"In both Texas and Vermont... citizens have always lived and I believe intend to keep on living their own lives in their own fashion." 

The following article, written by Vrest Orton in Vermont Life's  summer issue of 1955, compares the states of Vermont and Texas. To a reader skimming the text lightly, the article seems to engage in lighthearted banter, pointing out the areas in which Vermont surpasses Texas (i.e. medical college) and where Texas surpasses Vermont (i.e. the beauty of the women), as well as the ways in which the two states are similar (i.e. they were both once independent republics). 

​

However, some of the comparisons drawn between the two states have more controversial undertones. 

​

"In both Texas and Vermont there is a long, stout tradition of independence of mind and thought... In both these regions live rugged individuals who have, to some degree, been able to resist certain degrading and leveling forces from the outside world. In short, our citizens have always lived and i believe intend to keep on living their own lives in their own fashion."

​

​

"Quite a large number of Vermonters are disturbed at the accelerating encroachment of the United State upon us."   

​

​

In these two quotes, and in others throughout the article, Orton (and through him Vermont Life) states that the "best" version of Vermont is one that is free from influences and "invasions" (as he calls the government's introduction of social security to the country) from the outside world. This "outside world" can be foreign nations as well as fellow Americans and the U.S. government.

 

 

Orton wrote this article in the 1950s, a time when more and more cases concerning race and racism are entering the Supreme Court and holding implications for the greater United States. In asserting Vermont's wish to remain separate from government influence at this particular time, it is possible that Orton is also pushing back against the decisions of the courts (concerning race) at this time. 

​

​

It is also important to note that Orton is comparing Vermont to Texas, in particular. The state of Texas officially passed twenty-nine Jim Crow laws over the 19th and 20th centuries, one of the highest numbers on the nation. Even after Brown vs Board of Education was passed, the state still supported segregation by stating that "no child [would be] compelled to attend schools that [were] racially mixed." Texas, as Orton claims, did in fact have a history of resisting outside influences and change. The change it had a history of resisting, though, was that which granted people of color equal rights. In comparing Vermont's resistance to the outside to Texas', Orton hints at his own (and Vermont Life's) opinions of racial equality and its place in Vermont. 

​