Vermont phÅ“nix. [volume] (Brattleboro, Vt.) 1834-1955, 1895-08-16
GOV. woodbury's Libel suit.

GOV. WOOdbury's Libel suit.
In other columns of this issue the
facts are given in regard to the libel suit
for $4,000 which Gov. Woodbury. has
brought against the Rutland Herald for
charging him with being a rumseler. For
a full understanding of the case it may be
said that the Herald's attack on GOV.
Woodbury. grew primarily out of the fact
that the governor refused to pardon Il. G..
Howe of st. Johnsbury, former hotel
keeper and owner, who was personally
man of good repute in that community,
but whose bar or drinking place was an Of
fence to public sentiment. Howe was
prosecuted, plead guilty to number of Of
fences and was sentenced to the house of
correction. When Gov. Woodbury. was
asked to pardon him he refused. Upon
this the Herald made its attack on Gov.
Woodbury., accusing him, in the language
elsewhere quoted, of being a rumseller in
the same boat with Howe, and saying in
conclusion: "Rumseller Howe has gone
out of business as landlord, and is in pris-
on. Rumseller Woodbury. continues in
business as landlord and is governor of the
state Of Vermont"
The facts of the case, as they are gen
orally understood to be, are that Gov
Woodbury. owns the Van Ness House at
Burlington, the largest hotel in the state,
and runs it through a manager, holding
himself responsible for the acts of the
manager and the other employees of the
house so far as they relate to his service.
In his personal belief and practice Gov.
Woodbury. is strictly temperance man.
There is no bar in the Van Ness House
and no liquor is kept or sold there, and
none is furnished to guests by the house.
If a guest asks for beer, wine or liquors at
table or in his room he is told that none is
supplied by the house. If he chooses to
do so, however, the guest may call bell
boy and give him money with which he
goes out of the house and gets the goods
desired. The transaction is between the
the guest and the bell-boy, no payment
ever being made to the management of
the house for any such contraband goods.
1t is understood to have been in this way
that the Herald procured, through a man
or men sent to the house FOR the purpose,
the bottles of liquor which it claims to
hold in evidence. 1t is further said that
liquors for guests are often obtained at a
drug in a building across the street
from the hotel, the building being owned
by GOV. Woodbury.
This is the substance of the case.
Whether the public opinion of the state,
the jury or the court will hold Gov. Wood
bury guiltless of moral or legal violation of
the prohbitory law, because he has not
gone to the extent of positively prohibiting
any employe of his hotel from going out
side the house to procure liquors for guests
is a question to be decided. Where the
Herald has overstepped its bounds would
seem to be in accusing Gov. Woodbury. of
being personally a rumseer. 1t is not
charged or believed by any one that he has
touched the traffic personally or that he
has profited from it pecuniarly to any ex-
tent whatever.
The governor unquestionably feels Sc
cure in his own personal motives and
therefore regards the attack of the Herald
as a gross personal outrage. More than this,
he regards it an outrage upon the state,
because the Heralds charges have been
caught up by papers outside the state, not
ably the Springfield Republican, Hartford
Courant, New York Evening Post and
New York Times, and Vermont has been
held up before the country as a state living
under professed prohibition, but with a
governor who is himself a rumseller. The
gravity of this offence all must admit. We
believe, however, that on a second sober
thought it will seem an open question
whether the governor has taken the wiser
way in bringing this suit and prolonging
the publicity instead of quietly ignoring
the attack, the animus of which is so ap
parent.
The real purpose of the Herald is not SC
much to discredit Gov. Woodbury. as tC
deal a blow at the prohibitory law, and il
is to be regretted that there is in the state
paper of strength and prominence which
for the sake of carrying a point of thi:
kind, is willing to drag the good name Of
| Vermont into the mire.