Windham County reformer. (Brattleboro, Vt.) 1901-1906, 1904-09-02
TEN THINGS TO REMEMBER.
About the Republican Machine and
the Local Option Lava Record
Too Plain for Anybody to Mis-
read-The Only Effective Way to
Deal With the Trckery.

When the Republican party asks
the people of Vermont to trust II
with the needed amendments of the
local option license law, intelligent
voters will not fail to note and re-
member:
10 That but for Republican bad
faith the law would not need material
amendment at all, that as proposed
from the Democratic caucus II was
free from practically every one OF
the defects now needing remedy, and
If 1t could have been enacted IN the
shape Democrats asked 1t would have
been the best liquor law anywhere In
existence.
Cd That the Republican platform
this year-merely to give force ana
efficiency to its fundamental princi-
ple"-is adroitly worded, so that the
Battell bill or any other old thing can
be inflicted on the state.
go That when asked by It's
chairman for an explicit promise In
favor of the law-that, after amend
ment the same be further continued
in force, the committee on resolutions
in the Republican State Convention
REFUSED, and the convention ratl-
fled its action in striking out these
words, even after they had been
printed as the Republican platform.
4) That the gross bad faith OF
the Republican party in this whole
matter two years ago, in attempting
to cheat the state with a bogus refer
endum, with the Battell bill in place
of what the party had promised, and
in mutations of the license bill, IN
tended to be fatal to it, give ample
warning of what to expect now II
is of iNDELlBLE RECORD on the
Legislative Journals that the Repp9,
AGAIN, by a VOTE of TWO and
THREE TO ONE shamelessly RE-
PUDlATED EVERY PROMISE 1T
had made TO the people,
90 That the warning is repeat
ed in the correspondence Rev. George
w. Morrow has had with every as
pirant for Republican nomination to
the Legislature, whom he dared to
approach, to pledge him against the
present law.
90 That between Morrow and the
silent workings of the machine, Re-
publicans who were honestly in favor
of the law have generally found
themselves, in town and county,
neatly and expedltiously laid out
often without suspecting what allied
them
a. That some county conven-
lions. like that of Orange, have man
fully disclosed their purpose, but
more. like washington, have sneak
ingly done so by nominating for SEN
ators men secretly pledged to prohi-
bition.
(S.) That while the House is sure
in any event to be Overwhelmingly
for prohibition, Morrow and the ma
chine are confident that they have
secured the Senate also, by nominat-
ing candidates, who with very few eX-
ceptions, are lifelong prohibitionists..
co. That the purpose is disclosed
by the action in Chittenden county
one of the most high handed ever
known anywhere and so bad that
Judge Powers has ordered action
reversed refusing Local OPP
tionsts the right to be represented
on the official ballot, though they
had filed their nomination papers as
the law requires. The law says NOM
nations may be made by caucuses or
conventions OR "MAY ALSO be
made by CERTIFICATES OF NOM.
NATION signed by voters residing
cause such ballots to be printed"
The machines decision in Chittenden
county Is that the Local Optionists
constitute a party casting over one
per cent of the votes at the last cleo
ton and therefore their nominations
must be made by caucus or conven-
ton. If true as regards them, 1t is
also true as regards the Democratic
or Republican party, and 1t only
needs that any committee carelessly
or corruptly neglect to call such eau
Gus or convention, to exclude its tick
ct from the ballot.
400 This procedure, of which
even a child can see the preposterous-
ness, had for its plain purpose to deny
any citizen the chance to vote for To-
cal option without voting the Demo-
cratic ticket, which the machine then
tries to prevent by yelling that
Roosevelt must be saved.
viii these voters, with their eyes
wide open to this continuous Repub-
lican record of trickery-with abso-
lutte knowledge of the determination
of the machine, in unison with sin
cere prohibitionists to restore prohi-
bition for the sake of the vast plum
der it contained for the machine and
its operators, and to do 1t THIS
YEAR because they know that every
day of the continuance of the present
law, even with its defects, strength
ems it in the opinion of good citizen
ship-with the state strewn with the
political remains of Clement men,
and sincere local option Republicans
slaughtered in almost every case
where they have come before Repub-
lican caucus or convention because
they refused to join in the Republic
can betrayal of promise two years
ago or Republican bad faith this
year-with certainty that ii is only a
question of what the Republican
party dares in the coming Legisla-
ture: that If it can fool the people
into standing by it in full old-time
strength through this crisis outright
repeal will be its policy, if it gets a
sufficient scare it will return to the
Battell bill or some such scheme, and
that at the very least its game will
be to put the law into such shape
that nobody will be satisfied with IT
and then submit it to another refer
endum-will these voters allow the
machine to thus make them its tools?
It is desirable and important to
elect to the House and Senate Local
Optionists who are tried and true in
the cause and who were not Local
Optionists for the first time in this
campaign, for they can do great
good in fighting and exposing the
machine game.
But the best and most effective way
is at the same time to roll up such a
vote for the Democratic state ticket
as will paralyze the machine with
even a greater terror than that
| Clement caused two years ago.