St. Johnsbury Caledonian. [volume] (St. Johnsbury, Vt.) 1867-1919, 1910-03-16
Declares His Principles.
F. G. Fleetwood Believes the People
Should Have More Voice
in the Choice of Political
Candidates.

| F. G. Fleetwood of Morrisvi1le and a
candidate for the republican nomination
| for governor addressed the people of St.
| Johnsbury at The Colonial last Friday
| evening on the issues before the state
The Rev. E. T. Fairbanks presided at the
meeting and spoke very highly of Mr..
Fleetwood and his family when they
| lived in st. Johnsbury and of the pride
his old associates and neighbors felt in
knowing and meeting with man
worthy of aspiring to such an exalted
Office. He introduced w. ]. Bigelow who
made short address in which he en-
phasized the fact that the demand of the
times was for progress and reform and
more general participation of the people
in the affairs of government.
When Mr.. Fleetwood was introduced
he was given an enthusiastic reception.
He spoke of the warm place St. Johns
bury held in his heart on account of his
early life and associations here. He first
told of the present method of selecting
candidates for office. A man decides he
wants to run for the governorship and
he begins by calling in one or two repre-
sentatives from town, paving their ex-
penses and calling on them to "swing
sentative works with his friends ticket
is fixed and ways are provided for those
who will vote with them to be at the
caucus. The caucus usually lasts less
than half an hour and very few of the
people have any voice in it. This method
besides keeping the people out of it is
very expensive to the candidate. He de-
clared that the people should have as
much voice in the first selection of their
public officers as in the final election.
Therefore he was a believer in direct
.ot, - L
should be open all day and every citizen
given an opportunity to express his
choice.
To prevent an undue use of money in
politics he would have the state pass a
corrupt practices act. This would define
by law the purposes for which money
could be used in politics and would
require sworn statement by the can
didate of all the money spent by him and
a false statement would make him liable
to punishment for perjury.
To reduce court expenses he would
have the act committing prisoners
sentenced for less than ninety days to
the county jail amended so that any one
sentenced for 60 days should be sent to
the house of correction. He gave the
statistics regarding Washington county
to show what a saving such law there
would effect and stated that by this
change the state could easily save $685.
900 year.
Under the present law the grand and
petit jurors are summoned to court on
the opening day and there is usually no.
thing for them to do for two days or
more. He would have the law amended
so they should be summoned at the
discretion of the trial Judge. In this
way their work could be prepared and
they given an opportunity to do it at
less expense to the state. He also
expressed his endorsement of the idea of
district courts which could give more
speedy and cheaper justice.
In regard to a highway policy for the
state he said the law should designate
what trunk highways should be. They
having been fixed by law, the state
should take charge of them and main
tain them. He expressed himself as op-
posed to the issuance of bonds to build |
state roads or taking away from towns |
any of the money they raise for main |
tanning highways, but the state funds al |
ready raised and whatever more could |
be raised should be used in this way and |
by building what we could from year to |
year we would soon have state system
of highways.
He again declared himself in favor of |
state forest reserves in each county. |
This he realized might be a long time
coming but the state was already |
engaged in the establishment
of state reserves and he believed would
continue this work until county reserves
would be possible. These would give
examples in every section of the
state which would be valuable object
lessons to the people.
Evidently Mr.. Fleetwood does not in
tend to wait for labor to force promises
from him but came out and definitely
declared that two years ago the state
platform of the republican party pro-
missed an employers liability act and
the exemption of wages of less than $40
4 week from the trustee process. He
believed these were pledges on the part
IF the organization and that they should
try in the coming legislature to
redeem these pledges. He also restated
lis belief that the party platform should
De adopted before the candidates were
nominated and each one pledged to sup
oort.the platform as adopted.
He closed by saying that while the
people might not agree on all of the
principles he had declared for he believed
hat from now on the crv of Vermonters
hould and would be 'Down with
money campaigns"