Class Struggle in Vermont: From Socialism to the American Plan

THE GRANAI CLAN was like many Italian immigrant families settling in Barre at the end of the 19th century. By 1912 Cornelius, one of 18 children, was working as a stone cutter for the Jones Brother Company. His parents were ex-followers of Guiseppe Garibaldi, peasant leader and soldier in the wars of Italian unification. 
      Decades later, in an interview with a friend, oral historian Roby Colodny, for Vermont's Untold History, Granai recalled hearing stories about more than a dozen members of one Garibaldi expeditionary force that settled in Barre. Other immigrants called themselves Republicani, followers of Mazzini, elder statesman of the Italian Republic. Whatever their previous affiliations, most considered themselves socialists. And many joined the two main unions for those who cut stone, the Quarry Workers and the Granite Cutters International Association.

     Eugene Debs, three-time Socialist candidate for president, visited Barre, as did his successor Norman Thomas in the early 1930s. Fred Suitor, secretary-treasurer of the local Quarry Workers from 1911 to 1930, ran for governor as the Socialist Party candidate in 1912, and was later elected mayor of Barre on the Citizens ticket. According to Granai, everyone knew he was a Socialist.
     So much has changed. Barre was Vermont’s third largest city by 1900, right behind Burlington and Rutland. Although a single industry had fueled its growth, no one family or company dominated the local economy or culture. And its population represented a diverse ethnic mix, from French Canadians to immigrants from Italy, Spain and Scotland.
     During the historic 1912 strike of textile workers in Lawrence, Massachusetts, organized by the Industrial Workers of the World, at least 200 children of the strikers were sent to the central Vermont city. On February 17, musical bands from Barre, Bethel and Waterbury greeted the kids as they arrived at the train station. They were “divied out” at a crowded Socialist Hall on Granite Street as people sang “son qui” (here I am), the famous duet from Tosca, Puccini’s opera about Italy’s struggle for independence.
     Even Yankee farmers from the countryside took children in.
     In the 1920s the case of Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti captured broad local sympathy, especially in the immigrant neighborhoods. The two self-professed anarchists had been convicted of murder and armed robbery after a controversial trial in which the judge consistently denied defense motions. As new evidence emerged, more people decided that it was a frame-up, part of the red scare that began during the war. Sacco and Vanzetti became a cause célèbre, and attracted worldwide attention and support.
     “Barre was never so stirred up,” Granai recalled. “They were seen as victims of their beliefs…victimized by circumstances.” When a play about the two immigrant martyrs was performed at the old Barre Opera House, a thousand tickets were sold for 300 seats. But unlike the Lawrence Strike a decade earlier, there was no victory this time. Sacco and Vanzetti were electrocuted shortly after midnight on August 23, 1927.
     The ideas and sympathies of the newcomers sounded “radical” to many of their Yankee neighbors. But their agenda was a campaign for bread and butter, a decent home and education for their children. Like many urban areas in the U.S., Barre witnessed frequent agitation for shorter hours, higher wages and improved working conditions, from “squat sheds” and provocations to lockouts and strikes. Silicosis-producing dust sent many granite workers to the sanitarium on Blakely Hill. Accidents due to drilling and dynamite blasting were common.
     A 40-hour workweek, with Saturday afternoon off, was instituted in 1914. Two years later Robert Gordon became Barre’s first Socialist Mayor, winning by 100 votes over the editor of the Barre Daily Times. But the political dynamics were fragile. After war was declared against Germany in 1917 it quickly became a battle against militant labor as well, especially the IWW. Most of its top leadership was rounded up and put on trial. As the Red Scare and deportation of suspected foreign radicals began the city’s socialist movement faded.
     A teenager during the war years, John Lawson attended local socialist meetings with his dad. He and his family had reached Barre from Scotland in 1911, and Lawson took it upon himself to revive the Party after the war. It was a lonely task. Most IWW members – called Wobblies – were either in jail or struggling to hold onto union support. Many businesses were tired of dealing with labor demands.

Based on Diego Rivera mural, Rockefeller Center, 1936 

 
 By the early 1920s, although the unions were still strong, the socialist movement was in decline and a new slogan was creeping into use – The American Plan. Cloaked in patriotism, the Plan was a business strategy designed to deny recognition, even to well-established unions, and tar almost any demand for better wages or working conditions as “bolshevism.”
     “The owners were represented by the Quarry Owners Association and the Barre Granite Association,” Lawson recalled. “Both were backed up by a common Board of Control which sat in Boston.” Through the intransigence of its President James Boutwell, the Board strove to preserve a “united front,” especially during a lockout that ran for months in 1922 and 1923. The Quarry Workers and Granite Cutters held out and some of the smaller companies eventually signed union contracts.
     But the “united front” strategy was a partial success. Four months after the strike began scabs were brought in from sheds and quarries in Canada and Massachusetts. Some companies even promised them higher wages than the union was demanding. Once they arrived, however, the wages dropped.
     By the time the strike ended, open shop working conditions had taken hold. The Rock of Ages Company was launched soon afterward, a rebranding of the older Boutwell, Milne and Varnum Granite Company, and actively promoted the American Plan. By purchasing other smaller companies – a strategy known as growth-by-acquisition – it became the best-known name in the granite industry. Rock of Ages wasn’t unionized until 1941.

Organizing in Hard Times

IN THE YEARS after World War I, migration to larger Vermont communities accelerated, prompting a building boom in regional centers like Burlington. Milk production was on the rise, although the number of farms was dropping rapidly. Fruit production was also high, at least for a few years, but less butter, hay and other grains were being produced. Both manufacturing and agricultural diversity declined as tourism took a firmer hold on the economy.
     At its peak, a trolley system carried over 16 million passengers around Southern Vermont – until the flood of November 1927. But that historic disaster, which hurt rail travel and reduced trolley passengers to less than 2 million, ended up helping the summer home and winter sports sectors of the recreation industry by spurring highway spending and the building of airports. In the early 1930s half of the state’s $12 million annual budget was devoted annually to highway construction. During the same period only $1 million was spent yearly on education and health.
     Increased specialization of labor, along with the growth of services industries and transportation systems, drew Vermont more deeply into the national money and credit network. In 1929 that structure collapsed. Unemployment skyrocketed as the standard of living dropped.
     In Barre, a two-month strike by granite workers became a “straight out union fight for survival,” recalled Lawson. The strike officially began on April 1, 1933, shutting down six major companies within a week. The only exception was E. L. Smith, which paid above union scale and used workers from Canada. Lawson was president of the Graniteville local, while Granai consulted closely with the strike committee as a lawyer.
     The union asked the sheriff and his deputies to let the strikers police themselves. “A police force was established by the wearing of white arm bands,” according to Granai. But at that point agent provocateurs rode in and workers fought back. In some cases the latter brandished shotguns for self-defense. Some strikers were jailed by anti-union judges. The protest was losing ground.
     Shortly after the strike began, the sheriff had assisted in the use of 150 strikebreakers. But local residents backed the union, tradesmen and farmers distributed free food, and a federal arbitration board sought a compromise. On April 29, 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 almost settled by May 5.
     Interpretations of why the National Guard was called in vary. As Granai remembered it, Governor Stanley C. Wilson didn’t issue the order. Rather, people connected with the Granite Cutters made the request “to get rid of agent provocateurs.” Lawson and others recall the situation differently. “Protests against the Guard were lodged by farmers, churchmen, the ACLU, the Vermont federation of labor, and a committee of Barre businessmen,” he insisted.
     Whatever the reason, the Guard’s arrival created 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 the action of the Granite Cutters union, left many people high and dry.
     Members of both unions returned to work on June 1 and agreed to 1932 wages. But the hearings dragged on until August and many lost their jobs. Two of the three quarries now had open shops. One of the only compensations was that the federal government began to clean up the sheds. Suction machines designed to remove silica dust were in use before the end of the decade.
     French Canadian workers played a role in this and other strikes, often as scab labor. They had been coming to the state for mill jobs since the Canadian rebellion of 1837, when reformers rejected the political repression of Britain’s parliament. Vermont also provided better farming prospects, and a chance to work in lumbering or on railroad crews. Often called the “Chinese of the Eastern States,” these immigrants worked cheap and asked few questions. But their exploitation as strikebreakers hurt their relations with the Irish.
     When mills began to close in the 1930s, many Canadians turned to farming in Franklin, Orleans and Essex Counties at the state’s northern end. Others stayed in the Burlington area but avoided union work. By then the church in Quebec had declared unions atheistic.
     History's long march rarely moves in a straight line.

