The Vermont watchman. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1883-1911, 1895-10-09

custom of giving its senators re-elec-
ton, and alternating the change, 30
that the county had always in the SEN
ate one senator OF two years expe-
rience in legislation. But even this
oasis in the desert of rotation was
blotted out in 1892 in obedience to the
demand, not for better service to the
state, but for a wider distribution OF
the honors and emoluments of the sena-
torial office. In the house of repre-
sentatives there was, and has been
biennially since 1872, practically, clean
sweep in the membership. Efforts to
reform this vicious practice have been
unavailing. In 1882 there was vigor-
GUS agitation of the matter, and at the
republican state convention in that
year a resolution was adopted deploring
the practice and urging towns to return
representatives who had done good and
faithful service. The movement was
without appreciable results, and the
one.term custom, offspring of the bien-
NAL system, still works with the re.
morseess regularity of legislative en-.
actment.
Reform in legislation, if it comes at
all, must begin further back, and 60
deeper, than the change attempted in
1882, and now recommended by Gov
ernor Stewart. The biennial system
of elections is all right; the system of
biennial sessions of the Legislature is all
wrong. and it is right there that the
fault Governor Stewart justly finds
with the states legislation begins. 1t
is the biennial session that destroys the
continuity of legislation. Biennial
elections, with annual sessions, would
give the state one session at least of
experienced lawmakers. There would
not exist the necessity or excuse for
enacting into law every plausible meas
ure presented at the first session; there
would not exist the danger of finally
rejecting any good measures by reason
of doubt as to their utility or advisable
ity; there would not exist whatever
there may be of reason for the parlia-
mentary pandemonium that now pre-
walls during the last twenty-four hours
of the grinding of the legislative mill.
Measures of doubtful utility or ques.
tionable wisdom presented at the first
session, if all Vermont legislators are
as virtuous as their eulogists paint
them, would naturally go over, for pub
lie discussion during the years recess,
and for more mature consideration, at
the second session, by body of law
makers that have had some months of
time for study and reflection and for
consultation with the people. The
quality of legislation ought thus to be
improved and its continuity preserved.
But the plowshare of legislative re-
form ought to 60 deeper than the SUBJ
stitution of annual for biennial ses-
sions. 1t ought to uproot the present
illogical and unrepublican method of
constituting the house of representa-
tives. 1t ought to put Vermont in har-
mony with the other states of the
Union, as we'll as place her legislature
on the solid rock of republican princi-
Piles, by making population, rather than
so maryland an irregular and indie
terminate number of-acres of territory
the basis of representation. The found
ers of the state had better idea of the
principle of just and rightful represent
tation than their descendants. The
fret constitution, as the WATCHMAN
showed last week, distinctly recognized
the principle of representation by pop
ulation. So did the first council of
censors. Two score years ago, mo-
narchical England repealed and rejected
the peterborough system " of repre-
sentation; republican Vermont adopted
it. With a single exception, we be-
lieve, every state in the Union except
Vermont, makes population the basis
of representation in the lower branch
of the legislature. 1t is the right prin-
ciple. 1t is no experiment. 1t is no
innovation. 1t is no chimera. 1t is
the foundation on which Vermont
would build to-day if she were begin
ming her career as state.
The remedy for the evils in legisla-
ton which Governor Stewart points
out and deplores lies in certain neces-
sary amendments of the constitution.
We hope to hear his voice raised in ad-