The Vermont Village Green: Alternative to Empire
Vermont State House
Montpelier, Vermont
November 7, 2008
Objective: To stage a Vermont village green forum, circus, and medicine show where a potpourri of radical music, art, theater, circus, conversation, politics, and community gives birth to a Genteel Revolution against the Empire.
Master of Ceremonies: The Irreverend Ben Matchstick. Combines the characteristics of a circus master, a stump politician, a revival minister, and an old-fashioned traveling medicine man.
Speakers:
1. James Howard Kunstler – The Long Emergency and World Made By Hand (new novel)
2. Gerald Celente – Trends Journal
3. Kirkpatrick Sale – Middlebury Institute
4. Ron Miller and Susan Ohanian - Educators
5. Sharon McDonnell – Dartmouth Medical School Professor
6. Vermont Village Merchant
7. Benjamin Gilbert - Vermont High School Student
8. Vermont College Student
9. Lisa Nash – Chiropractic Physician and Community Organizer
10. Thomas H. Naylor – Second Vermont Republic
11. Rick Foley - Vermont Commons
Entertainment:
1. Pete Sutherland and Friends
2. Bread & Puppet Theater
Historical Precedence:
Believe it or not, there is historical precedence for this type of village forum and circus going back sixty years ago.
Farmers’ Night at the State House:
On most Wednesday nights when the Vermont legislature is in session, one can catch a lively act in the chamber of the House of Representatives in the Statehouse in Montpelier. Known as “Farmers’ Night at the Statehouse,” these weekly performances date back to the Vermont Farmers’ Club in the 1920s. During the early years, the Farmers’ Club meetings took the form of public forums devoted primarily to the concerns of Vermont farmers - - at that time, most members of the legislature were farmers who spent the entire legislative week in Montpelier, since neither roads nor transportation were conducive to commuting.
But the purchase of a piano by the club in 1923 signaled the beginning of a gradual shift of emphasis away from lectures and public discussions towards a format that included more and more entertainment. That same year the club relaxed its membership requirements so that any representative “interested in the soil” could be a member of the Vermont Farmers’ Club. On a typical Wednesday evening one may enjoy a concert by a local high school or college musical group, a barbershop quartet, the 40th Army Band, or the Vermont Symphony Orchestra. By far, the most interesting meeting the Farmers’ Club ever had took place on 26 March 1947, when Representative Reide LeFevre brought his own circus to the Statehouse. The circus included a calliope, a cowboy band, roller-skating, acrobatics, knife throwing, and nearly everything connected with a carnival. There were also horses and elephants. Nearly a thousand people showed up that night. Life Magazine covered the story.
The Hadacol Caravan
Back in 1950 a colorful Louisiana Senator Dudley J. LeBlanc put together a fantastic old-fashioned traveling medicine show to promote a foul-tasting patent medicine he had invented called Hadacol. The show known as the Hadacol Caravan was an almost unbelievable success resulting in astronomical sales for the insipid elixir. Among the entertainment superstars who participated in the traveling road show were Hank Williams, Roy Acuff, Mickey Rooney, Bob Hope, Minnie Pearl, Jack Benny, Milton Berle, Rudy Vallee, and Carmen Miranda.
In spite of Hadacol’s foul taste, it sold like hot cakes as a result of the amazing Hadacol Caravan.
Secession is also thought to have a bad taste in the minds of some Vermonters. Perhaps their minds can be changed by the Vermont Village Green Circus and Medicine Show.
Benediction: In the words of The Irreverend Ben T. Matchstick, we all pray for Vermont independence “in the name of the flounder, the sunfish, and the holy mackerel.”