Bellows Falls times. [volume] (Bellows Falls, Vt.) 1856-1965, 1896-05-02
The GubernatOrial Barber Shop.

According to some of the expressions
that appeared in the editorial columns of
the Grout newspapers few weeks ago
man was apparently expected to reach the
highest office in the gift of the citizens Of
Vermont in about the same manner that he
acquired shave in barber shop, with the
exception that he is not only expected to
patiently wait for the magic word "next,"
but to also keep whooping'er up for the
fellows who have got in ahead of him.
This was the principle upon which Josiah
Grout and his newspaper organs started on
the campaign that was to land him in the
chief offices in the gift of the people of this
state, with that ease and dispatch that had
characterized the making of former
governors. The aspirations of the man
from Ludlow were not going to cut any ice
in this atfair-he didn't belong to the crowd
that had been getting shaved regularly at
this tonsorial establishment and would have
to wait until every body else had been at
tended to. Ordinarily this supposition
would have been correct, but this year there
seems to be snag somewhere. In the
past any fellow who attempted to bother
the regular customers had either been sum-
marily squelched or had become disheart-
ened into waiting until his term came, but
here comes William w. Stickney who not
only purposes not to wait but to seriously
disturb the peace and quiet OF this barber
shop that has had only one interruption in
the memory of man, when Carroll s. Page
of Hyde Park came in aud had the guberna-
torial cut put on his whiskers ahead Of Ur-
ban A. Woodbury. AS the Ludlow man
1 l. :. 10 loo A.
at him and the broad hints that were thrown
out the old crowd Of regulars through its
newspaper made haste to state that there
was nothing exclusive about this barber
shop, that it was in reality public affair."
that there was no understanding that only
certain ones should get shaved here and
that if any one said there was, he was tell
ing fairy tales. 1t wasn't because Josiah
Grout had waited for SO many years that he
oughtsto have the governor trim on his
face-hair before William Stickney but be-
cause the man from Newport was farmer,
lawyer, statesman and in fact the only
man for the place. This talk about ring
was the worst kind Of rot.
Whether or not William w. Stickney
occupies the gubernatorial chair Of Yer
mont du'ing the years 1896 and '97 his
candidacy will certainly have the good re-
suit of showing the crowd of professional
politicians that has run the Republican
machine in the state for 10, these many
years that its days on Easy street are
numbered and that hereafter the roadway
it will be made to travel will be mighty
rocky and uneven. And it is high time
that the rotary movement in this combina-
ton were broken up and the fact demon
strated that there is some qualification re-
quired OF candidate other than sub
serviency to the men who have had, and
the men who want to have office.
A candidate and his newspaper organs
for him announce the fact that he wants to
be governor and both state his chief claim
upon the party lies in the fact that he has
kept out OF the field when other candidates
wanted the office. In the face of this the
Grout papers claim that the ring" is a
chimercal creation Matched in the Jealous
Imagination of the opposition that there is
no pre-arranged understanding about the
governorship and that the all-powerful
people select the candidate. And the
worst feature of the whole business is, it ap.
pears as if they actually thought the public
was going to believe it.-Barre Leader.