Herald and news. [volume] (West Randolph, Vt.) 1878-1943, 1904-04-07
ANEW VERMONT.

a
men until recently of prominence
within the charmed circle" OF YER
monts public affairs have been thrown
aside and in some instances cast down;
The influence of this has extended
beyond politics and the accustomed IN
statecraft and has touched all manner
of activities within our borders. we
are no longer to be bound 10 the OLD
or bound down by the old, they say.
For so many decades has vermont
been rock-ribbed by her own inward
conservatism, for so many years mas
the moss grown to her sides, that u
mas required a mighty jolt and tug 70
break through her rocky rlOs ana 10
tear some of this moss from her OLD
sides. but it has been done and 10, a
New Vermont.
The spirit of all this is so general
that il is confined to no section or
district save the section and the dis
trict limited by the boundaries OF the
state. Even here it has not stopped,
Tor out across the states has fOWn the
message that Vermont, ancient ana
sturdy Vermont. has been moved as
not before so that her people are no
longer to be bounded by a narrow
provincialism but by the signs OF the
times, as these signs can be read, Is
hereafter to be broad, progressive,
even cosmopolitan.
II what we have suggested so lar De
true. and we shall claim for II accura-
cy, it may be well to stop moment to
inquire, first: What are the forces
operating as causes Immediately back
of all this? Second; Have we really
a New Vermont2
For wears Vermont has been known
as one of the slower and more conserv-
alive states. In other states she has
stood for stability of ideas and tenden-
cies adverse TO the radical and the
revolutionary. With many outside
she has been regarded as non-progres-
sive, measured by the standard OF her
sister states. This has been an
opinion and a feeling for so long that
Vermonters came to believe ii them
selves 10 a considerable degree. They
felt they were behind the march Of
time a little and chafed a bit some
times that they could not seem 10
hasten their pace and move with the
van among the great, and 70 them far
greater, states Of the union.
The Green Mountain state is not in
the track OF the great immigration
movements. Boston, New York city
and Montreal send elsewhere their
human freight-the people who, sick
of the old world, come to the new re-
joicing to find az last nation whose
governing principle is that 'if a man
be treated as a man he is likely to
become a man" These 90 toward the
Middle and Western states or remain
in the cities.
Again, Vermont has more native
born residing outside her borders than
within.
SO It has been that a certain freedom
from the rapid advancements, numeri-
cal and other, that have come to other
states has been ours and these other
states have noted it and remarked
upon It, We have remained I'M
changing in politics and that has
caused much comment. We are now
doing the same on general lines as did
our fathers.
We have been so far removed from
the great centres of trade and com
merce that the fluctuations in the
money market have affected us only
slightly. While something of a man
utacturing state, yet our manufacture
ing has been of kind dependent
largely upon local surroundings, so
that what was done or was not done
by the captains of industry reached
not much our somewhat sequestered
village mechanics. Labor had no
grievance with us and the labor union
until recently found no place and
seemed as far removed as the Guilds
of the Middle Ages. The farms OF our
fathers stood as of old, carried on il
may be by stranger hands, but the
change here had come so gradually
that we hardly thought OF change,
really so important, perhaps so de-
cisive.
What wonder, then, that abroad
should be this feeling, aye, this belief
and conviction as to Old Vermont /;
what wonder that Vermonters ere
long should look around them and say,
we are not like our friends; we are
tanner, slower, more sedate, less pro-
gressiye, not up-to-date. What Won
der that the boys then went the faster
outside our borders when they became
mature enough TO leave the old farm.
This feeling has come 10 us the
more with the modern time. Two
factors more than any others have
been responsible, viz, the town sys-
TEN of schools and rural free delivery.
Never until the present improvement
in our educational system came into
practical use have so many of our
boys and girls been brought into close
contact with the business and social
centre OF the town, with that mart de-
MED to no township where from
around the store and postotiice, as well
as from the schoolmaster, deep do the
youth drink Of the experiences and the
happenings of the greater world out
side. Not only do they there obtain
the high school branches, certainly OF
the English course, but with these,
come the touches of other, and as they
believe, better things so that on the
hillside farms the windows have been