“The only thing new in the world is the history you don't know.” -- Harry Truman
Showing posts with label History. Show all posts
Showing posts with label History. Show all posts

Friday, October 15, 2021

What is the Vermont Way?

A fresh look at a remarkable place


Restless Spirits & 
Popular Movements
A Vermont History

“A definitive examination of how average people in one of the nation’s smallest states have influenced and continue to shape American history… A well-written and nuanced history of Vermont’s social movements.” - Kirkus Reviews


“a hard book to put down and 

when you do you keep on thinking…” - Melinda Moulton


“a rollicking political and social history of Vermont…” 

- Sasha Abramsky


“…an engaging read that helps explain what makes Vermont Vermont.

- Seven Days


“an effective and invaluable learning tool…” - Jim DeFilippi


“A fascinating and energetic account of the history of Vermont…” - Susan DeMasi



“For readers new to Vermont history, this book will introduce key figures and important events that helped create the state they know today. For readers steeped in Vermont history, the book’s most rewarding parts will probably come in later chapters, where Guma draws from his decades of reporting to offer insights into some of the major political actors and movements from the late 1960s to the present.” 

— Mark Bushnell, Vermont History



Available in bookstores and online


From Ethan Allen to Bernie Sanders, Vermont has forged a separate path as a small, independent state with a strong sense of how to preserve its basic traditions while changing with the times. Restless Spirits and Popular Movements revisits its unique story through movements and memorable people who have created the delicate balance of sovereignty and solidarity, political independence and mutual aid known as the Vermont Way. The journey features a memorable cast of characters. 

New illustrated & expanded paperback edition
From White River Press and The UVM Center for Research on Vermont
(sample pages)

Early Reviews

"Vermont has a rich history of humanity who have challenged the status quo and changed the course for the State and in many instances the entire country.  If one wonders how Vermont became what it is today — a trailblazer for human rights, climate, income equality, women's reproductive freedom, racial and judicial justice, etc. — read Greg Guma's book.  It is all there — with beautiful enticing words that weave together a picture of the Green Mountain State and the humans who scripted and sent forth the progressive movement.  It's a hard book to put down and when you do you keep on thinking .....it's a great read and a true assessment of the who, what, when and how Vermont's legacy of social change came to be the blueprint for change admired around the World." — Melinda Moulton, co-founder and CEO of Main Street Landing in Burlington


“Greg Guma has written a rollicking political and social history of Vermont, one of the most fascinating, and least written-about, states in the union. He takes readers on a big journey from the pre-revolutionary years through to Bernie Sanders' runs for the  presidency. In between, he introduces larger-than-life figures from the worlds of politics, religion, culture, journalism, industry and array of other areas. He brings to life great political battles in the early years of the Republic, including around Thomas Jefferson's agrarian vision of the country; struggles for regional dominance and relevance with neighboring states; union struggles; tussles between progressives and nativists over Vermont's identity; and the unique politics of a place that some have compared to the US's own version of Switzerland. The result is both a fun read and an authoritative read, delivered by a skilled writer who has immersed himself in Vermont life and politics for decades.” — Sasha Abramsky, journalist and author of The American Way of Poverty


“This book acts as an effective and invaluable learning tool for those of us who think we know the true history of the state of Vermont, as well as for those of us who know we don’t.” — Jim DeFilippi, author of Jesus Burned
2017 KINDLE EDITION: ORDER HERE
LIKE GREEN MOUNTAIN POLITICS ON FACEBOOK 
SOFT COVER EDITION (2021): VERMONT RESEARCH BOOKS

Many episodes have also been released on other websites, as well as in live presentations. The project also includes rare photos, dramatic stories and an episode from The Vermont Movie. Latest — Culture War in Bennington; Birth of the NPAs   2017 additions -- Cleaning up the World: Vermont's First Earth Day, Earth Day 1990: Making Peace with the Planet and Dark Shadows in Vermont's Past.  Also check out Class Struggle: From Socialism to the American Plan and How Traditions and Values Have Defined the Vermont Way (Green Mountain Noise, 2VR, Spring 2014) Publishing partners include VTDigger, Center for Global Research, Second Vermont Republic, ZNet, and Toward Freedom.   

