kind of a hurrah's
nest if President Arthur's course dur
ing the campaign isn't spared by Mr..
Blaine's people. A continuation of
the row between Chandler and Jones is
not desired by Mr.. Blaine. 1t wouldn't
conduce to harmony. But perish har-
mony! What is harmony to fun? The
republican party wouldn't be in so
healthy a condition as it is if it didn't
have little sociable spat once in a
while to improve its circulation. Be-
sides, it has no particular use for har-
mony till next year, when it will try
again to elect governor of this state"
GENERAL SHERMAN came one thou
sand miles to attend the meeting of
the New England Society in New York
on Forefathers' day. He responded to
the toast, :" Our Country" Reaching
the war of the rebellion, in the course
of his remarks he said: " | wish to i'm
press upon the young men here that
the civil war was imposed upon us; that
the people of the South did not want
civil war. 1t was imposed upon them
by the leaders who sat in the hall at
Washington. If, from the beginning of
the world to the present day, there ever
was conspiracy, the conspiracy in the
winter of lS60-61 in Washington was
damnable conspiracy-and 1 speak it
with knowledge, because l myself was
then citizen of a southern state-and
so it continued until the firing upon
Fort Sumpter, when it assumed the
character of a rebellion, and remained
so to the close. We have fought with
our foreign enemies and with our
selves, and have conquered in every in
stance. We have a right to toast our
country in all its aspects and rest Sc
cure in the possession of a country
grand in its proportions, beautiful in
all its details, magnificent in its past
and present history. We may sing and
say, Our country, it is of thee we
sing"
GOVERNOR LONG is one of the
brightest and ablest men in Massa-
chusetts. His speeches have an I'M
conventional freshness and vigor that
make them delightful reading, but the
pleasure the types impart is tame in
deed compared with the breezy exhila-
ration which the governors oratory
inspires. Responding to the toast
Forefather's Day." at the meeting in
New York last week, the governor dis
covered in Roger Williams =" the origi-
nal mugwump." Pleasantly and Sc
robustness are picturesquely mingled in
the following extract from his speech:
"Never since Moses led the children of
Israel to the promised land has there been a
grander event than the voyage of the May
flower and the landing of the Pilgrim
fathers, two hundred siXty-four years ago.
How narrowly and mistakingly we do in
justice to the men and women of the May
flower when we speak OF them as refugees
from personal annoyances. They were
neither Puritans nor Prosecutors they were
poets, idealists, glad children of the light,
seeking more light, warm with faith and
the spirit of adventure You say there was
no sOftness in their life. You forget that
the Pilgrims was the first New England
home. They We're separatists; they broke
away altogether from the church and estab-
lished new one of their own. They were
the evangelists OF civil and religious liberty.
No Puritans they, but great, warm-hearted
liberals, welcoming all sorts of people, even
Roger Williams, the original mugwump,
when, like true mugwump, restless at first,
soon tired of his own freedom, returned
to the fold, as all mugwumps sooner or later
do return and was taken back as the toler-
ant fold always does take them back Miles
Standish is the prototype of Grant and Sher-
man. Our constitutional liberty and law
are the flowers of their compact. There Is
to-day not radical footprint that may not
be traced to them, and scarce an industrial
issue that is not the result of their honest
toll and good sense. The recent election of
an Irish-born Catholic as mayor of Boston
is only an outgrowth of their liberalism,
that welcomed all men on the ground of
good citizenship. Our government, the
securost in the world, developing always
new power to meet every new demand of
its stupendous growth, is only an extersion
OF their democracy. Let us all do on duty
as faithfully as they did theirs and as con-
they did that liberty is better than repres-
sion and that the self-governme mt of free
and educated people, whatever its occa-
sional vicissitudes, will not and cannot fail"