Orleans independent standard. [volume] (Irasburgh, Vt.) 1856-1871, 1864-08-12
The Copperhead Tactics.

Philadelphia Age, copperhead journa
of the most virulent type and its lead
ing article--a long one--is devoted tC
an exposition of the effects of this "abo-
Iition war upon the fortunes of the poor
OF course it is an appeal to the unreas-
oning and ignorant poor against the pol
icy of the war, and an attempt to make
them believe that New England is now
growing rich out Of the war at their ex.
pense. "New England contractors and
manufacturers, it says, "daily grow in.
ordinately rich on the price of blood, and
the mass of the people who work for
their bread, hour by hour, grow poorer
and still more poor, marching steadily
downward from common poverty to
downright beggary-and from beggary
straightway to starvation
This extract gives the gist of the en-
tire article. The statement is boldly
made that ''of the thousands of millions
which the war has cost, and for which
the laborer is taxed, not penny finds its
way into his pocket" The statement is
made in the face of the known fact, that
the New England manufacturers are
paying the heaviest taxes that are paid
in the country, and the laborers are
thriving on unprecedented wages, and
have no taxation at ALL or none that is
worth mentioning. The laborirg popu>
lation of the country were never earning
so good wages as they are earning to-
day, even when we take irto account the
relation of wages to the cost of living,
and never lived when their was such a
demand for labor at the highest prices
as now. There is nobody who has
disposition TO work, from the boy and
the girl of II to the man and woman of
every age, who cannot get work to do at
prices which pay munifcently. If we
were to select any class which is more
prosperous than any other it would be
the laboriing class. The laborers them,
selves know, or ought to know this. If
they do not, those who employ them do.
m.
The grand burdens Of the war come up
on the rich men and the business men
and with the scarcity Of labor which ev-
erywhere prevails, the poor have a guar
anty of constant remunerative labor
which they have never had before in
the history of the country.
Still further to show the poor man
what he is coming to, the Age quotes
from the N. Y. Tribune of Jan. 1st, an
article showing how one DR.. Winthrop
Dunshunner has ascertained that the
soil which grows cabbages and other We
getables, contains all the nulritive ele-
ments of those vegetables, and can be
used for food, as "the Patagonians and
other athletic tribes of savages make
dirt portion of their daily banquets."
1t also quotes from the Boston Commons
wealth the statement that Prof. Wins
low Perkinpine, of Harvard, has discov-
cred that the flesh Of the common grass
hopper contains 115 per cent. of nutri-
ment, and has been a favorte dish of
that most intellectual and beautiful peo-
pie, the Digger Indians of California,
and that, with dirt and grasshoppers,
'the laborer may we'll bid defiance to
poverty and hunger, and can, without Sc
rious privation, give all of his earnings,
instead of nine-tenths, for the support of
the government, and the Liberation and
sustenance of the noble black" These
articles, which are upon their face ficti-
tious-the second one being gross tra-
vestie Of the first, are actually quoted
by this scoundrelly sheet to show that
his diet is prescribed by the Yankees
Tor the poor; and the editor coolly adds
And SO the world goes on-the war {
oleeds and beggars US, and the Yankees {
1f New England entertain us with edito- {
'ial specifics for emptiness and rags" I
II is humiliating to believe that the ,
writer of this rascally stuff knows that
ne has a market for it among the igno-
ant poor around him, to whom it will {
,e faithfully read by bar-room and broth {
i demagogues and it is still more hu-
to believe that there are others I
,ngaged in editorial work who are equal :
y lost TO shame with the editor Of the {
Age himself. 1t is sad to know that the {
government, and every we'll wisher of 9
he government, have these men TO meet
n an election which is to decide the pol y
cy of the nation for the next four years,
md that this damnable machinery is used
or the simple purpose of Transforming
simple people into foes of the govern
nent and into foes of New England. 1t
$ sadder still to realize that among all
he democratic presses of this country
here is not one which desires or dares TO {