Epilog: My Socialist Family Ties 

THE ROMANS MAY have been the first rulers to exploit southern Italy, their behavior so brutal that it eventually sparked the revolt of Spartacus. But some believe the darkest period may be the 200-year rule of the Spanish dynasty, which subjected the Mezzogiorno to a long series of predatory feudal barons and viceroys. Officially, feudalism ended in 1806, but its passing also meant that peasants could no longer turn to a wealthy overlord for aid. They were on their own.

     Over the next decades, absentee landlords gained in influence, allowing gross inequities and draconian contracts that exploited most peasants. Some became outlaws and thieves. As a result, when southerners resisted landlord abuse or complained to the government, they were called barbarians and savages. But artisans and storekeepers were often respected across class lines. Each trade had its own mastri and apprentices. They were more likely to take advantage of educational opportunities, and also among the earliest to join the exodus to America.

     Born on April 17, 1891 in the small Calabrian mountain town of Parenti, Bruno Lupia was the oldest of three brothers and, in 1902, the first of my family to emigrate to the United States. His parents, Michelina Cardamone and Joseph Lupia, had three other children: Lorenzo, Luciano, and Rosa. Lorenzo came to the US a decade later as a teenager, possibly to apprentice with his brother. Luciano followed in 1921. Both of them returned to Italy, however. According to my mother, the former “got into trouble” for his politics and the latter failed in a restaurant business.       

     There was obviously much more to this story. After all, grandpa Bruno became a clothing manufacturer and philanthropist, influential enough to merit an audience with President Truman.   And Lorenzo ultimately became mayor of his hometown. Not bad for a troublemaker.  
     Whatever the reasons, evidence suggests that my great uncle Lorenzo had returned to Calabria by 1919, early enough to fight for Italy in World War I. After the war, he became (or remained) a hard-line Socialist, a “maximalist” who wanted a full-throated social revolution. By 1923, he was criticizing political faddism and the rise of fascism.
     “People wake up anarchist in the morning, have a stroll, and become socialist,” he wrote in an article, “at noon comes De Cardona (a political priest), and we all are Popular; in the afternoon, after some drinks, from populist to ’Democratic-Liberal,’ then’fighters’; at night we all dress in black shirts and we are fascist. Without ceremonies!”

     Three years later, after a summary trial in November 1926, Lorenzo was “confined” to internal exile. His crime: As secretary of a “dissolved” section of the Socialist Party, he had conducted “active propaganda” throughout the district of Rogliano, defending peasants and challenging fascists. In other words, he was an organizer. But he was also part of the early anti-fascist resistance, and a new decree on public safety, following several attempts to assassinate Mussolini, had increased surveillance, clamped down on dissent, and established a system of “forced residence” (confino).

     Once his appeal was dismissed, Lorenzo was sent to Lipari, an island where pigs still cleaned up rubbish in the streets and locals viewed the political prisoners sent there as a pampered “species of nabob.” On the other hand, he also met Carlo Rosselli and Emilio Lussu, democratic organizers and returned soldiers, and Francesco Fausto Nitti, nephew of the deposed prime minister. 

      When he returned from exile, rather than being intimidated by the time he had spent in prison, Lorenzo continued the struggle for social justice and freedom that characterized his life. As head of the local peasants and laborers organization, he helped to liberate land from the remmaining baronies and fought "agrarian reform" that was being used against peasants and in favor of landowners. He "actively fought fascism with all his might and with the means at his disposal," one local history noted.
     In the first free elections after the fall of the fascist regime, uncle Lorenzo was elected Mayor in 1945, a position he held for the next thirty years, supervising community affairs with rigor, prudence and democratic principles. Unfortunately, due to a political split in the family, we never had the opportunity to meet.

The Trouble with Sprawl

In 1969, Vermont took a vanguard role in the emerging environmental movement. The law known as Act 250 was a landmark attempt to preserve the state’s most valuable asset – its extraordinary physical environment – while also promoting “orderly growth and development.” But its limitations were obvious within a decade, when a plan surfaced to build a large shopping mall in then-rural Williston.

Plan BTV: The new waterfront vision

Bustling South Burlington, which had led the suburban wave, as well as tranquil Richmond, which remained a pastoral oasis at that point, anticipated major traffic problems. Winooski was worried about the potential impacts on water quality, transportation, and its own urban renewal dreams.

Despite plans for a downtown marketplace district, Burlington warned that the project could “devastate” its business sector and other big plans for "redevelopment." And a grassroots coalition called Citizens for Responsible Growth argued that the project – then known as Pyramid Mall – would not just affect soil, air, and water quality, but would also be energy inefficient and aesthetically unpalatable.

Threatening such a wide range of potential impacts, the mall plan helped crystallize debate over large-scale development, and whether the region’s fragile rural character could be preserved in the long run.

The problem was identified in a 1968 report by the Vermont Planning Council, chaired by Governor Phil Hoff. “The traditional rural scene in Vermont, characterized by concentrated settlement in villages and open countryside dotted with farms, is disappearing,” concluded Vision and Choice: Vermont’s Future. “The sharp distinction between village and countryside is blurring throughout the state. Highways between towns are becoming ribbons of residential and commercial development. Where strip development has become intense, particularly on the outskirts of the larger towns and in the most popular ski and recreation areas, the effects have been highly detrimental.”

Thirty years later, the land-use permit for a 550,000-square-foot shopping center near Taft Corners in Williston was approved. Combined with WalMart, Home Depot, Circuit City, PetSmart, Toys R Us, and a Hannaford Superstore already there, the proposal for Maple Tree Place sealed Chittenden County’s suburban fate. It had been a cumulative phenomenon, beginning at the edge of traditional centers, then moving out into previous rural areas.

