The Bennington evening banner. (Bennington, Vt.) 19??-1961, 1909-11-23
PIatform-Makinq Again.


mittee of representative man draft
tentative platform for the Republi-
cans OF Vermont to endorse with
amendments galore at the next state
convention is something of a joke. -
Bristol Herald.
1t depends upon how it is done.
The Messenger does not believe
there need be any very radical de-
parture from the general system that
has been followed by state conven-
tons or the party machinery behind
them for several years past By
this method, the Republican state
committee a sufficient time in adj
vance of the convention selects
chairman of the committee on resolu-
tions from among the delegates elect
ed to the convention and makes pub
lie announcement of the choice. 1t
is known to the party throughout the
state that this man is to write the
first draft of the platform.
This is work that somebody must
do, no matter what plan of platform
building is followed Somebody must
make first draft The idea that a
whole committee can sit down in an
hour on the day of the convention
and decide upon the various planks
that are to go into the platform and
then shape them in terse and Yigor-
Gus campaign English. is aA~humbug
as every practical man knows. But
when somebody goes before such a
committee with an outline that EN-
braces pretty much all the topics
likely to be regarded as worth a
place In the platform, the committee
has some concrete expression of
opinion to accept or reject or modi-
fly. something tangible to work upon.
On at least one occasion recently
mot in 1908, however, the entire
committee on resolutions was named
by the state committee some time af-
ter the chairman had been designat-
ed and this committee assembled the
night before the convention and
went over the chairmans draft in a
long and careful session. This re-
suited in the popular platform of
1906
1t is seldom that any convention
will attempt to modify the report of
the committee on resolutions, al
though, of course, it has the supreme
power in this, as in all other mat
tiers it may delegate to committee to
formulate. Conventions are not
likely to upset platforms because
committees are not likely to bring in
platforms the convention is likely to
upset.
Public opinion as voiced through
the press and in speeches here and
there generally gives the attentive
politician a fair line on what the par
ty will accept as a platform. The
trouble in Vermont has been, not so
much that the mass of voters in the
party We're not satisfied with recent
platforms, generally speaking, but
that an Altogether too large fraction
of the 276 men that biennially meet
to make laws at Montpelier are not
very actively in touch with public
affairs or public sentiment and have
not adequately realized the import
ance of public opinion or their moral
responsibility to it as expressed in
party platform.
The Vermont plan of platform-mak-
ing is substantially the plan followed
10y the national Republican party,
too that 10 20 say. the original draft
er of the platform is publicly an
nOunced days in advance of the con
yention, and any man or any news
paper that wants to get a sugges-
ton to him has ample opportunity to
do so. After his draft is ready, the
committee must pass upon it and up
on any propositions from their own
members or from anybody else with
a serious idea worth considering.
And finally the last draft has to go
before the convention, itself
If the state committee. announced
its selection of chairman of the
resolutions committee as early as II
possibly could before the convention,
and, If the resolutions committee was
completely made up and assembled
for consideration of the chairman's
draft the night before the convention
every time, there would be some i'm
provement in the situation.
But. as The Messenger has said
many times before when this subject
has been under consideration, if we
are to expect that those platforms
are to adequately voice party senti-
ment, the Republican press of the
state must expect to make a serious
business of either creating that senti-
ment or finding out what it already
is and expressing it time enough in
advance of the platform building so
that the platform will voice that
sentiment and nothing else. and
those that hear it read in convention
will know whether it does or not
The trouble is that most of us
newspapers do not pay any attention
80 the matter month after month in
the two years between campaigns,
and then suddenly break out with inn
perious demands that there shall be
a platform that expresses a party
sentiment that often-times has hard
~ crystalized. The newspapers of
this state. If they would make