News and citizen. [volume] (Morrisville, Vt. ;) 1881-current, 1915-04-07
FROM THE STATE CAPITOL
Closing Events and Interesting
Resume of Legislative Doings
M oNTPELIER, VT,
April 5, 1915. I

r
And cabbages and kings'
Briefly. ! must now refer to as man
subjects in finallegislative review. Afte
the rather stormy and turbulent day an,
night of Friday the end came PEACEFUL,
at ten o'clock Saturday forenoon. l
was about three o'clock Saturday morn
ing when the business of the session wa
finally ended. after which a recess wa.
taken to ten to permit the fall of the CAV
ell in due and ancient form. The business
of the last day and night was conducted
deliberately and without friction, and q
look backward after the grand finale ap.
amount of satisfaction. Every body had
distinguished himself in some little or
larger way, according to his more or less
vauting ambition, and could take a
backward look over the things which
| had been accomplished and calltreason-
ably good. Every has performed
some little or larger act of accomplish
ment, and returned to his home with the
feeling that very large amount of i'm
portant work had been fairly well done.
OF course most all of them could point to
few matters here and there which might
have been improved if the individual had
had his own unrestricted way, but on
the whole there was enough of excellent
performance to GO round and then have
something to spare.
AS soon as it became definitely known
that the day and hour of adjournment
had been finally fixed everybody got busy
with will, and there was not the least
difficulty in making cleanup with time
to spare. In considering this fact, have
many times wondered why the General
Assembly could not have imbued itself
with this spirit after the first few weeks
of the session? If had been-or if such a
mental condition were possible-a ses-
sion of fifty working days would be en-
tirely sufficient in which to transact all
the work of a biennial session thor
oughly and efficiently. But, the first six
weeks OF session is very largely occu-
pied in feeling its way 1t is like a flock
of sheep in strange pasture. Its envir-
onmentis wholly strange, and-regardless
of the fact that committees are named
and the members are given their work
yet they are largely occupied in trying to
familiarize themselves with their sur
roundings and exploring the lot, SO to
speak. They are new to the place, to the
building, to the work, which is such de-
parture from their usual avocations; they
are looking out the corners o their eyes
at each other, and are for weeks trying
to get their feet under them for the pract-
ical and sensible conduct of the real valu-
able labors of the session. They are
mostly occupied in sizing each other up
and finding out what that contraption
is in the Mushroom over the bowls where
the liquid soap is kept. 1t takes some
time for herd of cattle in a strange lot |
to sniff the new location and reassure
themselves that it is safe and proper to |
get down to feeding contentedly, and in |
this respect we are all alike.
AS have said before, from an exper-
fence of fifteen sessions never knew one
made up of better or more serviceable |
raw material, and many much its in
ferior in respect to latent ability and |
sound sense. 1t did thoroughly well and !
worked most efficiently-after it found |
out how. AS body it was honest and |
conscientious with its paramount desire |
the best good of Vermont, and if the |
same identical men-with perhaps one |
exception-could be sent back here two |
years, hence the state would have such |
an efficient working legislature as may |
have been dreamed of but which never |
has and never will bless it. But, pity |
tits, tbs true" this is something which |
never can be realized.
The eternal and splendid truth that !
"men are only children OF larger growth
was exemplifed during the closing dozen |
hours of the session by the horse-pay in |
which many of the lighter hearted mem
bers engaged, and the results of it were |
seen and sometimes felton, all sides. 1t |
seems as if all the confetti-all colors of
paper cut into in6nitesimal pieces-in the
country must have been secured by some
of the members and used in a general
bombardment of each other and as far
as possible everybody else who came
within range of their activities. Scuffling
and skylarking was frequently being car
ried on by couples and punches in every
direction, hats were smashed. clothing
wrenched and bent all out of shape, and
the floors of the legislative halls, the cor
ridors and the committee rooms were
Uttered into seas of rubbish by the con-
fetti, scraps of newspapers, sections of
bill books and anything else which came
handy and would serve the purpose of
missile. Not infrequently, as the hour
grew later-or earlier-a more painful
article ofbric- -brac would hurtle through |
the air and impinge on the noble brow or