Sprawl was land-consuming, auto dependent, and energy and resource intensive.

By the 1960s, Burlington was so concerned about fringe commercial development that it decided to “revitalize its city center” by clearing 27 acres of land at the heart of the city. An ethnic neighborhood with more than 100 buildings, once home base for progressive Democratic Mayor James Burke, was torn down to make way for urban renewal. 

Commercial development meanwhile continued to spread along Routes 2 and 7; residential development filled in nearby, along with strip commercial centers, auto dealers, discount stores and banks. From there growth spread to Williston, Jericho, Shelburne and Milton. Industrial parks also made their appearance.

But peripheral development began to threaten Burlington’s position as the region’s commercial center. In response, more than $96 million in public funds was spent between 1972 and 1982 to develop the Church Street Marketplace, renovate historic buildings and rehabilitate others, continue urban renewal and improve the transit system. But sprawl also expanded through large lot residential subdivisions, “big box” retail stores, and office parks. Land use controls failed to redirect the pattern of development.

By 1997 there were three major retail centers in Chittenden County, plus significant smaller ones. But Burlington lost over 237,000 square feet of department store space, as employment in general merchandising dropped steeply. It had happened despite the investment of almost $100 million more in public and private investment.

The region was no longer primarily agricultural. By 1992 Chittenden County had lost 70 percent of its farms, much of its prime farm land, and related wetlands. The trends were positive news for national retailers, property owners who planned to sell, lenders who financed development, communities that saw property tax revenues, and families who wanted a home in the new suburbs. But owners of retail businesses in older shopping centers lost sales, some towns lost part of their tax base, water quality dropped due to runoff, air pollution increased from auto use, and traffic congestion intensified for almost everyone.

As sprawl critic James Howard Kunstler explained, having failed to acknowledge the difference between city and country, nature and culture, scenery and civic life, Chittenden County seemed almost resigned to a “cartoon” future in which it looked a lot like Los Angeles. “Sometimes I think that the mentality in Vermont is that a good traditional Vermont town is a strip mall with a candle shop in it,” he joked.

It was harsh, yet the thrust of development did suggest a lack of vision, as well as a flaw in the plan to avoid becoming Anywhere, U.S.A. 

In truth, Williston was slated for suburbanization long before a major mall appeared on the horizon. In the same year that Act 250 became law, a report on public investment designated Taft Corners as a prime commercial site due to interstate highway access. The only thing lacking, said the experts, was adequate sewage, a problem that could be solved by public funding. The only surprise was that it took so long.

Throughout the struggle, Act 250 was a cumbersome and expensive tool. Lacking a consensus, the environmental review process merely delayed the outcome until the opposition ran out of steam.

The effects of Williston’s commercial expansion spun out for miles beyond the town lines. While no one community felt the entire brunt, many were impacted. Trying to use the state’s land-use law as a regulatory mechanism proved to be inadequate, especially since crucial public investments had promoted precisely such an outcome. In short, Act 250 just wasn’t designed to deal with the problems that Williston’s commercial expansion posed.

Conflicting interests and the unclear authority lines that characterized what passed for regional planning made the problems worse. Communities were suspicious of each other’s special agendas, and Regional Planning Commissions at best played a mediating role. Over time some of their functions were shifted to a more state-dependent Metropolitan Planning Organization, which focused narrowly on transportation. But even with more clout and a broader mission, regional planning had a key weakness – lack of public accountability. 

A report commissioned by Burlington while Progressive Peter Clavelle was mayor, Creating a Sustainable City, made a case against suburbanization. Beyond environmental impacts, it argued, places like Taft Corners tended to “homogenize the market experience, erasing local customs, traditions, and products.”

And yet, even in Burlington, sprawl continued to be defined primarily as a threat to downtown retail sales, and prompted increased pressure to "keep up." Thus, the response to Maple Tree Place and big box stores was to “save” downtown by adding more parking, chain stores and public attractions of its own.

Discount shops, hardware stores, and supermarkets were not part of the equation.

This is an excerpt from Green Mountain Politics: Restless Spirits, Popular Movements

Memorable Moments from the Past

Colonial Period

March 13, 1775: Sheriff’s Deputies seize a courthouse, beginning what becomes known as the Westminster Massacre, an early step toward independence.

July 24, 1776: Vermont colonists gather for the Dorset Convention and declare Vermont an Independent Republic.

June 4, 1777: At the suggestion of Dr. Thomas Young, a friend of Ethan Allen’s from Pennsylvania, the state’s name is changed to Vermont.

March 4, 1791: The Republic of Vermont becomes the 14th US state and officially enters the Union.

19th Century

September 11, 1814: US vessels meet a superior British force for the Battle of Plattsburgh on Lake Champlain. After two hours of fighting the British fleet surrenders.

March 21, 1843: Followers of religious leader William Miller give away their worldly goods to prepare for Christ’s return.

June 27, 1844: Vermonter Joseph Smith, Mormon prophet, is killed in Illinois when a mob surrounds the jail where he is being held.

July 4, 1846: The state militia helps management put down Irish workers striking for back pay.

July 13, 1854: The second state Republican Party in the nation is formed at the statehouse in Montpelier.

September 20, 1881: The day after James Garfield dies of a bullet wound Chester Arthur becomes the first US President from Vermont.

Progressive Era

March 3, 1903: Democrat James Burke defeats a Republican incumbent and becomes Burlington mayor.

June 28, 1906: The Independent and Democratic Parties create a statewide Fusion ticket to challenge the Republicans.

January 16: 1909: The Vermont Supreme Court rules that Burlington can develop a public wharf on its waterfront in Burlington v. Central Vermont Railway, Co.

September 3, 1909: Mayor James Burke prevents anarchist Emma Goldman from speaking in Burlington.

February 17, 1912: Residents of Barre, Bethel and Waterbury express solidarity with a strike in Lowell, Massachusetts by taking 200 of their children into their homes.

August 2, 1923: Warren Harding dies suddenly in San Francisco, making Calvin Coolidge President.

Depression Era

April 1, 1933: Barre granite workers begin a two-month strike that shuts down six major companies.

October 18, 1935: A strike begins against Vermont Marble.

March 3, 1936: The Green Mountain Parkway is defeated in a statewide referendum.

April 7, 1937: Vermont becomes the first state to declare the sit-down strike illegal.

Post-War Period

March 9, 1954: US Senator Ralph Flanders challenges Joseph McCarthy for spreading confusion and sowing division.

May 14, 1965: House of Representatives votes to reduce its size from 245 to 150 seats and elect each member based on population ("one man, one vote") rather than geography.

May 1 1966: United Stone and Allied Products Workers union members vote to strike at Vermont Marble, demanding a union shop and a 15-cent an hour pay increase.

April 23, 1971: The Bilderberg Group meets in Woodstock for what they call “an international peace conference.”

July 7, 1972: Local 522 begins a strike against Pizzagalli Construction and nine other companies.

