Windham County reformer. (Brattleboro, Vt.) 1901-1906, 1902-12-12
FINAL REPUBLICAN BUNCO BEATEN.

Change of 46 in the Vote Under the Searcl
Light of Public Indignation Democrats ant
Clement Men, Practically Solid Get Stuff
cient Reinforcement ree-Fourths Of thu
Republicans, and Even Half of Those Tha
Protested to Be for License, Fight to Last tt
Make 1t Rotten and Ruin 1t
The action of the House Tuesday on
the 'robbery" feature of the license
bill is good illustration of the great
truth that justice and fair dealing are
found more safely with the great body
of the people than anywhere else. Pc
litically, history is full of cases like
this, where justice, stubbornly refused
by representative bodies, supposing
they were catering to the greed of con.
stituents, has been secured by appeal
to these very constituents.
On the original passage of the bill
the House refused, 122 to 100, to make
this amendment, as the Senate had
done, dividing license fees equally in
stead of one quarter and three-quarters
between the license towns and the
state, or chiefly no license towns
through the highway fund. At that
time, even the license leaders, though
most profoundly convinced of the
wrong of the division, and of the GER
/ tainty that it would operate to make LII
cense Fees the lowest the law permitted,
! in orderto avert eXtorton, believed it alb
! solutely hopeless to get the right thing
/ through the House; and many even re-
garded any effort to do so as factious
opposition to the license bill itself.
When the Legislature adjourned for
Thanksgiving there seemed to be no
question anywhere but that the license
bill, if it passed at all, would have to
contain the grab.
But the recess gave an opportunity
for an appeal to the people, which was
made through every newspaper of the
state that would publish it, showing
how it would Cypress license towns,
how all the greater the enOrmlty was
because of the plundering of them
through the state school and highway
taxes, aud how it was made even
more moustrous by another section
which loaded substantially all the
costs of prosecutions on towns and
grabbed the proceeds for no license
neighbors. An amendment to do away
with the latter wrong even the Senate
voted down before Thanksgiving,
though perfectly clear that its only eff
feet would be to restrain towns from
honestly enforcing the law by punish
ing them with a cash penalty every
time they did So
But since the people have been heard
from. the latter monstrosity is in its
pure extortiol eliminated without OBJ
lection in either house, and on the de-
cisve test over the division of fees
Greed and Grab got a decisive whip
ping They were amended out Of the
bill by vote of III to SO a majority
of u where before the recess it was -
the O her way.
When the writer charged that these
two monstrosities were put into the
bill 10y its enemies and against the pro-
test of its friends, with the purpose of
killing it-as he believed it would
the charge seemed harsh u many who
preferred rather to charge it to 1.-THE .
small towns But the vote Tuesday
is complete demonstration of the (
truth of his charge. The 90 votes cast .
against the amendment, with about
dozen exceptions, were the prohibi- .
ZIONIST votes that have stood solidly to .
play politics. at every stage of the /
contest. The III ayes were the Demo
Gratis and Clement men and just about .
half the regular Republicans who were
elected as license men. If, in other
words, the question had been left to
alone, under all the sol
emn pledges of last summer, the bill
would have been ruined at this point
by vote of fully three TO one. 1t is
even if it could have sur
vived at the bands of those who pro-
fessed to be license Republicans.
1t is worth noting that at least two
If the eight Republicans who foisted
these features on the bills. themselves
voted under exposure to take them out,
and a third did not vote AT all.
But the Democratic alignment is the
one to be proud of and worth the
thoughtful attention of the public. 1t
vas 40 to five for the amendment, and
IF the five all but one were openly
vowed prohibitionists. OF the 40, all
Dut nine were from the small towns
Who voted for what was right and fair, ;
because it was so, although it would be
dollars for them and their towns to {
'ote the other way.
Isn't this something worth having
lone in Vermont Legislature: And
Why ism t it worth while to have more !
# it done there: C. II. Davenport.