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The little state knew the war was coming
Reposted from the New England Historical Society website
Pearl Harbor, of course, triggered the United States’ entry into World War II. Two days after the Japanese attack on Dec. 7, 1941, the United States declared war on Japan. The assault surprised Hitler as much as anybody, but he declared war on the United States on December 11. The next day, the U.S. reciprocated.
Vermont beat everyone to the punch. On Sept. 16, 1941, Vermont’s Legislature reinterpreted a military order issued by President Roosevelt to establish a state of armed conflict with Germany.
Why War?
Was this another example of Vermont’s iconoclasm? The state always went its own way, having been established as a republic in 1777 before joining the United States. It was the first to ban slavery, the first to provide for a state university – and a Vermonter was the first to photograph a snowflake.
But Vermont wasn’t just trying to be different. Vermont declared war on Germany for a good reason.
In anticipation of hostilities, the United States had reinstituted the draft in 1940. Over the course of the war, 50,000 Vermonters were drafted or enlisted, close to 14 percent of the state’s population. Non-officers earned an average base pay of about $70 a month, which put a financial strain on many young military families.
For example, Marjorie Kenney Haselton, a war bride pregnant with a small child, worried frantically about money. From Massachusetts, she wrote to her draftee husband about her finances. She received $80 a month. Her expenses were $20 for rent, $36.50 for milk and groceries, $8.55 for utilities and $6.95 for insurance and laundry. That then left $8 for clothing, medicine, heat in winter months, newspapers, periodicals and amusements.
Why Vermont Declared War
Recognizing many such cases of hardship, the Vermont Legislature wanted to award a bonus to Vermonters called up to serve.
In September 1941, lawmakers got their chance. The Legislature held a special session to bail out the University of Vermont, then facing a financial crisis.
Lawmakers not only appropriated money to bail out the university on September 16, they voted a $10-a-month bonus to the draftees.
But under Vermont’s constitution, they would have had to vote for a new tax in peacetime in order to appropriate the funds. They could vote a bonus, however, during a time of armed conflict.
Fortunately for Vermont draftees and their families, President Roosevelt had on Sept. 11, 1941 ordered the U.S. Navy to shoot first if it encountered German warships entering U.S. waters.
Armed Conflict
Vermont lawmakers seized on the chance to redefine ‘armed conflict.’ They called it a state of national emergency in which the president orders armed force to protect lives or property endangered by any hostile foreign power.
In other words, Vermont declared war on Germany.
According to historian Vic Henningsen, the act caught national attention. One newspaper praised the state:
“The rest of the nation, perhaps, may be satisfied by assurances and euphemisms of our national leaders to the effect that we are not at war and have no intention of entering upon a shooting war with the [Germans] or their Axis henchmen. But not so Vermont.
“Vermont sees things clearly and is willing to pay for its vision.”
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Categories: History
notable is that this all happened long before the “hippie invasion”, when Vermont was known as THE MOST Republican-voting state per capita in the nation…
As noble as the gesture of unilaterally declaring war on one of the world’s most notorious evils, as it must have seemed to have been at the time, the declaration of ‘a state of national emergency’ – used to circumvent the Vermont Constitution – was the precursor of many ill begotten tyrannies we see today. Consider the continued loss of our parental rights.
“Vermont sees things clearly and is willing to pay for its vision.”
Oh, the road to hell is, indeed, so often paved with good intentions. Clearly or not, Vermonters may have won a battle. But they lost the war – despite the political sophistry.
Yes the beginning of the slippery slope that has engulfed the state and nation.
Regarding the conflict in Europe, a Vermont newspaper of the time states: “Vermont sees things clearly and is willing to pay for its vision.”
Sadly this shows a gullibility or complicity of the 1941 legislature that is on par with the gullibility and complicity we see ample evidence of in todays Vermont legislature.
Instead of closely examine events of the era (from 1918 to 1941) and the forces acting within Germany at the time, the legislative body was led to a declaration of war by the pervasive lies and war propaganda in the United States at the time. Now the same forces that destroyed Germany pull the strings of our government, media, financial structure and education. Today’s Vermont legislature has become a cog in the ongoing machinations toward the destruction of our America.
I encourage everyone to read “The Unnecessary War” by Pat Buchanan.
Actually, ‘the legislative body was led to the declaration of war’ in order to redistribute taxpayer wealth to a privileged class without due process.
Righteous? Perhaps. Misguided? Definitely.
“Instead of closely examine events of the era (from 1918 to 1941) and the forces acting within Germany at the time, the legislative body was led to a declaration of war by the pervasive lies and war propaganda in the United States at the time.”
I’m pretty sure they did examine the events from the time and decided that they should intervene in the attempted extermination of a race of people. To think that the West could have stayed out of WWI and WWII like the book you suggested is the revisionist history of Christian White Nationalism. I encourage you to read literally anything else to understand that intervention was not only necessary, but our duty.
Pat Buchanan is a Christian huckster (surprise) who has somehow made a living predicting the United States’ demise for at least three decades now and he is less accurate than a stopped clock.
That’s just my point. They hit the easy button like you have here. They were stuck in the socially engineered narrative pervasively broadcast around them, never thinking to find the facts for themselves. I challenge anyone to have an open mind and become a student of the other side of the story, and seek the many facts that show the accepted narrative of WW2 is largely based on falsehood and propaganda.
And UVM is STILL in financial trouble all these years later.
Reality check that kind of makes moot BIPOC DEI claims of VT being something its not… I’ll let y’all fill in that blank…
The people who made THAT Vermont something to be proud of are nearly gone… glad to have this perspective here and now…