PROGRESSIVE MOVEMENTS
Monograph available as PDF
What is the Vermont Way? The term has been used to describe everything from the traditional way to make maple syrup and smart farming in general to a political campaign agenda and the ability to make something out of almost nothing. Sometimes it extends into the phrase “the Vermont way of life.” When he left the Republican Party Jim Jeffords said, “Independence is the Vermont Way.” In her autobiography Consuelo Northrup Bailey, the first female attorney admitted to practice before the US Supreme Court and the first female lieutenant governor in the nation, said the character of Vermont was defined by “everyday, common, honest people who unknowingly salted down the Vermont way of life with a flavor peculiar only to the Green Mountains.”

"Serenade in Green"


 Green Mountain Politics describes the state’s delicate dance of sovereignty and solidarity, independence and mutual aid. The subtitle refers to the focus on political, economic and social events, trends and personalities. Covering centuries, this transmedia project features unique stories, sketches of key figures, and original analysis that explains how the Vermont Way evolved. The following installments are available:

Dark Shadows in Vermont's Past 

The Parkway That Never Was
From The Vermont Movie, directed by Nora Jacobson
 This 5:53 film segment streams on this site and allows scrolling with audio

 An illustrated print edition will be released in November 2021, with new insights about influential Vermonters like revolutionary leaders Matthew Lyon and Ethan Allen, Anti-Mason Governor William Palmer and feminist Clarina Nichols; railroad and marble tycoons, anti-slavery activists, major strikes and labor protests; Vermont-born Presidents Chester Arthur and Calvin Coolidge and progressive politicians James Burke and Ernest Gibson; intimate portraits of Governors Phil Hoff, Tom Salmon, Richard Snelling, and Madeleine Kunin, as well as Bernie Sanders, James Jeffords, and Howard Dean. Plus, the Vermonter who rescued America from McCarthy. 

Excerpts from Greg Guma's Dangerous Words and Maverick Chronicles are also available:

Subscribe to The Vermont Way for articles and event announcements. 
See more excepts at VTDigger.org

 Video: Vermont Pastoral 

Photo Montage & Music by Greg Guma 
Posted by at
Labels: , , , , , , ,

Saturday, January 9, 2021

Vermont: From Republic to State

After 14 years as an independent republic Vermont became the 14th US state and entered the union on March 4, 1791. Here are highlights from that post-revolutionary journey.

An essay adapted from Green Mountain Politics: Restless Spirits, Popular Movements, Greg Guma's book on the state’s evolution. 

Vermont emerged from the American Revolution in the best economic condition of any former colony. It had no state debts, and since the Continental Congress had refused to admit it as a member state, no responsibility for the national debt.

Its currency was relatively strong and a stream of settlers had begun to arrive. The estimated population jumped from around 20,000 in 1776 to 85,000 when a census was taken 15 years later. After issuing its own Declaration of Independence and holding a Constitutional Convention the independent state had held elections and begun to call itself the Republic of Vermont in early 1778.

In the western region, where the Allen family held the greatest sway, commercial ties were pursued with Quebec. Timber, potash and meat went through the Richelieu rapids to Canadian markets. On the eastern side people shipped their goods south, down the Connecticut River to the American states.

With land as a foundation the Allen family essentially ran the new republic through their agent Thomas Chittenden, who became the Vermont’s first governor long before it joined the United States.

A farmer and land speculator, possibly the first settler of what became Williston, Chittenden launched the Onion River Company with three Allen brothers. Many people resented their grip on the state. But Chittenden was popular with the voters, a practical leader who successfully balanced the factions groping for influence during negotiations with the British and the new Congress.

Despite his political gifts, however, repeated attempts to send delegates to the Continental Congress during the revolution were rebuffed. In fact, delegates were treated downright shabbily and felt they were forced to fight their neighbors as well as their enemies.

Letters from Chittenden to George Washington professed loyalty to the revolution. But they also made it clear that Vermont would change sides rather than be swallowed up. Disappointed with treatment by both Britain and the new nation’s Continental Congress, state government eventually called Vermont’s soldiers home, and the independent republic adopted a stance of neutrality while leading citizens continued to negotiate for permanent sovereignty.

