The Vermont watchman. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1883-1911, 1902-11-26
RETROGRESSION.

Whenever the Legislature of Yer
mont has been persuaded, cajoled, or
inveigled into taking a forward step,
in any matter moral or material, some
succeeding Legislature has turned
upon the work of it's predecessor and
with violence wrecked it, or ham
strung it. or, if destruction could not
be visited directly upon it, hedged it
about with restrictions and limita-
tions till it became like a person bound
as to his hands, or feet, or both, or
encountered with trammels that inn
paired or destroyed its original pur-
pose.
Some year ago, Hon. William Chap
in man of progressive ideas and
large powers of persuasion, devised
and secured the enactment of high
way law that sent the old hoe handle
brigade into retirement. Then came
rebellion, the old district surveyors"
leading the charge of the taxpayers
upon the General Assembly, because
they had been despoiled of the "un-
alienable right to loaf out their
highway taxes, which they had been
compelled to pay in money. The Chap
in law was so MANNED and mangled
in the succeeding contests in the Legis-
lature that it became unacceptable
and it's parent utterly disowned it.
After generation or more of agita-
ton, in 1883 the Legislature was
persuaded to abolish the district sys-
TEN of school administration, and
adopt the county system. Shays' re-
bellion was tame and spiritless affair
compared with the instruction that
blazed in the Legislature of 1890.
Clown meetings" were held nightly
in the Capitol, and irate Solons sur
charged with wrath, poured out their
woes before the committee on educa-
ton, and in the House of Representa-
tives the turmoil was so fierce the
Pomona of the dome became alarmed,
deserted her lofty perch and besought
the protection of her fellow guardian
in the porch of the Capitol. Old
Ethan himself put on a somewhat
more imperious look, drew his sword
as if the disturbance inside was a
somewhat more belligerent affair
than one in which he had figured at
Ticonderoga.
Out of this rebellion to recover
the freedom, the license, the lawless-
I
came claw" enacted in the delir-
ious last moments of the last hour of
the closing midnight session, that
bore so plainly the marks of the cir
cumstances of its birth no power in
the State could explain the riddle its
provisions embodied. Gov. Page
was compelled to summon the Supreme
Court to a special session to interpret
the law. 1t was interpreting chaos, but
the court patched up something that
was called the law, under which the
school system was administered for two
years, when the Legislature of 1892
enacted the town system of school ad-
ministration, accepting the black
BEAST of their former adherence as
somewhat more endurable than the
county system.
But since 1892 the country members
of every House of Representatives
have been Juggling at the bars behind
which they confined themselves to es-
cape the closer imprisonment under
the law of 1888. One by one they
have been loosened so they could be
let down at WILL some have been let
down, and the work of retrogressiOn
is still going on. A sample of this
kind is the pending proposition to in.
crease the number of permits" from
three to six, letting into the school,
room teachers who cannot pass the re-
quirements set up for determining
competency to teach.
OF similar kind is the retrogres
sive legislation of the present anc
previous sessions, to nullify the
wholesome laws of recent years, en-
acted to safeguard the public healtl
against the dangers of bovine tubercu
losis. The capacity of Vernon
Legislature for extreme folly is some
thing appalling.