Modern Progressive Era

March 3, 1981: Independent socialist Bernie Sanders defeats Democratic incumbent Gordon Paquette to become Burlington mayor, launching a new progressive movement.

August 13, 1991: Richard Snelling dies unexpectedly, making Howard Dean governor.

December 10, 1999: State Supreme Court rules in Baker v. Vermont that gay couples have a right to the same benefits provided to straight couples.

21st Century

June 23, 2003: Howard Dean launches his presidential campaign at a mass rally on Church Street in Burlington.

January 19, 2004: Howard Dean loses the Iowa Caucuses.

May 3, 2006: Governor Jim Douglas recognizes the historical Abenaki for the contributions they made to the state.

March 4, 2008: Voters in Brattleboro and Marlboro pass a symbolic resolution that instructs local police to arrest George Bush and Dick Cheney for "crimes against our Constitution" if they ever step foot in either town.

April 7, 2009: Over a veto from Governor Jim Douglas, Vermont becomes the first in the country to allow marriage for same-sex couples.

December 10, 2010: Bernie Sanders stages a mini-filibuster to protest a tax cut for the wealthy.

December 20, 2010: Mayor Kiss announces a “letter of cooperation” with Lockheed Martin.

February 9, 2011. Citizens crowd City Hall Auditorium to challenge Mayor Kiss’s development deal with Lockheed Martin. October 19, 2011: Republican mayoral candidate Kurt Wright proposes the sale of the Burlington Electric Department to reduce the city's debt.

^^

March 6, 2012: Almost 60 Vermont communities vote for a US Constitutional Amendment to overturn the Supreme Court's Citizens United decision; Burlington voters elect the first Democratic mayor in 31 years.


*These events and many more are explored in the book.

Vermonters Go for the White House

September 20, 1881: James Garfield's assassination makes Chester Arthur the first US President from Vermont.

August 2, 1923: Warren Harding dies suddenly, making Calvin Coolidge President.

________

Two Vermonters, so far, have become president of the United States – Republicans Chester Arthur and Calvin Coolidge. But others have made the attempt, most recently Howard Dean and now Bernie Sanders. Another Vermont Republican, George Aiken, also considered it seriously in the 1930s -- against FDR! -- and the state's first Democratic Governor, Phil Hoff, was briefly a prospect in 1968.

The earliest candidate was the Mormon leader Joseph Smith, one of those restless Vermonters who struck out for the west in revival days. He ran as a champion of homesteading rights. The next was Stephen Douglas, known as the “Little Giant” because of his short stature and huge political skills. Born in Brandon in 1813, he had made his name in Illinois as attorney general, Supreme Court judge and US Congressman.

Stephen Douglas

In 1852, and again four years later, Douglas unsuccessfully went after the Democratic Party nomination. The path was finally clear in 1860, but by then the Party was hopelessly split. He easily became the Northern Democratic candidate, but the party’s southern, pro-slavery wing didn’t trust his ambiguous position and separately nominated Vice President John C. Breckinridge.

There was also a standard bearer for the Constitution Party, which hoped to avoid civil war through regional compromise. But most of all, there was Abraham Lincoln, nominated in Chicago at the Republican Convention. The two men knew each other well, especially from a famous series of debates they had waged when Lincoln challenged Douglas for his US Senate seat two years before.

Douglas finished second in the popular vote for president with 29 percent but carried only Missouri and half of New Jersey’s electors. Breckinridge swept the south but won only 18 percent nationally. Lincoln carried 18 northern states, including Vermont and Illinois, and received 39.8 percent, or 1,865,593 of the 4.6 million votes cast that year.

As soon as Lincoln was elected, southern states began to secede. When war came in April 1861 Douglas urged his followers to support the union. But he died just a few weeks later and his position on slavery has been disputed ever since.

Twenty years after Douglas tried for the White House and failed Chester Arthur succeeded -- without actually running for president himself. Arthur was the son of a Baptist minister who emigrated to North America from Ireland. His official biography says that he was from Fairfield, a town near the Canadian border, born on October 5, 1830. Yet there have been persistent rumors that he was really born in Canada, and that his official birth date may be off by a year.

After college and law school in upstate New York Arthur briefly returned to Vermont in the early 1850s, as principal of an academy in North Pownal, before joining a law firm in New York City. For a while he was a Whig, but joined the Republicans early and was appointed engineer-in- chief by New York’s governor, then acting quartermaster-general for the state during the Civil War. After the war he rose in the Republican hierarchy, becoming collector of the Port of New York in 1871 and chair of the Party’s state committee. 

Chester Arthur

In 1880 he backed former President Grant to succeed Rutherford B. Hayes, but the convention delegates went with another general, James Garfield. Arthur’s support for Grant and position in New York politics made him a practical choice to join Garfield on the ticket. The team was elected and Vice President Arthur began to preside over a US Senate so evenly divided that he frequently had to break ties.

On July 2, 1881, only four months into his term, Garfield was shot at a Washington railway station by Charles Guiteau, an unstable officer-seeker. The president lingered for two months but died from an infection on September 19 after doctors contaminated the bullet wound. The next day Arthur became the first President from Vermont.*

It was a relatively prosperous period for the country. President Arthur spent much of his time dealing with domestic issues – building projects, disputes with Native American tribes, cowboy violence in the Arizona territory, and hostility to Chinese immigrants and Mormons.

In 1884, when the Republicans met again in Chicago for their nominating convention, Arthur lost to James C. Blaine, a leading Republican moderate who had briefly been his Secretary of State. He died two years later, having served as president for three and half years without winning an election on his own.

The second Vermonter to lead the country also got the job due to death at the top. But there is no dispute about the birthplace of Calvin Coolidge. He was born in Plymouth Notch on July 4, 1872, the only president whose birthday is Independence Day.

Like his predecessors Coolidge left the state to pursue his ambitions. He moved to Massachusetts and became, first a city official, then mayor, state legislator, lieutenant governor and ultimately governor of the state in 1918. It was a steady and conventional political rise, aside from the one decision that brought him to national attention – breaking a police strike in Boston.

When the Republican convention deadlocked in 1920, party bosses gathered in what became known as their “smoke-filled room” and selected a little-known Ohio Senator, Warren G. Harding. To balance the ticket Coolidge was picked for Vice President. Disgusted with Woodrow Wilson at the close of World War I, Democrats joined the unusual Republican base to give Harding the biggest landslide victory in US history – more than 60 percent of the popular vote.

The Harding administration became infamous for corruption, but Coolidge managed to stay clean. Disillusionment set in and few expected anything to change until the next election. But on August 2, 1923, in the middle of a goodwill tour, Harding dropped dead suddenly in San Francisco.

Coolidge was a dramatic change of pace, at least in temperament and style. Harding looked and lived like a Matinee idol. “Silent Cal” was an austere and private family man, legendary for his stinginess and allegedly incurious nature. But he and his predecessor did have one thing in common – affection for business.

In 1924, he won re-election in a landslide using a slogan that revealed control and awareness of his image, “Keep Cool and Keep Coolidge.” Technically, he could have run again, but declined with what is likely the shortest political exit speech ever made by a president: “I do not choose to run for President in 1928.”