In 1783 American and British representatives signed the Treaty of Paris. The map accompanying the agreement indicated that Vermont was outside the protective boundary of Britain’s Canada. But it wasn’t obligated to join the American states.

The Allens wanted to continue building commercial ties with Quebec. But economic interests in the east and southwest had different objectives. This group of land speculators, merchants, lawyers, and “Yorkers” began to openly challenge the state’s leading family and their hand-picked governor. In other words, outside interests wanted a greater share of Vermont land and resources for themselves. Rebellion and competition wore away at the Allens’ influence and holdings for years after independence was won.

Farmers and workers had their own concerns. They complained, for example, that Vermont had too many merchants, whom they blamed for draining the region’s wealth. Many also opposed the harsh tactics used by lawyers and sheriffs to foreclose on settlers. Through calculated, expensive legal proceedings encouraged by the state government, poor people were being forced deeper into debt.

Merchants and land speculators were doing well, but others were hit hard in a post-revolutionary depression. In response, some inhabitants returned to combat, confronting their new rulers just as they had their previous feudal overseers.

One memorable incident was the October 1783 raid on a creditor’s house in which a group of Bennington settlers seized notes, obligations and bonds. In November 1786 another band tried to close the courts of Windsor and Rutland counties, mainly in order to prevent lawsuits from moving forward.

The state also experienced its first Watergate-style scandal: Ira Allen was caught with his hand in the till. He had secured ownership of the Town of Woodbridge – now called Highgate – as a favor from Governor Chittenden. In 1789 the state Assembly investigated.

The outcome: Ira lost much of his influence, and Chittenden lost his first election in ten years. He was back in power a year later, however, and remained in office until shortly before his death in 1797.

The Jeffersonian wing of Vermont’s new power structure, originally led by the Allens, was weakened by such controversies. Leaders from other parts of the state meanwhile began to assert more influence. This shift was accompanied by a renewed move toward statehood.

New York needed more political allies in Congress, particularly in the Senate, and approached the Republic of Vermont. Once former enemies worked out mutually advantageous reasons to drop their past disputes and become friends, winning support from the US Congress didn’t turn out to be a problem.  

On January 10, 1791, the Vermont Convention on Ratification of the Constitution voted yes. Five weeks later, on February 18, the US Congress agreed to admit the region. The independent Republic of Vermont became the 14th US state and officially entered the union on March 4, 1791.

Buy the Book
At this point there were 85,539 people living in 185 towns, according to a general census. Some leaders tried to stack the electoral deck, pushing unsuccessfully to restrict voting rights to property owners. But as Andrew and Edith Nuquist put it in Vermont State Government and Administration, “The inhabitants of Vermont were restless spirits who, having escaped from their former confines, were more than willing to try new ideas and to rebel at restraints normally imposed by society.”

Ethan Allen eventually settled in Burlington and passed away in 1789. His brothers Ira, Levi and Ebenezer, the last of whom resettled in Quebec, continued to look for economic opportunities. A timber deal with Canada proved disastrous, however, and Ira’s dream of a canal around the Richelieu rapids led to a personally damaging international incident.

In 1795, Ira Allen went to London to secure support for the canal plan. The point of the project, at this point, was to improve his commercial position and help Britain defend Canada from France. But Allen was frustrated at the lukewarm response he received. He was also in need of money and moved on to Paris to purchase some guns, ostensibly for the state militia back home. Records suggest he actually cut a deal with the French to help bring the recent revolution there to Canada. 

Caught at sea by the British, Ira returned to France to obtain proof of his intentions. But the French also doubted his loyalty and threw him in jail for a year. When he finally returned to Vermont he was a broken man, outcast and in serious debt.

Ira Allen deeded his last property to his brother Heman in 1803, and then fled the state to avoid imprisonment. In 1814 he died a pauper in Philadelphia.
Posted by at No comments:
Labels: , , , , , ,

Sunday, August 30, 2020

A Progressive Censors Red Emma

September 3, 1909: Burlington Mayor stops Anarchist from speaking

James Burke, Burlington's first Progressive mayor, in 1906.

