News and citizen. [volume] (Morrisville, Vt. ;) 1881-current, 1904-04-13
A New Vermont.
martin S. Villas, A. ID, in Vermont Expan-
sion

~
Martin S. Villas, A. ID, in Vermont Expan-
sion.
Within two or three years we have
seen many transitions in political
Vermont, old traditions have been
destroyed, a considerable number of
men until recently ofprominence with
in the charmed circle" of Vermont's
public affairs have been thrown aside
and in some instances cast down.
The influence OF this has extended be-
yond politics and the accustomed in
statecraft and has touched all man.
ner of activities within our borders.
We are no longer to be bound to the
old or bound down by the old, they
say. For SO many decades has YER
mont been rock-riDbed by her own in
ward conservatism, for so many
years has the moss grown to her
sides, that it has required a mighty
Jolt and tug to break through her
rocky ribs and to 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 it 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 stop
ped, for out across the states has
down the message that Vermont, all
cient and sturdy Vermont, has been
moved as not before so that her peO-
pie are no longer to be bounded by
narrow provincialism but by the
signs of the times, as these signs can
be read, is hereafter to be broad,
progressive, even cosmopolitan.
Ifwhat we have sugges ted so far be
true, and we shall claim for it accur-
acy, it may be well to stop a moment
to inquire, fret: What are the forces
operating as causes Immediately back
of all this? Second: Have we really
a New Vermont?
For years Vermont has been known
as one of the slower and more conser-
vative states. In other states she
has stood for stability OF ideas and
tendencies adverse to the radical and
the revolutionary. With many out
side she has been regarded as nom
progressive, measured by the stan
dard of her sister states. This has
been an opinion and O feeling for SO
long that Vermonters came to believe
it themselves to a considerable de-
gree. They felt they were behind the
march of time little and chafed a
bit sometimes that they could not
n hn
with the van among the great. and
to them far greater, states of the
Union.
The Green Mountain State is not in
the tract Of the great immigration
movement. Boston, New York city
and Montreal send elsewhere their hu-
man freight-the people who, sick of
the old world, come to the new rejoic-
ing to find at last a nation whose
governing principle is that ''if man
be treated as a man he is likel y to be-
come man." These go 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 teen that q certain free
dom from the rapid advancements,
numerical and other, that have come
to other states have been ours and
these other states have noted it
and remarked upon it. We have re-
manned unchanging 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 centers Of trade and com-
merce that the fluctuations Ia the
money market have affected US only
slightly. While something of a man
ufacturing state, yet our manufacture
ing has been of a kind dependent
largely upon local surroundings, so
that what was done or was not done
by captains of industry reached not
much our somewhat scquestered vii.
lage mechanics. Labor had no grie-
vance with us and the labor union un-
til recently found no place and seemed
as far removed as the Guilds of the
Middle Ages. The farms of our faith
ers stood as of old, carried on, it may
be, by stranger hands, but the change
here had come SO gradually that We
hardly thought of a change, really 80
important, perhaps so decisive.
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
progressive, not up-to-date. What
wonder that the boys went the faster
outside our borders when they be-
came mature enough to leave home.
This feeling has come to us the
more with modern time. Two factors
more than any others have been re-
sponsible, viz the town system of
schools and rural free delivery. Never
until the present improvement in our
educational system came into practi-
cal use have so manyQf our boys and
girls been brought into close contact
rui% ho 1aI G.