Orleans County monitor. [volume] (Barton, Vt.) 1872-1953, 1888-09-03
Tom. O'Sullivan's TRADE Against
Vermont Wool and Vermont
Wooden Manufactures.

Some days since, L. Z. O'SulhVan,
democratic nominee for lieutenant
governor, made a campaign stumping
tour through this section of the state
which was in many respects remarka-
BILE. A man with some brains, quick
at repartee, handy with rhetorical
phrase and somewhat pleasing in adj
dress, it would not really be expected,
inasmuch as he is considered the Sec
ond best democrat in the state, by
virtue of the position assigned him
by the Hiram Atkins convention, that
he would discuss questions fairly and
wisely. In fact, he began his re-
marks with the promise that his dis
cussion should be fair and truthful.
If he had stuck to his purpose, as he
declared in the outset, we would
make no comments on his effort.
His introduction ended, he startled
his wondering audience by the astound-
ing and tremendous assertion that
the national debt of the United States
(S1, 200, 000) is so great that Methu-
selah could not have counted it, had
he counted all the days of his life.
Now, "Tom" is a schoolmaster-
head professor in the Catholic school
at Burlington-and of course is as
familiar with figures as with politics,
to say the least. But there was a
slight mistake in computation, which
the schoolboy will ascertain with his
pencil in q few minutes. The fact is
Uncle Methuselah would have count
ed up the amount of the debt and had
time enough left to have run for lieu
tenant-governor, on the democratic
side in Vermont. 40 times, and got
left every time. Such are figures.
Having thus prepared the minds of
his hearers for the stupendous things
in democratic political economy, he
approached the question, which of all
others, he claimed to be the most ia
miliar with, viz: the wool question.
After drinking with great flourish
something from a tumbler, which he
claimed to be Ethe pure democratic
beverage" he proceeded to tackle the
wool and wooden business, and at
tempted to show thing that nobody
except democratic ''tariff reformer"
ever attempted, viz: That the
price of wool in this country would
be increased by the free importation
of cheap foreign wool; that Vermont
and New England manufactures were
chiefly engaged in making shoddy
cloths, and that the wool of Vermont
was unfit for the making of goods
such as respectable men and women
would care to purchase and to wear.
Claiming to have been an employee in
the wooden mills at Winooski, VT,
and to be familiar with that industry
inferred that the cloths made there, as
elsewhere, were shoddy, land conveyed
the idea that the employees in those
mills were working at unremunerative
wages, and that their employers were
growing rich. Meanwhile, pathetic
picture was presented to the minds of
the hearers of a poor old man, who
had years ago purchased a cottage
and had applied his earnings from
year to year to meet his interest and
cancel his debt. When, alas as Tom
discovered by looking the notes over,
only the interest had been met. On
the other hand, the palatial home of
the manufacturer was described, and
the painful contrast was pictured be-
tween the employer and employee
The eloquent campaigner had taken a
trip of some length through the state,
and in eagerly searching for sheep,
had seen but one sheep and one lamb,
a most cogent argument, as he claim
ed, that sheep raising did not pay in
Vermont. Arriving at the little vii
lage of Craftsbnry, the speaker made
a discovery. Here on one of the wa
terfalls he found a small wooden fac
tory, where a man was engaged in