The Vermont watchman. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1883-1911, 1890-05-28


man were exhibited in providing the
WAYS and means of keeping the hungry,
ragged, unpaid continental army to-
gether AT that particular time those
qualities were of more practical ac-
count than ability to evolve system
of government or make profound and
learned speech. Statesmanship was
once displayed in Analysing our system
of government and expounding the
constitution. In the debates in con-
gress and in the civil war those ques-
tons have been quite conclusively set
tied. The qualities and intuitions of
craftsmanship were exhibited by Thad
Stevens when he found in the war
powers of the government authority to
create the greenback That was prac-
tical craftsmanship. While the pro-
fessional statesmen were haggling and
quibbling over the ways and means of
raising money to pay the troops, the
bold commoner from Pennsylvania
took cross-lots cut to the doing of the
thing. Practical craftsmanship always
gets the whiprow on the. theoretical.
Real craftsmanship does not neces-
sarily depend on college education,
nor is it the handmaiden of "cul-
ture." American history is rich in
illustrations of this fact, but citations
are not necessary. Every school-boy
can supply examples.
Colonel Hooker is great deal more
than "a jolly good fellow" He has
the elements of practical statesman
ship. He displayed them in his egis-
lative experience of 1880 and 1882,
and particularly in the latter year as
chairman of the ways and means COM
mittee. He was the moving and i'm
polling spirit in the work Of evolving
100000 of revenue annually from
sources that had before been practically
untaxed. With consummate tact,
shrewdness, hardihood and persistence
he pushed the important work of his
committee to a successful issue, and
that law is now yielding the state over
a half million dollars of revenue BIZ
ennially. Here he exhibited "quali-
ties and intuitions of craftsmanship
that very powerfully commend them
selves to the people of Vermont. Had
the present representative of the Sec
ond district, in his legislative career,
exhibited "qualities " or intuitions
of so promising character
Craftsmanship to-day means to the
farmers of Vermont, besides relief
from the burdens that Cypress them,
an equal and assured share with her
sister states in the benefits of national
legislation. They are looking for
man to represent them whose quail
ties and "intuitions are of the
kind that shall be able to extort from
the national ways and means commit
tee-in the beginning, as bottom
principle-recognition of the equality of
the maple sugar of Vermont with the
cane of Louisiana and the sorghum of
Kansas in respect of tariff legislation.
Alertness at that stage of legislation
were worth an ocean of buncombe sub
sequently. There was craftsmanship
in an assured bounty of two cents a
pound on maple sugar Colonel Hooker
has shown in his legislative history, in
his course in the incubation of the
corporation tax law, in his entire po-
litical and business career, that he pos
sesses the "qualities and "intui-
tons " of this sort of statesmanship-
and it is the sort that counts. We be-
lieve that his " intuitions" would have
taught him that not Chicago, but New
York, was both the best place for the
worlds fair and also the place in which
Vermont dairymen were most directly
interested. There were millions for
Vermont productions in worlds fair
at New York.
ciety and of congress, but we do not
believe in an exclusively lawyer dele
CATION. With scarce an exception,
since the time of Morrill,, nearly
quarter of century, Vermont's repre-
sentatives in congress have been law
yers. The representative from the
first district, whether it be Powers or
Batchelder, will be lawyer. We be-
lieve it is for the good of the whole
state that the second district send a
business man. How admirably do
Morrill, and Edmunds serve the state
and nation in the senate. Let us have
similar division of experience and
profession in the house, and to effect
this useful combination send Colonel
Hooker from the second district.
The Office of Treasurer.