The weekly Portage sentinel. [volume] (Ravenna, Ohio) 1854-1861, 1854-08-24
For he Portage Sentinel.
Government Ol1tIays.

GEErLEMAH:-It is q favorable moment to
say word or two about government out
lays. II is refreshing to see once in great
while some return to elemental principles,
and to the great object, design, and purposes
Of republicanism. To reverse the old ideas
of men, that governments must do every
thing for the people, and build up mighty
name,-that governments must bu ID cities,
dig canals, and construct public works and
tedifices for every locality at first favored by
nature, has been the aim of American De-
mocracy. Yet very little progress has been
made. The MaysYille veto was great step
towards that end. Governments viH nsver
be got out out Of the hands Of the ts,O so long
as the people look to them for so much. The
people on the United States, or the govern
ling part of them, which are generally in our
cities, have been looking to the River and
Harbor bill for considerable additions to their
public buildings, and for gratuitous relief to
their empty pockets. The tricks of credit,
and all otherSchuylerisms are about exhaust
ed; and the surplus in the national Treasu.
ry has been played for with an astonishing
reckIessness, during the last winter. The
Presidents veto is not only democratic, but
timely. In such times as these the public
money and public land should be well guard
ed. The people are not now in a period ol
second sOber' thinking. The prevailing
idea just now is, that the Treasury is great
reservoir, and the government, the pump;
drawing every where upon the income of the
people, for distribution in certain localities
already sufficiently favored, 1t is fully i'm
pressed with this idea, that the Plain Dealer
seems to complain Of the late veto, and seems
to call for another Chicago Convention.
The size Of the stream into Cleveland is not
large enough in the opinion Of the Cleve-
land Plain Dealer-and here ends its de-
mocracy. The price per foot of the land on
which its Office, or the Post Office, stands,
will not be likely to rise above $1,000 for
another decade, unless "uncle Sam" comes
in to the aid ofthe city-State lifts flung in.
This is Plain Dealer Democracy. What
will Leonard Case AJAX the government 'sfor
the lot on which to place Custom House
and Post Object! Andh how came it by this
value! Thirty years of government nppropri-
ations in and about the mouth Of the Cuva-
hoga river, have raised it from $50 per acre,
to as much per inch, and now government
is called upon to pay Mr.. Case for what is
really already its own. Had Mr.. Case been
taxed directly to build the Light House, and
other public works at Cleveland the case
would have been quite different. Mr. Case,
il is true, would not have been worth as much
as he is now. Yet he could we'll have af-
forded to pay the tax, and aoould have paid it.
Our harbors generally would have been in a
better condition, if federal patronage had nev-
er been looked t., and their would have been
fewer landed aristocrats incur cities and coun-
try. By government appropriations one
mile square Of land at the mouth of the
Cuyahoga, has been made worth as much as
the whole of Portage county, and few fam
lilies worth as much as all its inhabitants
put together. And this is the result, first, of
indirect taxation to support the government,
and next, of giving that money, SO unjustly
unequally raised to localities which would
get rich fast enough without it. The argu-
ments in favor Of this mode of collection,
and distribution, are as old as the Tariff sys.
TEN, and are as unsound as the system is
unequal, sectional, aggrandizing, corrupt,
and undemocratic. The history Of Stock
ley's Pier, at Cleveland, alone, would dis
prove every one Of them. The people Of our
Commercial cities make contributions, and
live enough upon commerce, and the trade
ofthc country, to pay them for all their sac
rifices and outlays, even though they should
build their own lighthouse, piers and hos
pitfalls. Should government and the coun-
try be a little less liberal towards cities, and
compel them to build their own improve
ments and attractions, they would not have
SO much to spend in dissipation and luxury
and Otherwise deserve better of mankind. 2
Yours in haste, VIRGNIAND. T.