By Guy Page
Two railroad lines ran past John McClaughry’s childhood home in Paris, a loftily-named town of less than 10,000 located in south-central Illinois near the Indiana state line. As a boy, he wondered what it would be like to ride those rails and see the world beyond the farm.
Like so many! But like so few, John McClaughry did something about it. He jumped his first train when he was about 13. In the early 60’s, he “rode the rails through 19 of the 29 states that I was at one time and down and out in,” he told Seven Days reporter Dan Bolles in 2013.
So it comes as no surprise that by far the most gifted and prolific living essayist on the subject of Vermont liberty – no-one else even close, although his Ethan Allen Institute protege Rob Roper has a firm hold on second place – would use a railroad double-entendre to announce in today’s VDC the conclusion of 30 years of bi-weekly commentaries:
Once ‘Feather River John’ (his hobo name) determined to settle down, he looked for a strong rural community in a free-thinking state. He found Kirby, Vermont, where he built a log cabin and became the Town Moderator and legislator, then state senator, with a stint in the Reagan White House for good measure. In 1993 he founded the Ethan Allen Institute because, I suppose, someone had to. Vermont’s fabled free-thinking, love-thy-neighbor-by-leavin’-him-alone ethic had by then been in decline for 30 years. The 1962 election of Gov. Phil Hoff and the landmark elimination of the one-town, one-representative House of Representatives was followed shortly by Act 250. The die was cast and there’s more to come.
So for a generation, John’s been working on the Freedom railroad, all the live-long day. Where has it got him? By one measure – creating a free-market mecca in the Green Mountains – he has failed.
But the prophets of old were not judged by audience response. They were called to be authentic, consistent, faithful, and topical.
Judged by that more righteous yardstick of personal accountability, all Vermonters – even the stiff-necked among his many friends and colleagues – might say of John McClaughry, “well done, thou good and faithful servant.”
Discover more from Vermont Daily Chronicle
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
Categories: Media
I am sorry to see my friend John McClaughry retire. He was always an inspiration to me from the first time I talked to him. Enjoy your well deserved retirement my friend and always live free.
Amen to that! John had a nasty habit of observing the facts and dealing with them intelligently and truthfully. Some people don’t like that, but many others do, and for us, John’s commentaries will be missed.
Thanks for your down to earth strategy and efforts to bring Vermont along the path of prosperity without the government getting in the way. I agree that while the leadership and direction has been great, we have too many of the libturds in our government and I question who they actually represent.
We will miss you!
I’m proud to have known John since the Reagan years, and had the honor of teaming with him on a number of missions, we both believed in, and we have a number of mutual friends in Washington, and abroad and always helped each other out on our respective missions.
When John ran against Howard Dean, I was working for 41, in Washington, and returned home to Vermont to help John lose with honor.
John has done a lot for Vermont, and the country, and I, for one, am a better man for knowing him.
Vermont and the nation were well served by his decades of actions.
BRAVO ZULU!
Thank you John.
Irene and I wish you fair winds and a following sea.
Bill Olenick
“…by far the most gifted and prolific living essayist on the subject of Vermont liberty.” Darn straight!
A beacon of sanity.
I’ve never had the pleasure of meeting John McClaughry but have enjoyed, well really loved, his singular, libertarian look at so many issues. And I especially like the fact that he selected Kirby for his home. My Lunnie, Ranney and Day relatives hailed from there and they exemplified the independent spirit that our people once specialized in. He deserves our thanks and a peaceful retirement.
John’s voice will be sorely missed in our blue state…from where will reason come? Best wishes for a long and well-deserved retirement!
Character and adherence to the principles of 1776 are, in the long run, the decisive factor in life My friend for almost 60 years, well done, John, well done
John McClaughry would be deemed a national treasure if Vermont had not claimed him first. In the finest tradition of the founding fathers, John has been a tireless, diligent and consistent defender of the very cause of Liberty which has always been the raison d’etre for the very founding of our nation. He has displayed a detective’s nose for all of the ways and means that the haters of the uniquely American gestalt which has emerged from this central quest, have deployed in order to undermine that which Americans love.
What do I mean? If lovers of liberty treasure the right to keep what they earn, the haters tax it away; if lovers of liberty cherish the right to raise their children according to their own values, the haters seek to imprison the children in government schools with bureaucrats dictating to the parents; if lovers of liberty seek to build a business through work, love and imagination, the haters establish bulwarks of impediments, calling them “regulations”; if lovers of liberty esteem the natural resources on this earth as tools for building, you know, such things as trees, minerals, oil, the haters build an elaborate case for why they are either too sacred or too dangerous to let us use; if lovers of liberty say rights are inalienable due to their divine gifting, the haters say well actually, we are from the government and we are here to help you.
In each of these instances, John McClaughry has stuck his foot in the government’s door and said, not so fast. He reminds all who would hear as well as those with government issued earplugs that we are a Constitutional Republic wherein our rights as citizens are meant to be protected and preserved from such governmental usurpations, and oh, by the way, I have the documents here to prove it, says John: the U.S. Constitution and the Declaration of Independence.
It has been said that an institution is but the lengthened shadow of a great man. In founding the Ethan Allen Institute, John established an edifice to promulgate the ideas for which he committed his life and career. In so doing, he attracted others, such as Rob Roper, Wendy Wiilton, Meg Hansen, and many others to expand the reach of the formulae of freedom as an organization, in fulfilling its highest and best purposes, is meant to do. One can hope that the good work begun will continue.
I had the honor, as a newly arrived Vermonter in the eighties of hosting a fundraiser for John in his run for Governor. I was intrigued to see, having come from a big city, how much effect a person can have in a small state. John returned the favor when I ran for the U.S. Senate against the poster boy of failed statism, Bernie Sanders. Though neither of us one those political contests, I am confident that John, like myself, was grateful for the opportunity to express publicly and re-emphasize the glorious and central role which human liberty plays at the very core of the greatness of our nation. These are ideas which will survive and surpass an individual political contest, as long as we stand strong by voice and example and never, ever surrender.
For John McClaughry and his loving partner, Anne, I would like to add my voice of gratitude to a thankful chorus for your integrity, consistency, diligence and love of Liberty and for how you have manifested these in the service to our State of Vermont and to the United States of America. Though I am tempted to say, enjoy your retirement, I believe that the quill of a ready writer will not go silently into that dark night. Thank you, thank you, thank you!
With love and respect,
Lawrence Zupan
Even before The Ethan Allen Institute, John was involved with, if not the driving force behind “Balanced View”. As the conservative point of view became more difficult to get out to the public, John was working hard to present ideas and real solutions to the problems facing VT. I would love to hear others who were more involved than I offer more information on the founding of Balanced View because it should be another piece of John’s legacy and an example of how hard he worked to save Vermont. I hope that we will still receive the benefit of his wisdom even as he retires from EAI.