The Vermont watchman. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1883-1911, 1896-02-19
Grass.

We have read with painstaking care
and sincere purpose the authoritative"
proclamation of Major CIRCUITS candi-
dacy by the Barton Monitor, and its
echo by the Free Press, to find therein
an answer to certain interrogations
made by "Soldier and ex-Member" in
the WATCHMAN of January %. We
aud the public offices he has held care
fully catalogued, sustaining the CORE
spondent's statement that he {" has had
many opportunities for good work." but
to the inquiry, How has he improved
them?" or the request for specifications
as to what measure of reform, or what
measure of any value to Vermont he is
the author Of, or has advocated, there
is no answer. There is, on the contrary,
suggestive silence. Another CORE
spondent presented some specifications
of eminent public service, but we are
constrained to say that, reading between
the lines, we thought we discovered
pronounced vein of irony in the cita-
lions from Major CIRCUITS career as a
legislator.
We are told that Major Grout has
made investments in the West, and has
shown great busin ess capacity in devel-
oping the investments. This may or
may not be an evidence of thrift or
good policy in candidate for governor,
but it is not generally accepted as an
exhibition of that patriotic spirit which
the press and public men of the st .te
have 80 long and 80 emphatically ex-
horted Vermonters to practice. We
understand that some of the many let
tiers influential republicans have re-
ceived soliciting their support of his
canddature have been written from the
locality of this western enterprise. Born
on Canadian soil, the governorship is
woed from the soil of the Sucker state,
and recommended on the score Of his
successful investment, out there. This
will hardly do. Evidently some other
ground for his candidacy must besfound.
1t is maintained that as farmer in
Vermont, Candidate Grout has made
not merely two, but three, blades OF
grass grow where only one grew before.
Here, amid Sahara of rhetorical plat
itudes, is presented the first tangible
evidence of Major CIRCUITS fitness to be
governor, and it also indicates the line
along which his candidature may be
most advantaeeously pushed, that OF
ga representative farmer" Some
doubling Thomas, with an eye to the
maximum gain at the right ratio OF
outgo and income, may inquire as to
the cost of producing that third blade
Capitalists, with funds to invest in
western enterprises, and leisure fol
politics and agriculture, are sometimes
fond of manuring their soil with money
as kind of pastime, for the pleasure o.
seeing what it can be forced to produce
but the plain farmer for living is com
PEELED to reverse the process and use
another kind of fertilizer to coax none,
from the soil. Nevertheless, if Candi
date Grout, as farmer, is going thu
original benetactor of mankind ont
better, and making money out of tn
operation, and is the only farmer il
Vermont that ia doing this, he mus
hold the record the Monitor gives hin
as "a demonstrators of what the averag
Vermont farmer can do" till ne'
claimant, with al four-blade record
arises.
Meantime we rejoice with the cor
Temperatures over the happy point the
have scored for their candidate. Nc
as legislator, not as an exemplar c
y. the policy of investments by Vernon
i ers, in Vermont, for Vermont, but 9
> an agriculturist, does Candidate Gro,
y appeal to the freemen of the Gree
Il Mountain State. The mountains al
q green, but it is not always prudent
i bank on the verdure of their inhabitant
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