US Presidency
1880

In financial legislation every measure in the direction of greater fidelity in the discharge of pecuniary obligations has been found by experience to diminish the rates of interest which debtors are required to pay and to increase the facility with which money can be obtained for every legitimate purpose. Our own recent financial history shows how surely money becomes abundant whenever confidence in the exact performance of moneyed obligations is established. The Secretary of War reports that, the expenditures of the War Department for the fiscal year ended June 30, 1880, were $ 39,924,773.03. The appropriations for this Department for the current fiscal year amount to $ 41,993,630.40. With respect to the Army, the Secretary invites attention to the fact that its strength is limited by statute ( U. S. Revised Statutes, sec. 1115 ) to not more than 30,000 enlisted men, but that provisos contained in appropriation bills have limited expenditures to the enlistment of but 25,000.