Vermont phÅ“nix. [volume] (Brattleboro, Vt.) 1834-1955, 1911-07-29

aggregates nearly s2,OOO,OoO, the annual
income from which is distributed among
the local schools according to their
needs. A people that are so keenly alive
to this idea of their social responsibility
can hardly be said to be "decadent."
Vermont and Her Corporations.
Take the matter of regulation of pub
lie service corporations. In some of the
largest and busiest states in the Union
public opinion has been struggling for
years to attain the power and influence
necessary to accomplish in this direc-
ton what Vermont has succeeded in do
ing with practically no struggle at all
few years ago the state transformed
its old-time railroad commission with
limited powers into a public service COM
mission. gave to it the oversight of all
public service corporations even to the
point of regulating their rates, and
clothed it with sufficient authority under
such wise restrictions that today the
problem veXing so many of its neigh
bors is practically undiscussed in YER
mont Public service corporations nave
accepted the new order of things with
philosophy, the law has been admins
tered with tact and common sense, and
peace reigns and the public is protected.
When railroad passes were abolished
here several years ago another abuse
was quietly put out of the way with no
one seriously dissenting. The public SER
vice commission is now working under
a law that compels the adjustment of
certain number of grade crossings every
year, the expense in each case to be
borne in part by the state, the town,
and the railroad. One by one these
dangerous crossings are being eliminated
and in a few years the transportation
lines will know them no more. Surely
this is as much progress in this direc-
ton AS some far more populous states
are showing.
Vermont has a very considerable high
way problem to handle because her ter
ritory is more or less mountainous or
hilly and lies in n climate where the
frosts are prolonged and often severe.
For years there have been at work here
influences tending more and more to
overcome the old-time local prejudice
that s1ubborny retained pretty much all
control of the highways, section by sec
lion, in 246 patty local authorities in the
246 separate towns in which those sec
tiOns lay. The purpose was gradually to
reshapp The law so that the greater au-
thority over the highways generally could
he exercised by the state. Within the
past few years more progress than ever
has been made in this direction, the
missioner an authority over the high
ways and the disbursements of money
upon them that would hardly have been
dreamed Of ten years ago, and each sue
Ceeding session of the Legislature does a
little bit more toward reducing this bust
ness to the control of centralized state
authority, working all over the state on
a uniform system and according to q
uniform plan. The state highway com
missioner holds an annual school for To-
cal supervisors in each county in the
state and thus educates his forces to q
higher standard of work year by year.
Thus commendable progress in road
building is being made and this season
the outlay for good roads in Vermont
will be over million dollars, or about
three dollars for every man, woman and
child in the state! That's "decadence!"
isn't it?
The child labor law passed by Yer
mont six years ago was at the time ne
garded as a well-nigh model statute by
various persons IL the country at large
interested IN this movement for reform,
and this VeXed question OF sociology does
not trouble this state today. 1t still
troubles some of our more populouE
neighbors. In this same period, also
Vermont has adopted a law compelling
the weekly payment of wages by corpo-
ratiOns and an employers liability law
that is in sympathy with the modern de-
Velopment of thought along this line.
This wsGIld rather tend to Indicate that.
even If there are not as many people in
Vermont as Mr.. Rossiter wouh like to
See they are not standing still
Booming Agriculture.
In these same ten years the state has
built "A beautiful agricultural college
building at a. cost of S60,e00 and greatly
NJ tLa
experiment station and farm connected
with it. Moreover, one agricultural high
school has been established and the be-
ginning made toward the realization of
policy that Will probably erect at least
one OF these schools in every county IN
the state. The state commissioner OF
agriculture makes an annual tour of the
farming sections, holding pubsc meet
ings at convenient points at which ex-
perts in this science treat agricultural
problems from the Vermont farmers
viewpoint and discuss local conditions
and local needs with the local farmers
that may have special troubles requiring
special treatment The same school OF
missionary work has been done the past
two seasons by running Better Farm
Ing special trains. The state Is most
generous and ambitious In conducting
this campaign of popular education in the
new understanding of the great science
of agriculture. But this is a sign OF
"decadence."
Vermont has in this period 30 forbid
ding to Mr.. Rossiter's view entirely re-
modelled its system OF courts and sub
stituted for It's former judicial machinery
courts organized on modern lines that
have already cleared up old dockets, and
today do more work to better satisfac-
ton than the courts have ever done be-
fore Incidental to this has been the
creation of the office of attorney gen
eral who has the oversight of the state
cases In every county, and whose coun-
sci and assistance to the local states
attorney expedite justice and save ex-
pense. The judiciary and the bar of any
state are proverbially slow to adopt
changes, people that in the period
that 50 and Mr. Rossiter find so gloomy
can overset the habits Of the legal mind
for generations must be going some"
The past decade has seen the complete
reorganization Of the state militia along
lines now conforming in every partic-
uar to the United states army standard.
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