The Vermont watchman. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1883-1911, 1900-09-12
@attbman 4 gOmrmal.
ARTHUR ROPES. General Editor
Comment on the Vermont Election.

The result of the recent election in
Vermont has been the subject of more
general and more suggestive comment
throughout the country than has fol-
lowed almost any preceding election.
How true it is that in the years of a
national election Vermont is political
barometer, indicating with decisive
precision conditions existing among
the people, has been again very strik.
ingly exempliied. Viewed in the light
of the solicitude for the result, and the
qualification when the issue of the
election was known to be highly favor
able to the Republican cause, the re-
sponsibility that had devolved upon
Vermont appears somewhat appalling.
Many realized and fully appreciated lis
magnitude and weight; many appar-
emily trifled with q trust which, had it
been as lightly regarded by the press
and the great body of voters, might
have involved the great national party
of this country in disaster, or at the
least placed lis cause in imminent per-
il. The salvation of Vermont was due
in some large and conclusive measure
to the press and the public. Had such
campaign as the importance of the
election demanded - as all national
elections, whatever the issues, demand
been early initiated and pushed with
the vigor that was put into some memoir
able campaigns of the past, five thous.
and at least might have been add
ed to Vermonts Republican majority.
However, the majority that was given,
as the product in the main of the we'll
grounded republicanism of the voters
themselves, is possibly more sugges-
tive, more impressive, than larger
majority worked up by campaign slim
ulants.
In an article entitled "Political Life
and Political Death", the New York
Sun makes the most forceful of all the
press comments on the election of last
Tuesday. On the Monday preceding
Arkansas had held State election as
usual had gone stolidly Democratic, q
matter that aroused no comment any,
where and strikingly showed, in the
language of the Sun, "the absence of
all political respect for the States of
the old southern confederscy." On
the other hand, the Vermont election,
said the Sun, commanded the interest
of the whole Union, north and south,
as suggesting the drift OF political SEN
timent when it has free normal express
sion." The Sun thus sets the two
States side by side:
Vermont is as sure a Republican State
as Arkansas is Democratic, yet in the one
an election is always important as being in
some wise symptomstic of political feeling
throughout the Union outside of the old
southern confederacy. more especially in
the year of presidential election, while
to the other nobody pays any heed The
Vermont election was the leading feature
of the next days news in the interest of
men OF all parties and in every circle OF
business and industry throughout the
Union. The Arkansas election of Monday
was of no concern TO anybody, for there
was no possibility of its indicating anything
except political stolidty. The size of the
Democratic majority relatively to the past
was of no consequence, even in the estma-
ton of the Democrats of Arkansas, and
very many of them did not take the pains
to go to the polls.
The discreditable political conditions
existing in Arkansas prevail through
out the old southern confederacy, COM
ments the Sun. Nobody turns to them
with any inquiry even in this cam
paign in which vital national issues
are involved, for really no national issue
will be voted on in them next Novem-
Der. They will be equally solid for the
Democratic candidate no matter who
he is or what issues he represents.
The inevitable consequence has been
the loss TO the South of all political
respect. This, in the judgment of the
Sun, is terrible humiliation for States
once powerful in moulding American
political sentiment and the birthplace
of the most illustrious men in Ameri-
can political history The Sun con-
cludes:
The little Green Mountain State, the
home Of freedom of thought and discussion,
has consequence as political barometer,
m alaotiona In tbaaa ole Qtota
indicate the opinion and conviction on
great national issues absorbing the interest
OF all the rest Of the Union than II they
were inhabited wholly by people incapable
Of thought.