A year later, Herbert Hoover was leading the country, at the brink of the Great Depression.

Calvin Coolidge and Mother Jones in 1924

* Note: It is commonly claimed that Chester Arthur became president immediately after Garfield's death on September 19, 1881. However, Arthur was in New York City at the time and took the oath of office on September 20 at his residence before Judge John R. Brady, a New York Supreme Court Justice. On September 22 the oath was administered again, formally, in the Vice-President's room in the Capitol by Chief Justice Waite.

Almost President: The Impossible Dream of Howard Dean

Running for president is a body-and-soul-challenging job. Campaigns begin years before the election, and candidates are caught in an endless race around the country, repeating the same phrases and self-congratulatory arguments as they fight to out-fundraise and out-spend one another. It was therefore no surprise that, on the eve of the Iowa caucuses in January 2004, Howard Dean looked a bit squeezed out on the campaign trail.

      After more than a decade as Vermont Governor he was running for president as a feisty outsider, challenging the Bush administration about the conduct of the Iraq War while riding an Internet-driven wave of anti-incumbent anger.

     In spite of Vermont’s often prickly relationship with the national government, other politicians from the Green Mountains had contemplated running after the unexpected presidential terms of Chester Arthur and Calvin Coolidge. In 1881 Arthur became president after James Garfield was shot at a Washington railway station by an unstable officer-seeker. Coolidge served for five years after Warren Harding dropped dead in San Francisco on August 2, 1923, in the midst of a goodwill tour. 

Phil Hoff broke through 1962.

     In the late 1930s Republican George Aiken, a former Vermont governor and US Senator, toyed with the possibility of challenging Franklin Delano Roosevelt. Thirty years later Phil Hoff leapt into the national spotlight briefly as the first Democratic governor to break with President Lyndon Johnson over the Vietnam War. In summer 1968, Hoff galvanized the party with a moving speech to the General Assembly eulogizing Robert Kennedy, who had been assassinated in June. When the Democrats gathered in Chicago, Hoff’s name circulated as a “protest” candidate for vice president. But he was conflicted and worn down by a decade of political struggles and did not pursue it.

     Howard Dean had fewer internal conflicts. The son of a Republican Wall Street executive, he grew up in affluent surroundings, mostly in East Hampton, and attended an exclusive boarding school. At Yale he opposed the Vietnam War but wasn’t a protester, then drifted for a while before briefly becoming a stockbroker. That didn’t satisfy a nagging desire to help people, however, so he enrolled at Albert Einstein College of Medicine, a school in the Bronx famous for its community-based approach.

     Once he completed med school, the next challenge was finding a place for his residency. Vermont was not his first choice, but its size offered a way to combine practicing medicine with political engagement. His first significant move was to help launch the Citizens’ Waterfront Group, which fought for a bike path along the shore on Lake Champlain and locked horns with the administration of Bernie Sanders, an Independent who had unseated a Democratic mayor.

     The bike path campaign took years but ultimately succeeded beyond his dreams. In the meantime, Dean learned the ropes from established Vermont politicians. “They shaped me into a pragmatic Democrat,” he wrote in a political autobiography. “I was friendly with the younger, more liberal Democrats because they were my age, but I didn’t vote with them. I didn’t relate to their political sensibilities.”

     By 1982 he was chairing the Chittenden County Democratic Committee and running for the state House of Representatives. “The District was in Burlington, and it was the most liberal, working-class district in the state,” he wrote. “There was a very strong Progressive Party in the ward and no Republican Party whatsoever. So, interestingly, I ended up running against a candidate to my left in my first election.”

     In the legislature Dean joined a group of young, moderate Democrats and Republicans known as the “blue shirts,” focused on education issues, and became minority leader in only two years. By 1986 he was ready to run statewide. Looking at the available options – lieutenant governor or a race for Congress against moderate Republican Jim Jeffords – he chose the easier path. Fortunately for Dean, the current lieutenant governor, Peter Smith, wanted to run for governor.

     In 1990, Dean passed on the opportunity to run for governor himself, but ended up in office anyway due to the sudden death of Richard Snelling. Reviewing his accomplishments over the next decade, Dean has stressed balancing the budget, building a surplus, land conservation, health care for most children under 18, and an early intervention program that reduced childhood abuse. On some issues he resisted demands from the left, however, and was generally known as a centrist.

     His response to calls for same-sex marriage was indicative. On December 10, 1999 the State Supreme Court ruled in Baker v. Vermont, that gay couples had a right to the same benefits provided to straight couples and told the legislature to deal with appropriate implementation. Sensing political peril, Dean initially expressed some discomfort with the idea of gay marriage. But the legislature moved forward and made Vermont the first state to legalize civil unions. Dean signed the bill, but without a public ceremony, apparently in the hope of cooling down the atmosphere. It didn’t happen. Gay rights activists felt cheated, and an anti-gay backlash almost cost him re-election in 2000.

     In retrospect, Dean asserts that he was committed to marriage equality for all. “That’s why I knew I had to work for civil unions,” he wrote in 2003, in the midst of his presidential race. “I never viewed the bill as a gay rights issue. I signed it out of a commitment to human rights, and because every single American has the same right to equality and justice under the law that I have.” Whatever the reasons, he benefited in the long run. Wealthy gay supporters, especially in the Fire Island beach community, were early and generous contributors to his campaign.

     By the time civil unions became Vermont law in 2000, Dean was already considering a presidential race. But he passed on it that year, and waited until the end of his last term as governor two year later to begin building an organization. He also made sure Al Gore wasn’t running again.

     Early on, Dean tapped into an Internet-based strategy, meetups, and used the concept to organize supporters across the country. “We were seeing a phenomenon where the effort was owned and directed by the people who supported it,” he explained. He was also discovering a new way to raise money. By June 30, 2003, he had raised almost $8 million, beating his rivals and advancing to the top candidate tier. A week before that, he officially announced in front of a standing room only crowd on Church Street.

     “On that stunning early summer day,” he recalled, “I stood in front of more than thirty thousand Americans who had gathered in Burlington and, via the Internet, across the country…In many ways, that speech on June 23 was the culmination of what I had learned in a year of listening to the American people.”

Dean campaign lit, 2004

     By August Dean was the hottest political story in the country, the wild card of the upcoming presidential race. In cover features published simultaneously on August 11, both Time and Newsweek declared him the candidate to watch. Time was circumspect, titling its cover “The Dean Factor” and inside headlining his “cool passion” as an “unlikely spokesman for the anti-Bush left.” Newsweek was more provocative. Dean pointed angrily at an unseen audience as the cover headline asked, “Howard Dean: Destiny or Disaster?” Inside, Jonathan Alter’s coverage telegraphed the fear among establishment Democrats that “if Dean does win the nomination, his liberal supporters will put their Birkenstocks on the gas pedal and drive the party right over the cliff, a la George McGovern in 1972.”

     Back in Vermont, many residents were perplexed. This was a new Howard Dean, no longer the moderate who often frustrated progressives. Now he was, as Alter described him, “the fire-breathing neopopulist” calling on liberals to “Take your country back.”

