Middlebury register. (Middlebury, Vt.) 1886-1937, 1904-08-19

noW Iney have lodged Her Far to
the Rear of the Procession of States
The Sorry Tale the official Figures
Tell
In 1882 the net expenses
OF Vermont's state govern
ment, as shown by Treasur-
er Baoon's special report
four years ago, we're ~S255,27l.47
Governor Barstow in his
message that year, as Gov
ernor Proctor had done in
1873, pointed how these
expenses had u~nreasonably
grown since the years fol-
lowing the Civil War, and
urged reform and reduction.
which the Republican party
solmenly promised in its
platform. How it kept its
promise appeared in 1887,
when the expenses, accord
ing to the same report Of
Treasurer Bacon had
grown to S420, $4,000
Still the Republican plat
forms promised reduction
and economy, but still the
expenses continued to grow
and in 1892 had become S404 1903. 90
Still the people of the
state continued to trust
Republican promises and as
n result found the yearly
expenses, at the end OF the
1907, t to- be ps''0o' SoO2, 552.14
Then came the era when
the Republican party felt safe
from opposition, and though
still regularly repeating It's
promises of economy, still
kept swelling expenditures
until in 1903 they reached
1921 ,00l.64, and after de-
Quoting every dime of in
come from state institu-
tons, or that was not in
the nature of taxes
l pens os' w ssps' 'N' S738, .o5
The peoples money had
been thrown away almost in
proportion as the people
have increased Republican
maiorities.
In 1899 the valuation of the state was
s 40,334,0 69 and the population census
of 1850 332,2s6. In 1903 the valuation
was Sl66,074,7l0 and the population
Census of l900l 343,64l.
Increase in population l-2 per cent
Increase in property IL IL per cent
Increase in expenditures 2S0 per cent
No other state in the union makes so
bad a showing. Maine, with her pro-
hibition and her next largest and steadi-
est Republican majority, comes next to
it. But Names increase Of population
in the same period was 7 l-2 per cent, or,
over twice az great as ours, and her In
crease in taxable property 40 per cent,
OF over -four and one-half times ours,
though her bloating Of state expenses,
from the same disease of Republican
misrule, was about the same as ours.
Yet this grand little state, where
comes such n sorry showing from Repub-
lican policies and Republican legislation
and administration, was in the first
quarter Of the last century, under the
Democratic Governors Galusha, Butler
and Van Ness, the Ell Dorado of the
union, developing faster, proportion
ally, in population, wealth and resources
than any other.
She was then what Nature and Ma
lures God intended her to be, and what
she will be again when blessed with
Democratic ideas and Democratic
methods, with her peculiarly good and
quick-renewing soil, whose products are
everywhere recognized as the choicest
in the markets, her pure air and water,
that not only give such advantage in
dairying but make her the Switzerland
of America" In delightfulness of resi-
dence, her vast resources in mine and
quarry and timber-land and the we'll
Ill E--.1- 0,I h- ~.
mountain-side streams.
Some shallow pates in the class of
politician economists not political
condition of things by the fact that Yer
mont Is without seaport The truth Is
that the states wonderful development
under Democratic rule was in times
when ocean m was q large ele-
cline-as II may fairly be called, In com-
the era of neglect of ocean and
nal development, In tho former era
Vermont ~prospered greatly In spite of
Che disadvantage Of lack OF seaports
from which other states prolted. In the
latter era she has Jagged far to the rear
of the procession among the states in the
kind Of development for which she was
by nature fitted best of all.
How far she has Jagged The census
shows. In the 90 years from 1880 to
1000, while her wealth increased only
ii IL per cent-or but n small fraction
of what simple interest should have
added to the capital with which she
started-the wealth of the nation as a
whole has grown, in round numbers from
$44. 900 900 600 to $685. 100000, or ll5
per rent or IL l-2 times faster than
Vermont.
Others of these shallow pates say the
trouble has been the rapid development
Of tho West and the drain of our popu-
lation and energy 10 it. Undeniably this
has been a large factor; but so It has
in the other New England states, whose