The Vermont watchman. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1883-1911, 1902-12-10
TO HELP THE STATE.

LiiO DubhhOSS VI hCiPihb ohO pOouO
through appropriations for State re-
presentation at great expositions be-
gan in 1875, the centennial of the Dec
laration of Independence. The Legis-
lature declined to appropriate money
for a State "show" of any kind at
Philadelphia. Col N. r. Sprague, Jr.,
of Brandon, thereupon furnished ~, 500
for the erection and maintenance Of a
headquarters building at the Exhibi-
ton. The Legislature subsequently
appropriated money to repay Col.
Sprague, in whole or in part, If we re-
member correctly.
Later on, in 1882, the promoters of
the Cotton Centennial at New Or
leans got the ear of the General AS
sembly and persuaded that body to ap-
propriate 30, 600 for an exhibit of Yer
mopts chief agricultural products
at the Creole city show. The divi-
dends were inappreciable. The State
was out So, 600 and exhibitors in sums
unknown.
lnOu blO POSA-
ton at Chicago and a stiff fight for an
appropriation. Admonished by ex-
perience the Legislature did not take
kindly to the SPIDERS beguiling in
vitation to ''walk into my parlor,"
but finally an appropriation for So, 900
to which the original proposition
of much more munificent proportions
had been reduced-ran the gauntlet of
Legislative controversy on this sub
ject. The estate pride" patriots
were much disgruntled. At the spe
cial session in August. 1891, called to
receive into the treasury sum of
money the United States government
had placed at the acceptance of the
State, the pride of Vermont" rallied
and secured the addition of $40, 900 to
the sum previously appropriated.
A review of events contemporaneous
with the exhibition would show how
pride had its fall, how the eternal
fitness of things was observed in the
erection of "Roman villa" to typify
rugged old Vermont-a leaky, bedrag-
gled composition of lath and staff and
very wretched taste the object of
ridicule in forty-five States, and the
source of large unrequited expenditure.
Admonished again by experience,
the Legislature of 1900 slowed up
when the attempt was made to tap
the treasury in the interest of
the Buffalo Pan-American advertising
scheme and appropriated the sensible
sum of $1,000 for a copartnership
"house. " The enterprise of YER
monts captains of industry, including
the maple sugar production, supplied
the States true representation. They
asked no State aid and wanted none.
Vermont's representatives at Buffalo
say that the official State headquar-
tiers, costing So, 900, was the last place
on the exhibition grounds to find a
Vermonter-the last place in which
self-eXiled Vermonters sought their
kindred or tokens of the mother State
They found both in the exhibition
precincts. The men who had practi-
cal experience in the Pan American
exhibition see no use for a costly State
representative building.
Now, in the mutations of time, St.
Louis, to disport itself before the gaze
Of the continent, and draw the eyes
of the curious, the commercially and
thn OF nj MI t.,G IN
itself-that is to say, for its own adj
vertisement on large scale-seizes on
the centennial of an important ma
tional event, which by some decades
city on the bank of the Father of
Waters, and to which it holds only al
incidental relationship. Vermont is
asked to contribute to the glory of the
spectacle-under the guise of "pro.
noting" her own general welfare
The pride of Vermont" is again a,
the front and asking for a large ap
preparation for house" and the Gus
tomary corps of drum majors for eX
plotting the glory of decaying com
munity among the Green Mountains.
Ask these representatives of State
pride for an appropriation Of $25, 00t
to begin the work of returning to pro
ductiveness the two million acres
more or less, -one-third the State
area - of Vermont's unproductiv'
lands, and they would laugh the petit
toner to scorn. Ask the individual
advocates of this ridiculous PROPOSE
ton of a 500, 600 appropriation for thu
st. Louis Exposition for small sub
scription, from their own pockets, t.
the capital stock of the Vermont In
dustrial Association, recently char
tered to assist in the subtantial recu
peration of Vermont, and from mos
of them what would the solicitor ge
for reply? Echo anwers, What?
The conclusion of the whole matte