     In Dean’s book, released a few months later, he chided fellow Democrats for “actually empowering the radical right” by being afraid to “stand up to the Republicans and their radical agenda.” He defined his cause as “the Great American Restoration – the restoration of our ideals, of our communities, and of our nation’s traditional role as a beacon of hope in the world.” Dean had become governor by accident, but was running for president with gusto and purpose.

     Six months later, on the weekend before the Iowa caucuses, he was still pushing as hard, and pulling out the stops by spending Sunday morning with President Carter in Georgia. Then he flew back to caucus-land for a rare appearance with his wife. He had focused on Iowa early, risking $300,000 to air the first TV ads. Everything looked set for an early victory.

     But groups like the Club for Growth had something else in mind. In early 2004, the Club came up with a strategy designed to turn what was starting to look like a Frank Capra movie, Dr. Dean Goes to Washington, into a horror-fantasy. In an ad released by the conservative anti-tax group shortly before the crucial caucuses, two actors, playing an elderly couple, were asked to describe the threat looming over the country.

     Responding directly to the camera, the “husband” said, “Howard Dean should take his tax-hiking, government-expanding, latte-drinking, sushi-eating, Volvo-driving, New York Times reading…” Then the “wife” jumped in with, “body-piercing, Hollywood-loving, left-wing freak show back to Vermont where it belongs.”

     It was strong stuff, a perverse yet brilliant blend of dark comedy and cultural hate speech, so effective that the Club didn’t have to pay much for airtime. The news networks were more than willing to provide free play. As CNN’s Judy Woodruff explained on January 9, “This is so catchy, we love to run it over and over again.”

     Club for Growth President Steve Moore readily admitted that the goal was to re-brand Dean as a tax-hiking elitist. The theme would have been developed more if he had become the nominee, and was cleverly recycled in 2008 to fit Obama. Columnist Austin Bay outlined the script in a mid-January 2004 essay, arguing that Dean was the candidate of “that cadre of angry American leftists struggling with a nasty case of '60s nostalgia and their failed elitist ideology.” In this version of the race, narcissist baby boom radicals were using “pop socialism” to extend “government coercion.”

     “These ‘progressives’ wish America were France,” Bay wrote. “Whether tenured in the Ivies, ensconced in editorial positions or pulling in trial lawyer and Hollywood bucks, these late middle-age Volvo drivers long for L'Age D'Or, when smoking dope and calling US soldiers babykillers made you ‘hip’." Calling the idea that the US war on Iraq might have been a mistake another sign of “tie-dyed dogma,” he concluded that the Dean campaign was dangerous “brain-zapped foolishness.”

     Dean endured similar assaults throughout his campaign, and not just from other candidates and isolated columnists. In addition to a barrage of negative campaign ads directed against the frontrunner, a majority of nightly network newscast evaluations of Dean were negative, while three-quarters of the coverage given to the other candidates was favorable, according to research conducted by the Center for Media and Public Affairs. In 2003, only 49 percent of all on-air evaluations of Dean were positive, while the rest of the democratic field collectively received 78 percent favorable.

     By January 19, 2004, most of the candidates were ready to say and do anything to survive. A few hours before the caucuses, John Kerry wondered aloud whether John Edwards was “out of diapers” when he (Kerry) came back from Vietnam. He had to apologize, since Edwards was 16 at the time. In frigid weather, steelworkers were showing painted chests for Dick Gephardt. Wesley Clark, not in the caucus but gaining ground nationally at the time, was hugging George McGovern in New Hampshire. Edwards and Dennis Kucinich meanwhile struck a deal to pool delegates. Treating caucus-goers like tradable commodity, they agreed that the candidate with the best early showing in a caucus would get the other’s support to meet the 15 percent viability threshold for actual delegates.

     In a weird counterpoint, the Bush administration was pushing for caucuses in Iraq. As the US tried to get the UN back into the process of reconstructing the devastated country, thousands of angry Shiites were taking to the streets. Their demand was free elections, but their leaders admitted that the goal was an Islamic state. The fear was that a public vote, being demanded by the Shiite majority, would lead to a less-than-friendly government. The subtext was that caucuses made it easier to manipulate the outcome.

     CNN analysts issued a forecast for Iowa hours before anyone voted. On Crossfire, Democratic insiders Paul Begala and James Carville, as well as conservative Robert Novak, predicted that Kerry’s late surge would overwhelm Dean. Edwards was given third place and Gephardt was consigned to oblivion. Dean sounded over-confident, but there was uncertainty among his active supporters, nicknamed the Deaniacs. Volunteers in at least three cities were handing out flyers that charged Kerry wasn’t electable, his wife was too rich, and Ralph Nader wouldn’t step aside if he was the nominee. It came across as desperate.

     Days earlier, Dean Campaign Director Joe Trippi had claimed to have 40,000 definite supporters lined up to attend the caucuses, virtually guaranteeing first place. (He was off by half.) Over the weekend, volunteers flooded the state, buzzing around in orange hats. It would be a test of whether “Generation Dean” was for real. For the candidate, it was a reality check on a dream that dated back years.

     Waiting for the numbers, Tom Brokaw noted that politics today is about cultural values, and that Dean’s message had become confused – he was an “outsider” with more key endorsements than anyone else, an angry guy whose wife didn’t want much to do with his campaign. In short, an uncertain image had undermined his message and, more important, his perceived electability. According to a focus group led by Frank Luntz, Dean’s support had tanked, largely because people found him testy, even mean – partially based on a last minute shouting match with a critic that made Iowa TV news.

     Kerry and Edwards were staging an upset. But Dean had also squandered his lead, and too many questions were being raised about his electability, key factors apparently favoring Kerry and Edwards. Early opposition to the Iraq war didn’t turn out to be a strong enough argument; both anti-war and young Iowans found Kerry as attractive as the former Vermont governor.

     Nevertheless, becoming the frontrunner had already allowed Dean to launch and fund a national campaign. Thus, losing in Iowa didn’t necessarily have to spell doom. But it did allow the media to question his claims to be leading a broad-based movement, and set the stage for Kerry to beat him in New Hampshire. Even spending millions more on TV ads wouldn’t be enough to overcome another month like the last.

     And then, when he could have been hopeful but humble, Howard Dean went on national TV to thank his supporters and unexpectedly turned into a cartoon character, a snarling Hulk who rasped out a fierce determination to beat any rivals, shouting out their home states with a frightening sneer. Columnist Howard Fineman was generous when he called it “a little nutty.” CNN’s senior analyst Bill Schneider concluded that “people looked at Howard Dean, and they didn’t see a President.”

     Boston’s Mike Barnacle was blunt: “That guy’s not going to the White House.”

Can a Vermonter make it? Bernie Sanders may try next.

Bush strategist Karl Rove and the religious Right wanted the 2004 presidential race to be about values – things like patriotism, optimism and heterosexual marriage. Actually, they hoped to convince enough people to swallow the administration line, ignore uncomfortable facts, and embrace an evangelically-infused 1950s vision of the country. But the election ended up being about much more, including security, deception, gay marriage, decency, and the all-important presidential variable known as “likeability.”

