The Vermont watchman. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1883-1911, 1885-04-08
Justice.

Under the above title and with sugges-
tive headlines, the Washington cores
pendent of the Cincinnati Gazette comes
CALAMITY to the defence of maligned
Vermont. In justice to the facts, one
or two slight deductions should be made
from this extraordinary exhibit of this
states contributions to history and to
the Nation, and many additions might
also be made. Mr.. Evarts owns farm
in Vermont, on which he resides a
portion of the year, and he married
Vermonter. This makes the better
half, at least, of the distinguished sena-
tor of the Empire State Vermonter, and
he probably would himself have been
born in Vermont had he been consulted.
SO he is as good as Vermonter. Com
modore Foote was not Vermonter by
birth, but was at one time, we believe,
resident of the state. To the men
and deeds with which this chivalric
Buckeye brings confusion upon the de-
riders of the Green Mountain State the
Free Press adds the name of George p.
Marsh among civilians, and, among
soldiers, General Ethan Allen Hitch
cock, General William f. Smith, COM
mander of the Eighteenth Army Corps,
General Israel B. Richardson, killed at
Antietam, General George c. Strong,
who fell in the assault on Fort Wagner,
which he commanded and led, and
General William B. Hazen, who stormed
Fort McAllister at Savannah. Theoph-
illus Harrington, the judge who de-
manded {" a bill of sale from God AL
mighty" as the only evidence upon
which he would deliver fugitive slave
up to his master, is worthy, among the
men of the past, of high place in the
Gazette correspondents roll of honor;
and, among the men of the present,
Frederick Billings of Woodstock, whose
influence and eloquence were power
fully enlisted in the cause of the Union,
on the Pacific slope in the perilous
days of 1861, the sustaining spirit of
the North Pacific railway in later years
and the man of princely gifts to schools
and churches in Vermont and else
where. The following is the commu-
nication without change:
"Just now the state of Vermont is receiv-
ing good deal OF attention, and the remarks
about 1t are, for the most part, rather uncom-
plimentary, especially upon the part of the
disappointed practical politicians of the dem
ocratic school. These people, who are angry
at the selection of Mr.. Phelps for the lead
ing foreign mission, are voluble about Yer
mont greenhorns,' and we hear revived
the old sneers about Vermonters planting
corn by shooting into the cracks in the rocks
with rifle, pulling beans with tongs
sharpening sleeps noses so they can Craze
among the cobble-stones, etc., and the
courtly and scholarly Phelps is mentioned
in whitening sarcasm as a Yarmouth Yam
kee.' This is all very well as joke, but II
is, nevertheless, unjust and unfair. Yer
mont is small, and a large proportion of hel
surface is mountainous, but the fact is thai
the state has much to distinguish it, anC
il has produced more famous men, and con
tributed as much to the greatness OF the coun
try and the success of the Union as any othel
state of like area and population. A littl,
looking into the affairs of Vermont and Yer
mont history will show that her people hav,
more to be proud of, and more TO boast of
than many states twice and thrice her arei
and population. The influence Of the stat