The Vermont watchman. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1883-1911, 1896-10-07
Legislative Programmes.

DCneneS VI leglsldtlOu, NdIloSaIou III
hue as the autumnal foliage but far
less enhancing, have been formulated
for the members of the general as
sembly, Who cannot arrange, off
hand, plan of civil reform and legisla-
tive action, suited to and demanded by
the times, is statesman of very infe-
rior degree. Certain of the newspapers,
since the election, have been expend-
ing on plans for law-making, and on
the advocacy of various reforms, the
mighty momentum accumulated and in
store when the canvass closed in Sep
TENDER. Some of these surcharged en-
gines of public opinion seem to have
jumped the track, and, had real reform
been in their train, it would be bump
ing over the sleepers of an unballasted
road-bed or plunging into the ditch
along its flank.
With a smirch of printers ink, the
Normal Schools are blotted out of ex-
istence; "the iniquitous system of
double taxation" is obliterated; the
prohibitory law, that promoter of per-
jury" and mother of every form of
iniquity, is doomed to cremation, and
the red fires of license light its funeral
pyre; the railroad commission is to be
wrecked and no coroner's inquest held
over its remains; fast day, an institu-
ton some people profess to believe Pc
culiarly designed for Vermont and
adapted to the moral and spiritual needs
of certain of her people-notably the
advocates of its abolition-is to be con-
signed to the limbo of observances that
have outlived their usefulness; state
expenses, excepting always for the
militia and the military camp-ground at
Burlington, are to be cut back to
aboriginal limits, and the more than
Jeffersonian simplicity that prevailed in
the Garden of Eden is to be instituted
in the government of Vermont. No
pent-up Utica contracts the powers of
these fruitful statesmen, but the whole
boundless realm of reform is theirs.
Nevertheless, the men of wisdom and
virtue, chosen for that service, will need
to deliberate upon these matters. The
constitution does not contemplate that
they accept, without challenge, any cut
and-dried plan of legislation. Their
excellencies, the setting and rising suns
of executive authority, will recommend
legislation. The constitution empow-
ers the latter "to prepare such business
as may appear to him necessary, to lay
before the General Assembly," but for
the last twenty years the former lumi-
nary, just before dipping below the
horizon, with the last radiance of con-
stitutional authority, has sought to
light inexperienced Solons along the
rugged pathway of wise and useful law
making. The business prepared by the
chief executives whose authority abuts
on the first Wednesday in October is
well worthy of serious and respectful
attention by the body to which it is
addressed; it may not rise in the scale
of importance to rank with the advice
and recommendations of the newspaper
editors, whom unwritten law, superior
to that of the constitution, has made
the coachers of the legislature, but in
the multitude of its counselors the law
making branch of the state government
will find wisdom; and if doubt shall
ever cloud its vision as to what branch
of wisdom to embrace, to resolve the
doubt it may turn, with confidence
that will never be misplaced, to the pa
triotism and prescience of the press
"Unawed by influence and unbribed by
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