     Howard Dean’s incandescent sprint became a warning: Be prepared for the unexpected. By winning the so-called “invisible primary” – the fundraising and organization-building race that happens before any votes are cast – he looked like a “frontrunner” quite early, probably too soon. In the end his support turned out to be demographically thin and easy to undermine. In early 2004 he went from “hot” to “not” in less than a month.

     Like the outbursts of Barack Obama’s former minister Jeremiah Wright in 2008, Dean’s so-called “rant” after the Iowa caucuses – instantly infamous as the “I have a scream” speech – was the hot clip on TV and the Internet for weeks, the focus of endless late night jokes. Within five days, the “scream heard round the world” was played almost 700 times on US television networks. As Dean’s poll numbers tanked, critics concluded that he simply didn’t have the “temperament” to be president. The emphasis shifted from which candidate had the most compelling message to which would be more “electable.” Dean was being winnowed out.

     Struggling to turn disaster into opportunity, the embattled candidate spent the next days blanketing the networks with interviews, appearing with his wife, joking about his performance on late night TV, even distributing video tapes of a warm and fuzzy interview with Diane Sawyer to more than 100,000 New Hampshire residents.  It began to work. Some people realized that the criticisms of Dean were exaggerated.

     But Kerry seized the moment to step above the fray, stressing his “gravitas” and showcasing manly skills by playing Hockey and piloting a helicopter. Like a contender on the reality show Survivor, he was showcasing his value to the tribe. The following Tuesday, when New Hampshire primary votes were tallied, the strategy paid off. Kerry repeated his Iowa performance, pulling in 39 percent. Dean made a partial comeback with a convincing second place finish. His speech that night was more sedate, yet still defiant.

     The immediate casualties were Wesley Clark, who skipped Iowa to spend weeks alone in New Hampshire – only to come in a weak third, and Joe Lieberman, stuck in fifth with less than 10 percent after virtually living in the state for a month and bragging about “Joe-mentum.” Neither immediately gave up but both were on the critical list.

     On February 18, after coming in third in Wisconsin, Dean finally acknowledged that his campaign had "come to an end." Yet he urged people to continue voting for him. The idea was that Dean delegates could still influence the party platform. On March 2 he won the Vermont primary, but it was over.

     After the 2004 election Dean became chairman of the Democratic National Committee, creating a “50 State Strategy” designed to make Democrat congressional candidates competitive in normally conservative states.  The approach bore fruit in the 2006 midterms; Democrats took back the House and picked up seats in the Senate from normally Republican states. In 2008 Barack Obama made Dean’s strategy the backbone of his campaign.

     On April 7, 2009, over a veto from Dean’s gubernatorial successor Jim Douglas, the Vermont legislature became the first in the country to allow marriage for same-sex couples.  An UCLU study concluded that the decision would boost the state’s economy by more than $30 million over three years, and that, in turn, would generate $3.3 million more in fees and sales taxes and create 700 new jobs.

     After Dean dropped out of the presidential race, some analysts said he had been assassinated by a hostile media. It was partly true. But they couldn’t have done it if Dean hadn’t supplied some bullets. Throughout the campaign he insisted on shooting from the hip and often fell into gaffes. Another notion, that his campaign had fundamentally changed the Democratic Party, took much for granted. It was about as convincing as the assumption that Ralph Nader’s presence in the race would broaden public discourse. Nader was refused entry into major debates, rarely appeared on television, and didn’t make it onto the ballot in many states.

    After 9/111, many people argued that “everything” had changed. Not so. Some things continued as usual, including not-so-subtle manipulation of public opinion and the primary election process.

The First Third Party

How the Anti-Masons Challenged Secrecy and Elites

In 1826 William Morgan, a 52-year-old Freemason and printer from Batavia, New York, became dissatisfied with his local lodge and announced his intention to publish the details of Masonic rituals. When his plan became known, however, Morgan was seriously harassed. That September he was seized by unknown parties, taken to Fort Niagara, and never seen again.

Although Morgan’s fate is unknown, it was widely believed at the time that he had been kidnapped and killed by fellow Masons, a suspicion that only increased the existing hostility toward the order and led to the formation of the first national third party in the United States.

Spreading rapidly from upstate New York across New England and west, the Anti-Mason movement introduced innovations like nominating conventions and the adoption of party platforms. By 1831 the new political party was so popular that Vermont elected an Anti-Mason governor, demonstrating both the depth of public opposition to elite power and how far a single-issue movement can go.

Morgan’s disappearance led more people to conclude that Freemasons were not loyal citizens. Since most Masons were judges, businessmen, bankers and politicians, ordinary folks began to view the group as a powerful, anti-democratic secret society. Others suspected links to the occult and ceremonial magic. One persuasive argument was that the secret oaths administered by lodges could bind members to favor each other over “outsiders.” When the trial of the alleged Morgan conspirators was mishandled and Masons successfully blocked further inquiries, even more concluded that they controlled key public offices, abused their power to promote the interests of the fraternity, and were violating basic democratic principles.

Popular outrage spread as people decided to challenge what they now considered a conspiracy. In western New York, citizens attending mass meetings in 1827 resolved not to support any Mason for public office. The National Republicans, heirs of the Jeffersonian faction, were weak in New York at the time, and shrewd political leaders used anti-Mason feelings to create a new party to oppose the rising “Jacksonian Democracy,” which favored a more powerful president, expansion of the right to vote, a patronage system, and geographical expansion. The fact that Andrew Jackson was a high-ranking Mason and frequently praised the Order further fueled suspicion. One of the most prominent Anti-Masons was former President John Quincy Adams, who wrote a series of stern letters condemning the institution after Morgan’s disappearance.

Numerous Anti-Masonic papers were published, school readers and almanacs were distributed, and Anti-Mason book stores and taverns opened. In some churches it became a religious crusade. The excitement soon extended as far west as Northeastern Ohio. In some parts of that state, lodge halls were destroyed by mobs; property and records were carried away, Masons were ostracized and their businesses closed.

A national anti-mason organization was planned as early as 1827, when New York leaders attempted, unsuccessfully, to persuade Henry Clay, a former Mason, to renounce the Order and head the movement. His slippery reply to an inquiry about his opinion of the group was that he had become a Freemason as a young man, but hadn’t given the order any attention for a long time. In fact, Clay was a former Grand Master but the growth of an opposition movement had led him to practically disown it.

In the 1828 elections the new party proved unexpectedly strong, eclipsing the National Republicans in New York State. Within a year it had broadened its base, becoming a champion of internal improvements and protective tariffs. In August 1829 Anti-Mason delegates met in Montpelier for what became Vermont’s first political convention.

When an Anti-Mason convention met in Philadelphia in September 1830 it adopted the following platform:

“The object of Anti-Masonry, in nominating and electing candidates for the Presidency and Vice Presidency, is to deprive Masonry of the support which it derives from the power and patronage of the executive branch of the United States Government. To effect this object, will require that candidates besides possessing the talents and virtues requisite for such exalted stations, be known as men decidedly opposed to secret societies.”

