The Vermont watchman. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1883-1911, 1885-07-22

causes which have enlisted our sympa-
thes and called forth our exertions.
We leave the editorial chair cherishing
only feelings of personal goodwill for
those with whom we have differed or
whom we have opposed. Our conduct
may at times have been somewhat i'm
petuous, but it has been imbued with
feeling of genuine respect for an open
and manly antagonist, as it has quite
uniformly been characterized by candor
and frankness in the treatment of dis
ingenious opponents. After the fight
we have been ready to shake hands
with those whom we have encountered
in the lists. We reckon to-day, among
the men whom we meet on terms of
goodfellowship and mutual esteem, some
of those against whom we have waged,
on public grounds, stout opposition, but
who have never been the objects of
personal enmity or petty resentment.
THE WATCHMAN has believed in
Vermont. 1t has sought to guard her
interests, to procure the adoption of
progressive laws and the practice of
uplifting methods In the courses it
has chosen, the men it has supported
or opposed, the measures it has sus-
tanned or resisted, it has been guided
by conclusions honestly and independ-
emily formed. 1t has pursued its work
with a zeal and enthusiasm that,
not infrequently, have drawn fervor and
endurance from the obstacles, natural
or artificial, which have sometimes
encountered the way. The schools
and agriculture, the moral force and
the material means of the states
growth, have, in a particular manner,
appealed to our support. If to these
and related matters, rather than to par
tisan politics and remoter themes, we
have generally given precedence, it
has been because we have deemed
them of paramount importance to the
welfare of the people of the state. The
causes in which we have labored have
right and justice on their side. In
what particulars they have not yet pre-
vailed, they have time in their favor.
In the end they will assuredly triumph
in the conflict with the inertia of
time-honored CUSTOMS" individual
selfishness and prejudice, corporate
power or organized obstruction and re-
preston. Disseminated, Vermont will
begin to forge ahead. Her schools will
be reconstructed and revivified, her
waste places cultivated, her produc-
tiveness accelerated and her young
men will be encouraged to abide in the
state and contribute to her increasing
glory and prosperity.
THE WATCHMAN has sharply re-
scented the assaults, at home and abroad,
upon Senator Edmunds. The PROPOSE
ton to thrust out of the United States
senate the first statesman of the nation,
who is always and everywhere true
Vermonter, who has made his state the
superior in congress of the largest
and most powerful of the common
wealths of the Union, who has given to
Vermont ga local habitation and a
name " throughout the civilized world
this proposition, for reasons so trivial
that men hang their heads for shame
when they hear them uttered by local
implacables, egged on by foreign jour
nals-the agents of personal revenge
and ambition, is astounding, not merely
for its impudence but for the wrong
andinjury it is proposed to do, under the
guise of a pretended popular demand,
to the state of Vermont, to the republic
can party and to the whole Nation.
We have no fear that majority, or any
considerable portion of the citizens of
Vermont, will encourage the suicidal
scheme by their countenance or their
ballots.
We received from our predecessor an
important political trust. THE WATCH
MAN assisted to form the national re-
publican party. 1t has been the recog-
nized exponent of the principles of that
party. Its political discussions have
been conducted upon high plane. 1t
has never meddled with the pcttiness
of partisan politics. 1t has dared to be
liberal and Independent; to lead, not to
follow, public opinion; to show all sides
of political questions without producing
confusion of ideas among reasonably in
telligent and candid readers, or without
mourning the charge of heresy. We
have endeavored to maintain the high
political character of the paper. THE
WATCDIAN's constituency is intelli-
gent and discerning. They would not
respect or sustain us if we had deceived
them in political or any other matters.
If we have been more frank and candid
with our readers than some ardent Jour
nails which have been visiting maledic-
tons upon our head, we have not been
wanting in loyalty to the republican party
or in regard for its best interents. Our
readers, if not our critics, understand