The Waterbury Democrat., 1941-10-16
. NATIONAL
 SPOTLIGHT
Vermont
 Rejoins Union With a Bang
BY MILTON BRoNNER NEA-Democrat Stan Correspondent


 wisecracks = Vermont has rejoined the Union. And thereby hang two tales.
 Chapter One: Tn the presidential election of 1886 when all the states except Vermont and Maine cast their electoral votes for MT. Roose- welt, wise men cracked that those two commonwealths had seeded and that the President was thinking of appointing an ambassador to the two states.
 Chapter Two: Through its legis- lature and through it's one congress- man, Charles A. Plumley, Vermont has taken a front seat in support ing the President in his foreign policy. No ambassador will be need- ed. The Green Mountain State Is very much it1 the Union.
 When the draft was annoi oinced, the Vermont legislature adopted a bill providing that every Vermonter who served at least one year in &C., tive warfare should receive a bonus of $10 month for 12 months. Re- gently the governor called the 1egis- lature into special session in order to finance the University of Ver- mont. The solons also assembled with the idea that they wanted the Vermont selectees to have the bonus, war or no war. BONUS LAW BENT
 To get around the bonus law, the legislature passed resolution de- fining "armed conflict in such a way as to make possible the pay meilt of the state bonus to Vermont men in the federal armed service without a specific amendment to the statute.
 Armed conflict" was to be con- strued literally and would include a state of national emergency wherein the President shall order the Navy to exercise force to pro. tect the lives and property endan- gered by the hostile action of any foreign power" It was held that MT. Roosevelt's order sending the fleet to guard against submarines and surface raiders in the north Att lantic put the United States into armed conflict and hence the bonus was payable.
 One objecting solon said that un- der the resolution Vermont soldiers encamped in Florida and who shot nothing more than a .22 bullet at a woodchuck, would get the bonus. A leading Montpelier paper said when the governor signed the resolution Vermont was officially at war with Germany and any other power whose ships the President sends the fleet after.
 Another resolution set aside $500,- 900 for the payment of bonuses up to September, 1943. Vermont has contributed 20l2 men to the Na- tional Guard in federal service, S09 to the regular Army, 1893 selectees and 255 to the Navy and Marine Corps.
 Congressman Plumley has been one of the strongest supporters of the legislatures action. In speech at Wells, Vt, to celebrate the 150th anniversary of the states admission to the Union, paying his respects to fifth columnists and appeasers, he said:
 "1f they love some other country better than their own and what 1t affords, then they should go to that country or we should send them there. There is no neutral ground. It is either we or they
 Then he came on down to Wash- I tVanfAva aSAA lNS kIAa AR sentatlves told his fellow Republi- cans they were making mistake if they opposed the Presidents foreign policy. He himself had been se- we're critic of the Roosevelt internal policies. Said he:
 T am no Moses. It Is not up to me to lead the Republican party out of the wilderness. Nevertheless, nm the sole representative in this house of the only consistently Re- publican state in the Union, and, as such I assert my right to be heard. Recognizing the fact that there cannot successfully be two foreign policies followed by the United States, my state has almost unanimously voiced its determina- ton, by its legislature assembled, to support the foreign policies an. nounced by the President"
 BLASTS APPRAISERS
 Paying his bitter compliments to the appeasers in both political par- ties, he said:
 "The fact that the world fire of war was set by a war.mad lunatic still at large, seems to make no in- pression upon those who, while they cry loudly that if their house be en- dangered, they will unite to help put out the blaze, yet do everything in their power to hinder and distract the hremen who are attempting to check the flames before they reach us."
 He disavowed entirely the right of those who opposed the Presi- dents foreign policy to brand the Republican party as opponents of this policy and of national defense. He wisecracked:
 They talk to empty seats or empty heads.'
 Plumley is 100 per cent Vermont CT. His great-grandfather on both sides were among the Green Moun- tain Boys who fought at Bunker Hill, Ticonderoga and Bennington. He has been repeatedly honored by his state, holding offices of speaker of the Vermont House of Repre- sentatives, commissioner of taxes of Vermont and president of Norwich University, in his home town of Northfield. His father served in the national House of Representatives three terms and the son is now serving his fifth consecutive term there.
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