Windham County reformer. (Brattleboro, Vt.) 1901-1906, 1902-04-11
DEMOCRATIC OPPORTUNITY
MR.. DAVENPORT THINKS THIS rs THE
YEAR TO STRIKE FOR VICTORY
What He Sees in the Situation to Convince
Him That Conditions Are Ripe as Never Be-
fore The Long Train of Evils He Attributes
to Our Long Train of Political 0ne-Sidedness
Republican Authority Quoted.

to Our Long Train of Political 0ne-Sidedness
Republican Authority Quoted,
1t was William H. Seward among
the wisest and perhaps the most phil
osophic of all the statesmen of Repub-
licanism, who said:
"In every republican government parties are
necessary for the preservation of the rights and
the promotion of the best interests of the PEG
pie. And it is desirable that political parties
should be nearly equally balanced. In such
cases each watches the other and the necessity
is forced upon each to present their best men
and their best measures for the support of the
people
OF this truth that ought to be self
evident, proofs have been piling up
with almost geometric progression in
each passing year of the last 80.
They have brought stagnation, fair
of our good old state.
They have generated laws, systems
of administration and methods of
thought and discussion that have
meant inevitable decay.
Candor of course would not permit
it to be claimed, that this one sided
ness of partyism has been the sole
cause of the fearful retrogression of
the rural communities of the state
that was once, under better political
auspices, the Ell Dorado of the Union.
There have been cooperating causes
in world forces and national tenden-
cies. But it is at least true that the
measure of the evil for which we are
ourselves responsible is the distance
Vermont has Jagged behind her sister
states in growth, development and
prosperity. With soil and climate the
best of all the East, with rich variety
of resources in mine, quarry and wood,
with water powers awaiting use in un-
exampled multitude, with a hardy and
healthful population, and with
framework of government that above
all others of its time contained the
virility and expansive power of demo-
cratic ideals, Vermont ought to have
been foremost instead of "hinder-
most" among the Eastern states.
Instead, for the want of just what
Mr.. Seward mentions, she has had
public policies that have steadily OPP
Grated to drain her capital and her
young men of energy and hope to the
of the resources of other
states while her own lay untouched
She has seen her own corporate creaH
ures, in railroad companies, aided to
repress her own industries in order to
subsidize those elsewhere
She has seen her state expenses run
up from some $3.50, 600 to 5000, 600
year, with practically nothing to show
for the increase and no human being I
able to point anything but waste that /
It all represents.
She has seen systems of taxation art /
July applied in many ways to pro-
note and increase and perpetuate /
She has seen in the misnamed pro
libitory law perhaps the consistent
md GROWING evil of ala law found
ID in fallacious theories of govern
nent, unless the primary ideals of civ
lization are mockery, a law that
because it is wrong in principle can
work out only evil results law that
ccomplishes no good anywhere but
What local option might accomplish,
nd diverts every year vast revenue
hat ought to go to public utilities to
he pockets of lawyers who prosecute
nd defend yiolators. officials who pile
nd blackmailers and politicians who
hhNNL pi q lldl1li ILub IL iullulltlS {
'orse for health and morals than it
Guild be under regulation and taxa
ion. ;
And it all fifty climaxes in political /
like the present. barren of I
ven pretense of craftsmanship or is :
les Of public policy, or of any ques-
on but of personal ambition or of (
hat candidate will submit to be {
MIXED most by the workers.
1t is ever an evil of political one l
dedness and stagnation such as Seward
eprecated that the minority party -
-nds to become one that only goes :
trough the motions, and lives only :
II the federal offices when It's nation =
organization comes into power. The =
resent year offers an opportunity,
lch as never occurred before and may
ever recur again, for the Democratic /
irty of Vermont to lift itself above l.
lis condition and render the state an {,
valuable service. 1t had a good OBJ 1
ct lesson in the purely personal Page /
oodbury contest that straigthway >
MT the Republican majority down to j
!, 600; this years contest, however it
suits, is sure to leave even more bad II
God behind it, and is to be rein a
reed in usefulness by the fact that ct
+. Clement has injected question al
principle to set men to thinking 1t tt
n start with the advantage that tt
cry test of public sentiment that has fc
en- made, in large towns or small, in
Gates that we'll towards two thirds of
T people are opposed to the prohibi-
ry law and yet the Republican party ii
mot unite itself from it. Moreover s,
ere could be no filter time than this HI
ID anniversary of the passage of a law hi
itch has still to be supported and in
cused as an experiment, to sub h,
t it boldly and frankly to the judg- bf
mt of the people. And there is a rs
It of tremendous significance and Ia
light in the refusal of the last Re de-
blican legislature to permit the law h,
be submitted to a referendum by II
itch it was originally adopted, and III
insistance on retaining it by a sys- or
n of unjust and unequal representa- mr.
n that is itself libel upon free r
rernment. G.,
Coupled with all the other evils that ba
anate from such pool of politics as III
IS, there could never be a better FL
e with which to go before the great at
y of freemen. 1t is only by politi-
revolutions that great changes of do
icy can be effected: the party that ms
ates the evils to he reformed is IT.
'er capable of reforming them. If ais
Democratic party can rise to its 90,
and carry the fight into sta
ry town and school district of the Of
tie, thoroughly, Systematically and as
fjpchipu1y fbare ic mora tbap on