Geography made Burlington the fastest growing part of Vermont as early as the 1820s, when a canal at the southern end of Lake Champlain created a trade route from Canada to New York. Once railroad lines were added along the burgeoning waterfront, what became known as the Queen City emerged as the region’s transportation and business hub.

“In a commercial point of view,” crowed the Burlington Clipper newspaper, “Burlington is most favorably placed.”

What was true for commerce also held for immigrants. Waves of Irish, French Canadians, Italians, Jews and Germans rolled in. The effects were clearly felt by the turn of the century. Vermont remained a rock-ribbed Republican state, but an active working class emerged in Burlington and Democrats, albeit some of them prosperous “charter members” of the community, took control of City Hall.

In the years that followed Burlington hosted “progressive era” reforms like a municipally-owned electric company, public dock and restrooms, an attractive train depot with modern amenities, playgrounds for children, and a public wharf. A central figure during this period was James E. Burke, a Democrat first elected Mayor in 1903 and re-elected six times over the next 30 years.

A Catholic blacksmith and son of Irish immigrants from Canada, Burke began his political career when he was almost 50, becoming a champion of the poor, labor, and ethnic newcomers. After rising to prominence largely on the freedom to reach the public with his ideas, you might think he would cherish the right of dissent no matter who was speaking. Yet Burke sometimes revealed a tendency to drown out his opposition.

There was the night when the Masons visited the City Council to request tax exempt status on their Church Street property. Hamilton Peck, a former Republican mayor with whom Burke had battled over control of the Street Commission, represented the Masons. When he asked to speak, Burke rapped his gavel angrily and refused.

Assuming that he spoke for everyone, the mayor told the lawyer that they’d heard as much of his talk as they wanted. Peck accused Burke of denying his right to speak. A Board majority decided to give him five minutes.

“The mayor not being a mason,” Peck began. That was too much for Burke. “I resent that,” he interrupted, “be a gentlemen.” Peck continued, threatening a lawsuit in the process. Burke was defiant, virtually daring the Masons to file. Members in the audience stormed out in disgust.

Given his short fuse, it’s no wonder that Burke often found himself in legal battles. Luckily for Burlington, he was frequently sustained in court. That was the case with the Masons, who refused to pay their taxes until 1910, when the State Supreme Court ruled against them.

But his most infamous moment of intolerance came on September 3, 1909. In the midst of battles with corporate power, he used police power to deny the freedom to speak to a woman whose philosophy he abhorred.

Emma Goldman
Emma Goldman was one of the most famous radicals in the country, a forceful speaker who had come to Vermont to discuss “anti-militarism” and the truth about anarchism. In Barre and Montpelier, although some people did object, she found public venues. Her audiences paid 25 cents for admission and were certainly educated and entertained, if not persuaded.

The night before her Burlington engagement at City Hall, however, Mayor Burke sent a telegram to Montpelier telling her that the auditorium wasn’t for rent, even though her manager had put down a deposit. On September 2, the Burlington Free Press printed the mayor’s statement:

“Announcement having been made that Miss Emma Goldman, apostle of anarchy, would speak at City Hall Friday night, I wish to say that she will not be allowed to preach any of her un-American doctrines in any building owned by the City of Burlington; and I would also request that the proprietors of all other halls refuse to let her have them for the above-named purpose, and I believe it is about time that the American people should insist that Miss Goldman while representing her anarchist teachings, should not be allowed to address public audiences.”

Burke’s hard-line position confused the city’s small Jewish community. The mayor was popular among them, but Goldman was, to be sure, a well-known Jew. Some people wanted to see her. Reacting quickly, her manager Ben Reitman made emergency arrangements for Goldman to speak at Isaac Perelman’s Hall on the corner of Ceder and LeFountain Streets. On the day of the talk he distributed red posters around town.

Goldman’s topic was supposed to be “Anarchism and What It Really Stands For.” She wanted to respond directly to the mayor’s attack. To draw the line more clearly, the following words were emblazoned on the publicity flyers:

IS THERE FREE SPEECH AND FAIR PLAY IN BURLINGTON?

