The Vermont watchman. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1883-1911, 1896-12-02
@attbman & yuurnal.
WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 2, 1896.
Session Fruits.

biennial legislative farce this morning.
The most obvious fruit of the seven
weeks session is the expenditure of
some sixty odd thousand dollars, in de-
bentures of the legislature, without
adding anything of material value to
the laws OF the state. No law has bee
passed that will add materially to the
general welfare; many proposed laws
have been denied enactment that would
have contributed to the ills already ex.
listing. The fruits of the session are
negative rather than positive, in their
relation to the great interests of the
people as a whole. The great body of
the bills introduced and passed were
for the benefit of special or individual
interests, for the creation of small cor
poration which could and ought to be
organized under the general law.
When law was not asked for the ben
eft of some individuals private inter-
ests, it was apt to be called for by the
fish and game industry in some depart.
menJ OF ltS manl1Old AFFAIRS,
The state has just paid many thou
sand dollars for the revision of its laws.
A volume entitled the Vermont Stat
utes is the fruit of this expenditure. If
only some small per cent of the bills in
troduced for the amendment or repeal
of this or that section of these statutes
has been passed. the volume produced
at so much cost has become practically
worthless, or little better than its pre-.
decessor, the Revised Laws, as an en-
bodiment of the laws of the state.
What was the necessity for these nu
merous proposals of repeal or amend
ment, coming almost Immediately upon
the painstaking and costly labor of re-
vision? We're the laws inherently
wrong, injurious in their effect upon
the rights or interests of the great
body of the people? Or was some in
dividual within, or interest, or scheme
blocked or hindered by the law as it
stood? Could the real reason for the
bulk of these overhaulings of, or pro-
posas to overhaul, the statutory wood
pile be disclosed, probably a very
dusky African would be revealed. This
latter view of the matter of these
changes has sometimes been found to
to be the correct one, but the dis
covery has been made after the law
makers had been wheedled into chang
ing wise general law, and violating
every consideration of wise policy, for
the benefit of one individual.
AS has frequently happened, the two
bodies of the Legislature were some
times at cross-purposes, and the state
was, as usual, the sufferer. This spirit
of antagonism, or pride of opinion,
cropped out conspicuously in two cases,
and resulted in the death of two meas
ures affecting the highest interests of
the state; and in each instance the
death blow was administered with less
consideration than would have been
given to an act to protect the hornpouts
in some mud hole. The bill passed
by the House to protect caucuses and
conventions from fraud and bribery,
was killed by the Senate, without de-
liberation, and the bill passed by the
senate creating the Office of attorney
general was summarily knocked on
the head by the House-and honors
and dishonors were even.
Retrenchment played a leading part
in the abstract and when Buncombe
was to be propitiated, but when the is
sue came between the old abuses and a
rational reduction of expenditures, re-
trenchment went to the wall. A great
amount of valuable time was wasted
on measures that, for generation have
attempted reforms that are impracti-
cable, land whose visionary character
has been time and again exposed, or
on proposed changes in the law or pol
icy of the state to which the people di-
rectly by their votes, or indirectly by
the votes of their representatives have
expressed their emphatic and unyield-
ing opposition. A statute of limita-
tons ought to make an end of these
distractions to the progress of rational
and possible legislation.
1t is not possible, in the confusion of
the hours of dissolution, TO estimate to
the amount of good, or to apportion the
amount of bad, legislation this General
Assembly may have to its credit or its
debit; but an early morning view OF
the situation would seem TO indicate
that the people as a whole would be
better off without, than they are likely
to be with, the recent large investment
of money in the business of law.
making.
EOR railrOo6 n0nn aiOnara. Olip