The Washington times., 1912-09-02
VOTE IN VERMONT
HAS ALL LEADERS
! ON ANXIOUS BENCH
Old Party Men Uncertain
as to Outcome of
: { Election.
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. leader in Indianapolis business cir
cles; and a dozen years ago returned
to- make his home in Vermont.
There he has been a political aspirant
ever since, serving several times in the
legislature and having been booked for
the governorship for several seasons
past. He is described as being fully as
magnetic as a wooden Indian In the
offing of a trust-owned cigar store, and
as sympathetic with the plain people
as John d. Archbold raised to the nth
power. He can make about as good a
speech as deaf-mute Choctaw trying
untraveled Kamschatkans
Excesses of Thrift.
Moreover, he is accused of indulging
excesses of thrift that even a Ver-
monter's admiration for that quality
finds 1t hard to assimilate. 1t mightn't
be SO bad II Mr. Fletcher had brewed
pure Vermont maple sugar out of New
Orleans molasses and sold 1t to suckers
in interstate traffic at $1.20 the gallon; f;
that would be recognized as just as hui
morous as the wooden nutmeg Is in
Connecticut.
Mr.. Fletcher's offense WASN'T an in
terstste one; It ,s was against @ the Local
SO they are saying in voluminous afti-
davits supported by lot of dreary
mathematician lodging his taxes with
great celerity and regularity.
Mr.. Fletcher denies this, and counters
with the vigorous assertion that he gave
library to his native town.
Metzger.. the Progressive candidate,
10 a preacher who was so eloquent that
the people in his town decided to con-
solidate all the churches so they could
all 60 to hear him every Sunday. He
can talk like house afire and has been
doing It,.
Beveridge. Herbert Knox Smith, Gif-
ford Pinchot, James r. Garfield, Judge
Ben Lindsey and finally Colonel Roose-
welt. himself, have stumped the state
from Massachusetts, to canada and get.
ting big audiences, all full of interest
II not enthusias asm-thev never get any
more enthusiastic in Vermont than a
banana grove trying to produce rec
ord-breaking crop of dividends for the
United Fruit Company on the shores OF
Bering straits.
But the trouble with getting Vermont
to cash in its Progressive interest IN
votes is that politics in Vermont is con-
trolled by the machine and that the
machine there is a state of mind
rather than the usual sort.
Have the State Groggy.
You can occasionally bust a ma
chine such as they have in Pennsyl-
vania or Indiana or Ohio: but to
"smash' the Vermont organization is
ing to land an effective knockout punch
on the solar plexus OF sponge. Still
the Progressives have got the vermont
sponge groggy; the regulars think
Fletcher is going to fail of his majority
and they know that Taft Is tmmeasur'
ably weaker than Fletcher.
In other words. II Taft. Roosevelt,
and Wilson were going to be voted on
at the polling tomorrow. Taft wouldn't
have a look-in for majority vote, and
Roosevelt would get manv thousands
more than Metzger will show.
All sides agree on this: and the disad-
vantage under which the Progressives
labor lies in the fact that their showing
cannot possibly be so good now as to
State in November
But people on the outside. who don't
understand these conditions. may be
somewhat misled as to these matters
Metzger's vote in Vermont will. OF
course. be held up by the Taft pub
lcity agencies as measure or Roose.
will not be. by any means II Metzger
runs so strongly as to throw Fletcher s
election into the legislature. 1t will fore
cast the possibility of Roosevelt actu.
ally carrying the State In November
The Vermont machine may be diff
ferent from other machines. but 1t does
about the same business. For instance
the railroads in Vermont don't pay as as
much taxes as other people think they
ought to. and Allen Fletcher isn't
looked upon as just the man to squeeze
them verv hard for more. The plain
people think the whole taxation scheme
ought to be reorganized, and there was
much of fair promising In this direc.
ton from the Republican side early II
the campaign.
Dodging Taxes Charge.
Then the charges against Fletcher o
dodging his own taxes were noiseC
abroad, and the State let out a guffaV
at the idea of that sort of governo
doing much harm to the powerful rail
road and Industrial interests that ar
getting the benefit of the present con
ditions.
Tendencies OF opinion in the Greel
Mountain State are indicated by the fac
that the Progressive speakers have hat
all the big audiences. They were de
manded by the people. When the peopl
were asked by the Taft managers whom
they wanted for speakers. they kept de
manding Progressives The manager
didn't like to explain that all the Pro
gressives were unavailable, because the
were talking for Roosevelt so they at
tached progressive" label to some o
the old fashioned boys like Jim Watson
and sent them out to make "Pv~>
sive" speeches.
The Vermonters not being so green a
their pretty little mountain range, jus
laughed, and that stunt didn't get faI
Altogether, 1t has been a doleful cam
paign for the old-liners, what wit
administering chilblains.
Tomorrow night we'll know how it.
coming out.
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