Most storekeepers refused the flyers or tossed them out. But a large billboard with the same message was propped against the fence in front of the Unitarian Church.

Ben Reitman
At 7 p.m. “Red Emma” and Reitman arrived at the hall. A large crowd was already inside. Burke was outside with two policemen. When Goldman tried to enter, the officers took up positions in front of the door and Burke made a speech. She was forbidden to enter, he said. Attacking her politics again, he added that citizens were angry and at least one merchant in the neighborhood feared violence.

Goldman and Reitman, known as "king of the hobos," had seen this kind of hostility and disregard for speech rights in other places. Deciding to withdraw, they asked if Reitman could enter alone to address the audience as a member of the New York Free Speech Committee. Burke refused, ordering both of them “in the name of peace, of society and of law and order” not to speak anywhere in his city.

The next day the anarchists departed for Massachusetts and the mayor proudly claimed that he had done his duty – protecting Burlington from un-American ideas and “treasonable utterances.” 

It wasn’t one of Burke’s more progressive moments.
Posted by at No comments:
Labels: , , , , ,

Thursday, September 28, 2017

The Age of Burke

Burlington's First Progressive Era
Introduction
  
When Theodore Roosevelt visited Burlington in September 1902 he brought some kind words for Vermonters. He had been to the Queen City a year earlier, on the very day he found out that President McKinley had been shot by what the papers were calling a “crazed anarchist.” But now the “wild man,” the “damned cowboy” hated by Wall Street, Vice President under McKinley for less than a year, had returned as President.
     Burlington Mayor Donley C. Hawley stood with Roosevelt at the train barn near the waterfront, surrounded by flags and bunting. “You have always kept true to the old America ideals," the President told the Vermonters, "the ideals of individual initiative, of self-help, of rugged independence, of the desire to work and willingness, if need, to fight.”
     Still, Republicans like Hawley were suspicious. Roosevelt’s rhetoric about a “square deal” for working people and control of big business sounded radical. But Democrats like James E. Burke were unabashed admirers. Burke was already the leading spokesman for the city’s growing Democratic Party. He was also promoting a fusion movement with dissident Republicans. Like Roosevelt, he projected himself as a pragmatic reformer, thriving on idealism, moral outrage and an ability to inspire the masses.


     Born in Williston on May 4, 1849, from a family that admired the British populist Edmund Burke, he had emerged as the leader of a new Irish, Democratic opposition in the city. Son of Irish Catholic immigrants from Canada, he‘d begun his political career at almost 50 years old, identifying himself as a champion of the poor, labor, and ethnic newcomers. He was also known and well-liked as a blacksmith.
     To many local Yankee “puritans” James Burke was something else entirely: a dangerous “papist,” implying that his main allegiance was to the Catholic Church. But he found more than enough support at the foot of University Hill – in low-income neighborhoods, tenements near the railroad tracks and along the waterfront. These were the city’s ethnic neighborhoods at the time, populated not only by the Irish but also Germans, Italians, Jews, and French Canadians. In 18 citywide races between 1903 and 1937, Burke lost only twice in these “immigrant” wards. They were also the base for his five-year foray into “third party” politics during the 1930s Depression – the Citizens Party.
     Burke’s first victory came in 1893, when he was elected to the Board of Aldermen from Ward 4, then the city’s waterfront area. Two years later he was appointed to the Board of Police Examiners. But he couldn’t recapture his aldermanic seat in 1899, and his first two runs for mayor, in 1900 and 1902, were unsuccessful.

