The Vermont watchman. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1883-1911, 1902-06-04
REDFIELD PROCTOR'S FATAL
MISTAKE.

In the life of every successful pub
lie man there comes that moment
when ambition struggles with reason
for the mastery, and then it is so
many make that fatal mistake which
leads them to regard the position and
! power won by Difference to public
opinion as their own by divine inner.
itance; to be used as personal instru-
ments rather than as public trusts,
and then comes the downfall, sudden
and complete
This is the lesson of history, openly
written on page after page in all ages,
and yet, strange TO say, few profit by
1t. The same fatal error is made by
one after another and one by one they
pass by tins sad route from the stage
of public activity to private retire
ment and regretful retrospect.
The people of Vermont have show
| cred honor after honor on Senator
Redfield Proctor, They have given
him every honorable Office within
their gift. They have acknowledged
his leadership and bowed in submits
| sive Difference TO his counsel and adj
vice. They have obeyed him implicit
ly in all matters political sustained
him Loyalty and praised him gener-
| ously. At home and abroad they
| have given him full honor commend
ing him at all times for breadth of
| vision, integrity of purpose and sim
| gleness of patriotic devotion to the
welfare of the State. They have
watched him rise from the obscurity
of country law office through re-
ceivership of Vermont marble com
pany to the control of the marble bust
| Of hn nd
tive poverty to magnificent affluence.
To aid him and further his purposes
| in this direction they set apart por-
ton of the town of Rutland and Great
ed the town of Prctor, a little princi-
pality entirely under his dominion,
wherein he may exercise baronial
privileges and wherefrom he may have
perpetual representation in the Legis-
lature of the State.
They extended welcoming hand to
his son on his entrance to public life.
They might have been willing in
time, to make him Governor of the
State but never, in their most gener-
Gus thoughts, have they contemplated
making him Governor while his father
was in the United States Senate
They have not turned over to the Proc
tor family the whole political bust
ness of Vermont. They have not
yielded their entire political rights to
the father and they are not patient
with his seeming forgetfulness of
obligations for all favors heaped upon
him. They still remember that they
have given him place, power and pres.
tige and wonder that he should now
try to use them as personal instru-
ments to advance the fortunes of his
family.
Redfield Proctor has reached that
critical moment in his career when
ambition struggles with reason for
mastery, and from all appearances he
is about to commit that same fatal
mistake that has led to the undoing OF
so many others in days gone by II
is charged openly and not denied, that
Senator Proctor is exerting the full
power of his senatorial position to in.
fluence federal Office holders all over
the State to support his son, Fletcher,
for Governor, and, fearing that inf1u.
ence, man after man who had prom
ised to support Mccullough or Glenn
ent has drawn off and now pretends
to be for young Proctor, half hearted
but obedient.
Are the federal Office holders of Yer
mont to name the Governor at Yer
mont Senator's dictation? 1t is fol
the people to answer, and answer
they will in most emphatic terms al
the State convention next month.
Much indignation is already mani
tested at this exhibition of dictator
ship in the interests of hereditary sue
} cession of the Proctor family, and ont
by one revelations are being mad,
strongly corroborative Of suspicion
for some time entertained that Sen