St. Johnsbury Caledonian. [volume] (St. Johnsbury, Vt.) 1867-1919, 1909-01-20
Governor TriumphS.


Adopted by the HOuSe.-The Hot
test Fight of the Session Results
in the VindicatiOn of the Governor
[From Our Legislative Correspondent. ]
Gov. Prouty and his thousands o.
friends were made happy last week by
action of the House in passing an act
providing for Public Service Commits
sion to regulate and control telephone
telegraph. express, gas, electric light and
power companies. The fight on this
measure overshadowed anything thus
far presented, and the Capitol has been
thronged with busy party workers for
severl days. The.independent telephone
companies have been putting up the
fight of their lives and succeeded in
gathering and holding the balance of
power.
1t has been thought by the independent
companies and their friends that the bill
was drawn in the interests of the New
England Telephone Company and the
sources from which it came, the appear
ance of some well known New England
attorneys, and the connection of Gov.
Prouty with the Passumpsic Telephone
Company all lead to what is now known
to have been an exaggerated fear. This
bill as first drawn provided that no
telephone company could start in bus
mess where one company was already
established. 1t also provided that the
companies controlled should bear all the
expense connected with the commission
This naturally aroused the ire of all
independent companies and led to such
a storm of protest and accusation that
Mr.. Barber, the author of the bill, drew
up a substitute bill eliminating these
Objectionable features. The substitute
bill however was so cleverly drawn that
there was still suspicion that the New
England Company would have an adj
vantage in crushing out competition
from the smaller companies. The
farmers meeting of Wednesday evening
disclosed the fact that the members
would strenuously oppose any measure
tending to stife competition. On Thurs
day morning when the bill came up for
discussion in the house Mr.. Boyce of
Waterbury proposed an amendment pro-
viding in effect that nothing in this bill
or in existing statutes should be so con-
strued as to give this commission the
right to restrict, prevent or interfere
with competition between the several
companies. Under this amendment to
the bill the independent companies could
offer no serious objection to the bill
itself. All suspicion on the part of the
members was removed when Mr.. Barber
gracefully accepted the amendment and
stated that he wished the bill to be per
fectly fair between all companies con-
cerned and although he thought the bill
was fair one without an amendment
he was glad to have all doubt removed.
The amendment was adopted and the
bill passed by almost unanimous vote
This is the only matter on which Gov.
Prouty's integrity, honesty and fairness
have been questioned and the splendid
of last week has given him
a clean bill of health in the matter. Bear
in mind that although the bill had all
the earmarks of New England Telephone
measure the Objectionable features were
one by one until the bill was
made acceptable to the independent COM
panies and fair to the public Thus does
it appear that the Governors zeal in
behalf of the measure was prompted by
no other motive than to fulfill his DO
litical promise to the people of the state,
which promise was made even before he
became a director of the Passumpsic
Telephone Company. Such was the
happy ending of a matter that had
waxed warm, that had become a per-
sonal fight, and which threatened to
divide party.
1t seems to be pretty we'll settled that
the only tax reform we are to have at
present will be by way of tax com
mission. The offset bill, which has been
slumbering for several weeks, is dead
and buried beyond recall. 1t was called
up on Friday and given its final knock
out. The names, occupation and Brad
streets financial rating of the members
voting against the bill would be very
interesting reading, and l may find time
later to compile these very interesting
statistics and supplement them by a
brief abstract of each members tax in.
ventory. With all the data before us.
and all OF it matter of record, it will be
very easy to place the responsibility for
the failure of promised tax reform. The
Governor has urged tax reform; the tax
commission appointed by Governor
Proctor studied the matter two years
and report unanimously for it, the Joint
committee on taxation, composed of the
ablest men from both House and Senate,
unanimously recommend it and the
Senate voted for it by vote of "a to 4.
The old argument that offsets were the
farmers salvation has been chased to
the woods and the banks, lumbermen,