The herald-advance. (Milbank, S.D.) 1890-1922, 1904-09-23
WHAT 1T MEANS.
The Significance of the Vermont
victory.

While it would be the sheerest folly
for Republican managers TO accept tue
Vermont victory as a certain augury OF
Roosevelt's election next November, or,
to relax in their efforts to insure that
result, it cannot be denied that the b.
WO plurality is a most reasSuring and
significant fact. That. this is so is not
because a succession of statistical COM
cIdences where a shrinkage of the Re-
publican plurality in Vermont III Sep
TENDER has presaged a national Demo
cratic victory IN November hut barerse
the influences affecting the individual
units III one State IL this election arr
national in their nature and are effective
throughout the republic.
If the issue in the November election
were confined to the tariff question il
would be impossible to infer from Yer
mont's $4,000 Republican plurality
what would be the drift in New York,
Connecticut or Indiana, because the vo-
tiers of these three States study the
tariff question through very different
s~pectacles from those OF the farmers OF
Vermont. From the day in 1861 when
her late Senator Justin S. Morrill, in
troduced the wal revenue tariff measure,
| WHICH pure LIS udlut III Tic IIDuor VI
Representatives, Vermont has never way
cred in her support of the Republican
policy of protection. Other States have
wobbled, as the politicians have played
upon the credulity of their Industrial
classes, but Vermont has stood as firm
as her own everlasting hills.
But in the present campaign the
Democracy has chosen to thrust its ira
ditional clamor for free trade into the
background and has arrayed itself
against the American spirit Of aggres-
sive, progressive expansion, Of which
Theodore Roosevelt is the living em-
boiiment.
To-day the Republicans stand for ma
tional action, Advancement and life, the
Democrats for national inaction, retro
gression and death. The issue is between
DOING and DON'T.
Such an issue appeals to voters in
Vermont precisely as it appeals to those
of Oregon or Arkansas. The restricted
local view and interest is swallowed up
in the broader prospect, and men vote
| as Americans and not as citizens of this
or that State.
To this issue Oregon last June re-
sponded Go ahead" and Vermont mere
Is echoes back across the continent Go
ahs3d.'
Even Arkansas shows signs of wakin.
from the lotus-eating dream of Demo
cracy that a nation can advance with
out e~xertion and force by marking-time
in front of the marble eftigies Of Jeffer-
son and Jackson, who if they were alive
would be marching in the ranks of action
and progress.
This. then, is the significance Of the
Vermont election. that on the issue con-
tanned in the word "Forward.' persona
fed, if our opponents will have it so.
in Theodore Roosevelt, represented in
every line Of financial, industrial and
diplomatic achievement, demanding in
creased expenditures for the army, the
navy the postal service and every de-
partment of government care of the
peoples interests-Vermont represents
the onward trend of American thought.
This, and not the mere fact that Yer
mont went Republican by $4,000 votes.
gives an assurance of a great Republi-
can victory next November.