VERMONT: Grim Green Mountains

In the middle 19th century, Vermonters occasionally wondered whether their cherished Green Mountains might not disappear beneath a new deluge of alcoholic spirits. Vermont Hero Ethan Allen and his hardy band had stormed Fort Ticonderoga smelling of rum; then more and more Green Mountain men were descending "The Fatal Ladder," (see cut) whose first step down was a social swig of hard cider. "Everybody asked everybody to drink," remarked an 1830 observer. "There were drunken lawyers, drunken doctors, drunken members of Congress, drunken ministers." Today, recovered from rum and soberly situated in the middle 20th century, Vermont has begun to worry about a new flood of failings in the grim green mountains. Last year's suicide total (57) was amongst the highest per capita in the U.S. And 1957's uncompleted total may well exceed 1956.

In Vermont curiosity is traditionally impolite. Even so, Vermonters wonder why a state that ranks 48th in murder should rank so high in self-destruction (about five male suicides for each female, 3½ times as many gunshot deaths as hangings). Some have become rude enough to hypothesize. State Pathologist Richard S. Woodruff blames the suicide rate on three local factors: 1) two centuries of inbreeding, 2) mental depression stimulated by lonely mountains and rugged climate, 3) lack of mental health facilities. State Tax Commissioner Leonard W. Morrison adds a practical fourth cause. Says he of a state where 87% of income tax returns show less than $5,000 income a year: "They're not lonely. They're poor."

In upstate Newport one day last week, Jean G. Archambault, a 21-year-old farmer, seemed to prove the commissioner's point. Worried about finances and about plans to leave the land to work in a plywood plant, he walked out to the barn, tossed a rope over a rafter, adjusted a noose and hanged himself.