Burlington weekly free press. [volume] (Burlington, Vt.) 1866-1928, 1902-11-27
A Black and a False Picture.

The New York Evening Post, in its issue
of the 18TH devoted a column to the local
option issue in this State. In this it
chose to assert that the people of Yer
mont are sunk deep in hypocrisy, soddcn
with rum when not stupefied with opium,
and by inference, incapable of self-gov
eminent. 1t declares that, up to the pres
ent time, everybody knew that practically
all the drug stores in the country towns
were unrestricted dispensares of villain
Gus liquor that the morphia and other
drug habits were alarmingly on the in
crease that barrooms which paid no tax
except an occasional fine were everywhere
to be found finally, that in the absence of
less destructive drinks, many farmers
were making themselves sodden with hard
cider, and quarrymen poisoning themselves
with mixtures of crude alcohol and
srops."
1t follows, as a necessary inference,
that a State which for so many years has
sustained the laws to which such con-
dition of things is attributed, must be a
community of idiots, or worse
| landscape is but a reproduction Of pic
lures drawn by certain Vermont papers
and persons. That is a Notifying fact.
But journal which makes such claims
to intelligence and truthfulness as the
New York Post might, one would sup
pose, seek some better sources of informa-
ton than the papers and persons who
| 10 nj, gI,, haN ha,
willing to foul their own nest" and
blacken the name of their native State OIL
the State in which they have chosen to fine
their homes
If the Post will send some respectable
member of its staff to look around Yer
mont, we venture to say that he will moi
find it inhabited chiefly or largely BY
idiots, lawbreakers, drunkards and opium
eaters. He will find a community rivallnf
in Intelligence good order, sobriety anC
thrift, any community Of equal numbers
in the United States. He will see no bar
rooms unless he hunts for them, and thei
only in dark closets, back rooms and be
hind closed doors. He may spend weeks
as many persons spend years movini
among our people, without seeing
drunken man. AS to drug habits" the,
are no more prevalent among the inhabi
tants of Vermont than among those o
other States, where bars and saloons ar
wide open and drunkenness a create
scourge. The drinking and drug habit i
fact, often go together, and the very is
sue Of the New York Post which contain
its slanderous description of Vernon
contains an article copied from an Ameri
can medical journal describing the In
creasing use of cocaine, morphine in Ohio
Virginia, Kentucky, Louisiana and Missis
eipp; and the necessity which man.
} States and cities have found themselve
under to restrict the traffic In narcotics
and urging State boards Of health genel
. ally to fight the drug habit in their RI
spective fields of influence.
, 1t may occur to some of the Posts reac
/. ers that there Is 4 trihins inconsistsnc
, In representing within the limits Of tn
same paragraph, that open barrooms ar
universal, and the sale of liquors pract
, cally unrestricted under the Vernon
, liquor law, and that the Vermonters al
, driven to drugs and poisonous mixture
by the absence of less destructiv
drinks" But that is Of little consequence