Power Struggles

On March 3, 1903, the hotly contested mayoral race between Burke and incumbent Republican Donley Hawley drew an overflow crowd to the city clerk’s office. The men – only males could vote – perched on windowsills and stood on the rail that surrounded the aldermanic table. As the results for each ward were announced the winning side cheered.
     Hawley, a surgeon, came out of top in affluent areas, but Burke’s persistence was finally paying off in the immigrant wards. Plus, he had two compelling issues this time around: a proposed city-owned light plant and local licensing of saloons.
     When the final votes were tallied, Hawley had a three-vote margin. But the reason was that City Clerk Charles Allen refused to count ballots that had been marked twice. Burke was livid. “Those who laugh last laugh best,” he proclaimed. “There are many men who voted today for me and whose ballots were thrown out. We propose to have them counted.”
     Good to his word, Burke took the matter to the Vermont Supreme Court and won, gaining certification of an 11-vote victory by early summer.
     It took more time, but he also got the light plant. Two years later, during his third term, Burke’s daughter Loretta pressed a button at the bandstand in City Hall Park energizing two circuits of streetlights with power from the newly built plant.
     Municipal power had enormous appeal. In December 1902 the Vermont legislature had authorized the city to furnish electricity, purchase needed land – by eminent domain if necessary, and issue bonds for the work. However, it also approved the incorporation of a privately-owned company, Burlington Light and Power, which would subsequently compete with – and sue – the city over the management of energy distribution.
     Burlington Light and Power was founded by B.B. Smalley and Urban Woodbury. In 1892, Smalley, a wealthy Democrat, had run for governor. But his main focus was business, as a corporate lawyer, banker, and president of the Burlington Gas Light Company. Woodbury was his closest business associate, president of the Consolidated Electric Company, a founding board member of Smalley’s Burlington Gas Light, and a war hero who had been mayor and lieutenant governor. In fact, two years after Smalley ran for governor in 1892 and lost Woodbury ran as a Republican and won.
     Only a week after Burke was declared Mayor by the state Supreme Court he asked the alderman to approve bonds for a light plant. Two days later, on June 11, he staged a special city-wide meeting to vote on a proposed $150,000 investment. Woodbury spoke against the plan, along with Elias Lyman, owner of the area’s big coal company and Burlington Traction Company, the local mass transit monopoly. Both men were hissed by members of the audience as they spoke.
     Local voters clearly favored public power, and within ten years the city was generating over one million kilowatt hours with a turbine generator. Despite widespread support, however, the owners of the competing private power company did not cave in. Instead, when the city was on the verge of expanding its department in 1910, Burlington Light and Power made a competing bid to supply energy for street lights, public buildings and parks. When it was turned down the private utility company filed an injunction to prevent the city from issuing new bonds.
     The lawsuit was dropped after two years, since it wasn’t possible to prove that commercial lighting supplied by the city would increase public debt. But Burlington Light and Power did eventually win a battle in court, using a 1904 agreement with the city as the basis for its argument.
     To avoid duplication as demand for electricity increased, the city had made a deal to share utility pole space with the company. Since the city used Light and Power poles, it was supposed to pay a 20 cent per year fee for each wire attached. But the city stopped paying in 1909, claiming that it had a right to use the tops of all poles without charge. Light and Power cried foul, especially since the city was their chief competitor. The Court agreed. No matter what the City Charter said, the light department had to pay up.
     That defeat didn’t change the direction in which the city was moving, however. When Green Mountain Power offered $1 million to lease the department for 20 years the city declined. During those years public power brought Burlington more than $2 million in profit. In 1953, the department became a city monopoly when it bought Green Mountain Power’s franchise.

 CHAPTERS
Next: Attempted Fusion – The Burke-Clement Alliance
Posted by at 1 comment:
Labels: , , , , ,

Thursday, April 6, 2017

Boom and Bust in the Quarry Towns

October 18, 1935: In the depth of the Great Depression workers call a strike against Vermont Marble.


