The Coolidge examiner., 1933-03-03

7 ERMONT. 10 which the ma
V tion turned recently as the
last resting place of Calvin
Coolidge, has story different from
that of most of its sister states. Its
story is more than a recital of sta
istics; ii is more than review of
the number of organs and scales
manufactured there annually and
far more interesting than an esti-
mate of the number OF miles of pub
lie buildings which could be faced
each year with its marble and
granite. and rooted with its slate.
1t has elements of drama. 1t
has faced not seven, but seventy,
lean years.
In the seventy years from 1850
10 1920 the census returns show that
the population increased only 314,-
120 to 352, ,42S or 3S,30S-a little
more than u per cent During this
same period the increase for the
United States as a whole was more
than $50 per cent. In the ten years
from 1910 to 1920 the number of
Vermonters actually decreased. Yet
the future seems bright enough to
the men and women of the Green
mountains.
The outsider may. perhaps, be for
given II he hopes that its prosperity
shall be no more than modest, and
that ii shall not interfere greatly
with Yermont's present status. For
IL is today one OF the most truly
American Of our states. Its people
have hardly changed in their essen
tial elements in a century. Rarely
one in nine is foreign-born. and the
majority of these are Canadian and
therefore American.
VermOnt's drama is rooted in that
fact. Its people are dynamic lot
-hard-hitting resourceful. ener-
getic, restless. In the census of
1870 il was shown that of the total
population of s5,425. approximately
$1,000 were Of English stock and
2,6O0 Scotch.
Its Young Men Left.
The oncoming years brought few
different factors. The names one
finds today in Vermont were on the
earliest records. There was little,
10 be candid about 1t. in Vermont to
tempt immigration In the last fifty
years of the past century. There
was everything outside to tempt
emigration. The young men left,
just as young Scotsmen go to Lon.
don.
Iowa's rich prairies called the
farmer who had stumbled over Yer.
mont's rocky hills. Once famed fol-
merino sheep-it became the in.
heritor of the Spanish Crown when
the royal fiocks were dissipated un,
der the threat of Napoleon's inva.
'~sion-it saw them disappear under
the pressure of necessity.
The estates located in rich bot.
tom lands were held, Of course, but
in the pioneer days farmers built
cabins on hill shoulders for the
sake of the early-morning reassur.
ance of a neighbor's plume of smoke
across the valley. Many of these
Hill farms became economically i'm.
possible.
Today the dairy COW is taking the
place sheep once held in Vermont's
scheme of things. The COW must
be fed all winter long but she abun.
dainty repays. Milk trains squeak
through the winter SHOWS to gath.
er cans at every crossroad. Milk
trains roar through the early dawn
bound for the great eastern cities
This achievement has only lately
been made possible by the creation
of new transportation facilities. Hel
enormous marble industry - one
shrinks from comparative state
hiChNSs bul Nti iuOlll II very C6TldlL
there can be no greater marble
quarries in the world-had not beer
thought of.
The dignified statehouse at Mont
pelier, the capital, was built Of
granite from the famous quarrie:
which have made Vermont the
leader among the states in the value
of this stone supplied for monu
mental purposes.
Rich in Marble and Granite.
So, if one sees nothing else IL
Vermont today. he should see the
marble quarries and the granite
works. where armies of skilled
men, equipped with the latest en-
gineering appliances. wrest huge
blocks of stone from the states ricf
mountain sides.
Many families were literally
starved out of the village of Lowell
in northern Vermont in the early
days. Wagon trains left for Ken
tucky and the Western Reserve. NJ
one then knew of the vast beds OF
asbestos in that part of the state.