One of the leading Anti-Masons was Thaddeus Stevens, a Vermont native of Danville who made his name in Pennsylvania and later emerged as a leading abolitionist, founder of the Republican Party, and post-Civil War activist for civil rights and stiff retribution against the south. Attending the Anti-Mason Party’s first national convention, he attracted notice with his strong speeches and oratorical style. In one of them, “On The Masonic Influence Upon The Press,” he deplored the lack of publicity given to the convention and attributed that as well to Masonic influence.

“Look around,” Stevens proclaimed. “Though but one hundred thousand of the people of the United States are Free Masons, yet almost all the offices of high profit and honor are filled with gentlemen of that institution. Out of the number of judges in the State of Pennsylvania, eighteen-twentieths are Masons; and twenty-two out of twenty-four states of the Union are now governed by Masonic chief magistrates. Although not a twentieth part of the voters of this commonwealth, and of the United States are Masons, yet they have contrived, by concert, to put themselves into eighteen out of twenty of the offices of profit and power.

In 1833 Stevens was elected to the Pennsylvania legislature on the Anti-Masonic ticket, where his legislative talents quickly showed themselves. An excellent debater with a devastating wit that cut his opposition to shreds, he knew how to maneuver behind the scenes – and bide his time.

Vermont’s Anti-Mason Moment

William A. Palmer was no newcomer to politics. He was a popular Jeffersonian Democrat and former judge who had already represented Vermont in the US Senate by the time he ran for governor on the Anti-Mason ticket in 1831. Vermonters had elected another Anti-Mason to Congress and chosen more than 30 members of the movement to represent them in the General Assembly. Still, it was a shock to the establishment when Palmer led in the popular vote. It took nine ballots in the state legislature before he won.

The next year in Baltimore the national party conducted the first presidential nominating convention in US history. Anti-Masonic candidate William Wirt, a former Mason, subsequently won 7.78 percent of the popular vote – and Vermont’s seven electoral votes. William Slade, who would later become Vermont governor as a Whig, was sent to Congress as an opponent of Masonry and slavery.

Since the state still had one-year terms of office, Palmer ran and won again, but still could not attract a majority of the vote. This time it took 43 legislative ballots before he was re-elected.

In 1834, he won on the first ballot, but only because the other political parties, anticipating the collapse of the Anti-Masons, were competing to win over its constituents. Palmer also led in the 1835 vote. But this time he couldn’t convince the legislature. After weeks of wrangling and 63 ballots the lawmakers declared themselves deadlocked and turned to Silas Jenison, a former Anti-Mason official and winner of the Lieutenant-Governor’s race. The rest of the Anti-Mason ticket was endorsed by the Whigs.

The opposition to Palmer was due primarily to his Democratic leanings and a belief that he intended to support Democrat Martin Van Buren for president the next year.

Gridlock in Vermont’s General Assembly over Palmer’s elections became so disruptive that it led to a Constitutional Convention and the amendment that created the State Senate. Criticism of the unicameral legislature wasn’t new and proposals for a second chamber dated back to 1793. But in 1836 the idea of reducing the power of the House finally achieved critical mass. The Convention stripped it of “supreme legislative power.”

Crucially, bankers backed the change, mainly with the expectation that two chambers would be easier to handle, circumstantial evidence that in opposing the Masons the movement was also confronting the banks. The general public mainly thought the House had become too arrogant, intransigent and uncooperative.

Governor Palmer believed that secret societies were “evil.” But he didn’t take radical stands in his public speeches. In his first inaugural address, he declared the intention to appoint only men who were “unshackled by any earthly allegiance except to the constitution and laws,” and suggested legislation to prohibit the administration of oaths except “when necessary to secure the faithful discharge of public trusts and to elicit truth in the administration of justice.” He wanted to “diminish the frequency” of oaths because of the “influence which they exercise over the human mind.”

For Vermont Anti-Masons, the use of secret oaths represented an invasion of the “civil power of a sovereign state” and a violation of liberty. In June 1833, at the height of movement, the Anti-Mason State Convention passed a dozen resolutions defining its position. The first of these, underlining a core commitment to accountability, said “that an institution which veils itself in secrecy and shrinks from the light of truth and public scrutiny – which imposes in its midnight recesses, partial monopolizing, immoral and illegal oaths, backed by the penalty of death upon its votaries – which confers upon its members aristocratic and kingly titles, directly in the face of the constitution – and which aims in its organization, its obligations, and its whole spirit, at the erection of a privileged order in the land, at the expense of the equal rights of the rest of the community, is anti-republican in all its features and deserving the execration of every friend of his country.”[1]

Meanwhile in Pennsylvania, the high point of Thaddeus Stevens’ Anti-Mason period came on January 18, 1836. Prominent Masons who had previously refused to appear before his committee in the Pennsylvania legislature were being compelled to testify. Among them were ex-Governor George Wolf; George M. Dallas, who was Masonic Grand Master of Pennsylvania at the time and ten years later became Vice President under James Polk; and Joseph R. Chandler, editor of the United States Gazette, published in Philadelphia. When ordered to answer questions the three powerful men refused.

In response they and 23 other witnesses were placed in the custody of the House Sergeant-at-Arms. After several days, when some of the Whigs broke with the Anti-Masons, the prisoners were released and Stevens’ campaign ended.

In 1835, when the State Anti-Masonic Convention endorsed William Henry Harrison for President, Stevens initially refused to accept it because Harrison wouldn’t pledge to use the government to go after the Masons. By then he stood almost alone in trying to press the Anti-Masonic agenda on a national basis. Due to his dogged efforts to keep the party alive, he could not secure enough support to be elected to Congress until 1848.

Vermont’s Anti-Masons ultimately succeeded in forcing the lodges to close – at least for a while. But that left the state party with less reason to exist, In 1836 Vermont’s Anti-Mason leaders, including future governor Slade, joined the new, anti-Jacksonian Whig Party.

In Pennsylvania, following the election of an Anti-Mason governor a state convention was held in Harrisburg to choose Presidential Electors for the 1836 election. The Pennsylvanians picked Harrison for President. Vermont’s convention followed suit. But when national Anti-Masonic leaders couldn’t even get Harrison to say that he definitely was not a Mason, they called a separate convention. Held in Philadelphia in May 1836, it was a divisive gathering. A majority of the delegates agreed that the purpose of the party remained anti-masonry but opted not to back a national ticket.

Anti-Mason Joseph Ritner was governor of Pennsylvania from 1835 to 1838. By the end of his time in office the organization was in seriously decline, its members gradually uniting with the Whigs and later the Republicans. The party’s third and final National convention was held in Philadelphia’s Temperance Hall in November, 1838. Almost entirely engulfed by the Whigs, the gathering unanimously supported Harrison for President and Daniel Webster for Vice President. When the Whig National Convention chose Harrison and John Tyler, the Anti-Masons did nothing and soon vanished.

---

[1] Proceedings of the Anti-Masonic State Convention, Montpelier, June 26-27, 1833, Knapp & Jewett Printers.