      As agriculture entered a long, slow decline in the late nineteenth century, many Vermonters turned to mining and manufacturing. Vermont's first marble quarries had been cut in Dorset in 1792 using gunpowder, saws, wagons and sleds. But the industry faltered through various business cycles until 1857, when major business interests raised it from a decade-long standstill.
      Then, in 1880, the Sutherland Falls Marble Company merged with the Rutland Marble Company, owned by New York banks and families, to form the Vermont Marble Company, which grew and took over smaller firms under Redfield Proctor. Within a few years it was the state’s largest corporation.
      By 1900 Vermont was producing half the country’s marble output.
      The benevolent ruler of both Vermont Marble and the company town named after him, Proctor provided workers with access to accident insurance, a company-owned bank and store, and a town library. As “friend and benefactor,” he also used his economic power to launch a political career, becoming a state legislator, governor, US Secretary of War and US Senator from 1891 to 1908.
Redfield Proctor, 1904
     In the Senate Proctor fanned the flames for the Spanish-American War and guided invasions of Chile and Peru. He also chaired the committee that awarded contracts for federal buildings, making certain that their exteriors were built with Vermont marble. The first was Indiana’s State Capitol, followed by the US Supreme Court Building and Jefferson Memorial.
      Following in his father’s footsteps, Fletcher Proctor acquired businesses for Vermont Marble in Swanton, Roxbury, Danbury, Brandon, Pittsford and Fletcher. “The ownership of one marble quarry is very precarious,” he explained. “The ownership of many marble quarries of diverse kinds and differently located may be fairly stable.” Also like his father, Fletcher used business as a springboard to the governor’s office.
      In 1882, the Proctors invited the first Italian immigrants to Vermont, five sculptors from Carrara. A flow of Italian marble workers and railroad builders into the state was soon underway. But accidents and dust in the quarries claimed lives. And before coming to the US some of the newcomers had been members of Italian “mutual aid societies.” Many were prepared to defend their rights with radical tactics and ideas.
      By the early twentieth century over half of Barre’s residents were Italian and 90 percent were unionized. There were 15 separate locals, including laundry workers, musicians and bartenders. A Central Labor Union coordinated the groups, and socialist mayors were elected in 1916 and 1929.
        When the Great Depression began, many Vermonters were still working in small industries. Employment was divided fairly evenly between mining, quarrying, forestry and machinery production, with somewhat fewer workers in textile mills. New Deal programs tried to prime the pump with public investments, but buying power continued to lag, businesses closed, and unsold goods collected dust.
      Some owners used Depression conditions as a rationale for layoffs and pay cuts. When this was attempted in Barre, granite workers launched a bitter two-month strike. Local residents backed the union, local tradesmen and farmers distributed free food, and a federal arbitration board looked for a compromise. On April 29, 1933 the Quarry Workers union rejected extension of the old contract for a second time. But the Granite Cutters accepted binding arbitration and the strike was practically settled by May 5.
      Two days later the National Guard arrived, creating easier access for strikebreakers. Soon most quarries were back to business as usual. The workers had been demanding union recognition in the open shop quarries. But the presence of the Guard, combined with compromise by the Granite Cutters union, left many people high and dry. The strike was basically broken during arbitration.
      At Vermont Marble the hard times, combined with increased costs, led to reduced services. Management dropped its free medical care and visiting nurses programs. By the mid-1930s the “company town” era was over in Proctor.
      Vermont Marble also claimed to be operating at a loss and therefore couldn’t consider any wage increases. The quarrymen didn’t believe it, and on October 18, 1935, more than a hundred of them decided to strike as a protest of management’s decision to stagger their hours, which meant work only three weeks out of every four. The workers wanted a 40-hour week, an hourly wage of 50 cents — up from 37, and recognition of their union for collective bargaining.
      Within a few days hundreds of other quarry workers were backing their action and demands. But management refused to negotiate. 
Vermont Marble Quarry
       That Thanksgiving at least a thousand striking workers and their families marched through Proctor in the rain to draw attention to their cause. This was followed in early December by a clash with the authorities and hired “security” resulting in serious injuries. The strike continued right through the winter.
      But after four months on the picket line about half of the employees returned to work. In the end they got a two and a half cent raise and inspired Vermont Rebels Again, a play about the campaign that opened in New York.
      By then, however, the Vermont legislature was ready to take a side, opting to help businesses troubled or threatened by worker militancy. A bill outlawing sit-down strikes was passed on April 7, 1937, making Vermont the first state to declare it illegal for employees to stop working but remain in their plant until a settlement was reached. 
     It was signed by Governor George Aiken, who had just been elected on an anti-New Deal platform. But Aiken wasn’t happy with the law and subsequently tried to mend fences with organized labor. He backed the creation of a state Department of Labor and, in 1938, helped to settle another granite workers strike.

This is the seventh in a series adapted from The Vermont Way, a study by Greg Guma released beginning in 2012. 
Posted by at
Labels: , , ,
Subscribe to: Posts (Atom)