The Bennington evening banner. (Bennington, Vt.) 19??-1961, 1912-09-20
BENNINGTON, VT SEPT 90. 1912
THE LEGISLATIVE ELECTIONS

The editor of the Bennington Ban
ner. the Hon. Frank E. Howe, as
nominee for acknowledgements on
the republican ticket, suffered with all
the good men on the same ticket be-
low him in the recent Vermont cleo
ton by virtue of the popular repudia-
ton aimed primarily at the head OF
the ticket. AS everybody knows, ii
will be the constitutional duty OF the
general assembly Immediately after
organization to proceed to an cleo
ton of governor and owing to stress
of conditions, also known TO every
body, interest at this hour is directed
upon the possibilities of that election.
The Bennington Banner in very
recent issue sounds a note of recall
from the governorship in its pres
ent contingent form TO considera-
ton of the platform demands upon
the legislature.
Whatever Editor Howe intended
this TO be, it certainly reads very
much like a call for a forgetting of
party differences in the first instance
in the memory of men now on the
Vermont political stage when party
alignment gives some earnest of be-
ing long-needed factor in progress
sive legislation for Vermont
A very large number of Vermonters
will agree with Mr.. Howe, both as an
editor and as nominee to the lieute-
nant- governorship, that the election
of a governor is a secondary issue,
but these same Vermonters are likely
to insist that party lines shall be
maintained, at least, until after gov
ernor shall have been chosen.
On no account would we infer that
Mr.. Howe, the acknowledgement
ship nominee, would advise any
course not creditable 10 Mr.. Howe,
the editor, or vice versa. To the
point, however, we can safely say,
which is this
Let party division in the general
assembly be forgetful of itself in
choice of state officers from the lieu
tenant-governor down, and forget or
remember itself according TO genuine
state benefit in the law-making to fol
low Rutland News.
For obvious reasons The Banner
udS hcoitd'cu W lila up III uiSCuSStOb
of the election by the legislature and
will do so now, only to a limited ex.
tent and in its hearing on the business
of the coming session.
The first duty of the legislature,
after its organization, will be TO elect
state officers. and the question is
whether the men who received a
large plurality of the vote, and ma
jority in more than half the towns of
the state, should be elected or wheth-
er a trading combination of minority
parties shall elect candidates who did
not come within thousands of votes OF
getting a plurality.
In practically every state in the
union the candidates receiving a plu-
rality would have been elected, but
because OF the peculiar provisions of
the Vermont constitution, the election
goes to the legislature. The legisla.
ture has their choices. II can elect
the men who received 40 per cent of
the total vote. the men who received
80 per cent, or the men who received
20 per cent.
The Banner may be prejudiced be
cause of personal complications. but
ii seems to us the moral obligation OF
the situation is plain, and especially
since the party which cast a large
plurality of the votes has elected a
considerable majority of both branch
es of the Legislature.
The campaign which recently took
place in Vermont, was as clean and
fair as ever occurred in any state,
and this is another reason why trad.
ing and combination in the legisla-
ture in connection with .ne election
of state officers would be, il seems to
us, wholly reprehcnsible and wrong.
What The Banner undertook to say
in its previous utterance was that
the mixup over election should not
blind either the legislature or the PEG
pie of the state to the other impor.
tant things that are TO come before
the session.
To a remarkable extent, the plat
form demands of all the parties agre-
ed this year. Some of the chief
things the state of Vermont needs
were embodied in every one of the
platforms. In the long run, it is ire
mendously more important that these
questions be met and the reforms car
ried out, than that the state should
work itself into a passion over the
legislative election, which is but an
incidental duty. while its enactmeuts
as a law-making body are its chief
burden and responsibility.
The two ought not to be permitted
to conflict and excitement and con-
troversy over the one should not. un-
der any circumstances, distract atten.
tiOn from or obscure the issues OF
the other and greater.
-.