Daily Ohio statesman. [volume] (Columbus, Ohio) 1855-1870, 1867-10-02

farmer alone. arraiyn - Congress
as being an enemy to that class. You
have heard my Indictment. Now for the
proof Ii there Is any body here that loves
Congress. let him stand up for his
friends. for I am ready to prove them unfit
toinhabit the homes of honest men. am
here to prove the financial policy OF Con-
gress a robber, plunderer and land
pirate. tss55.Ta "a ysdf s.,s q
-rss-ss-...-a-s-- FINANCIAL.
You have q mighty financial question
before you. ] do not pretend to be the
greatest financier In the country; i make
no professions upon that subject at all.
But there are certain great, bold, plain facts
that you and can talk about here to-day,
around the fireside. During the war we
became deeply indebted. The public debt
now amounts to about $4,000. 600 900. A
large portion of it, nearly $1,000 900. 600 Is
IN what may call the peoples promissory
notes. They are generally known as gov
ernment bonds. What Is q government
b6ndf 1t is paper issued by the govern
mAr,t, BY your representatives, in behalf of
you, the people, upon your credit and your
credit alone, and Is your note, made. exc
cuted and signed by your agent at Wash
ington, to pay so much money in certain
length of time. You have nearly $1,000
600 600 of these notes out, that some day
or other and in some way or other you or
your posterity will have to pay. Gentle
men Of Ohio, you are In debt. Your farms
are all mortgaged, every foot and acre that
you own, is mortgaged to pay your notes
thst are out. They are called, bonds, but
they are simply your promises to pay;
They are in the hands of certain class OF
men. They bear heavy interest. Twice a
year the tax gatherer comes to collect from
YOU yea, he Is about you every day. You
pay taxes In every form. The tax-gatherer
is Invisible; he is about you all the time.
You pay taxes on these bonds while you
eat, and while you wear out your clothes |;
even while you sleep yon are paying taxes
on this mighty debt. Remember that the
tax you are paying now does not reduce
the principal, it only pays the interest,
You will say at once, .sThat is an APP
palling spectacle for us and for our child
rem after us to look upon. Two thousano
six hundred millions of dollars Is an i'm
mense sum of money, amounting, accord
ing to an estimate / saw the other day, to
q large sum for each voter, and then for
each man. woman and child in the United,
States. will not go into these minutia.
You will ask me how these men received
your notes. When our currency was de-
ranged, and In order to induce the people
to. purchase these notes. law was s,passed
by which they should pay no taxes upon
the Government bonds that they held.
The derauged state of the currency enabled
them to buy these bonds at rates of from
forty to sixty cents on the dollar. If to-day
the people should repudiate the entire pub
lie, debt-which am not fer, but opposed
to-the bondholders. by the interest they
have already received, would be paid
nearly, il not quite, all that the bonds
originally cost them. But they hold them
over YOU as so much wealth in their hands.
The wealthy men of the country own
them. ssAh," but says some one, why
= fhnrr II q n
here and tell you that the market was open
for all, and ask you why you did not buy
bonds and thus escape taxation. Why a
man Is either knave or a fool that argues
In that way, for he knows that ifererybody
had. acted on his suggestion, and bought
bonds, there, would have been nobody to
pay tixes to support the Government at all.
/ ILaughter and applause.l But in the next
place, these bonds are the rich mans
speculation, and not the poor mans.
Nobody but rich man can be an owner of
Government bonds. Suppose you have a
farm OF one hundred and sixty acres. lt is
worth, we will say, $4,000. Now, II you
were to sell your farm for $4,000, and invest
1t in Government bonds. iG would not be
enough to enable YOU to live on the interest
of your money. But If q man is worth a
hundred thousand dollars, and has the
money invested in that way, then hei can
live ,abuHdantly upon the interest of his
money!. The poor man can not live upon
the interest of his money. Whenever you
hear of a man living in that way you know
that he is rich man. But take the banker,
the broker the money chaDger-take the
wealthy merchant, take the bloated, pleth-
orfc manufacturers of the East, who have
stolen, by, way of the tariH-take the ship
owners, the horse contractors, the leeches,
the cormorants the money vultures that
preyed upon the Government during the
war. They are the men, who have enough
to step forward and take $50 000or $l00 600
worth of bonds, or million, and lay them
away, occasionally to cut OF the coupons
and send them to the proper place, and
thus live on the interest of their money.
What other advantage have they |? These
men that thus own your promissory notes
are protected by the Government in the
most shameless manner from taxation. If
yon have your neighbOr,s promissory note
in your bureau drawer. for thousand dol
lars, when the tax-gathereri comes round
you have to render an account of that, as
well as so much personal property; let it
be listed and taxed; but your Deighbor
who has a Thousand dollar bond, need rem
der no account of it to the tax-gatherer,
thus allowing the wealthiest class in this
country to escape the burdens of taxation.
Is there man here that loves the luxury
of working for some rich neighbor? Ifl
there is, he ought to be Radical, o1s "A
If there is q man that loves his party
ties SO strongly that rather than give up
his party he would give up his manhood.
and get mp in the morning and work a lit
tleieariier, and work little harder during
theJday, and later at night, and deny his
wife some tea and coffee, school his chill
dren little less, RlI for the luxury fOfpay-
ing, the bond holders taxes-if there Is
such man here he ought to be q Radical,
and do not hope to convince him; but If
there is man here that loves justii,e, loves
equality. loves right, loves his own, loves
the fruit of his own toll. and believes that
rich men ought to pay taxes as well as poor
men--to snch address my words, in the
hope that they will do good. aeaA. re
There is mighty movement abroad in
the land. 1t has commenced and it will go
on until it will level this question. Why.
my fellow citizens, this is one of the most
monstrous questions that ever was adj
dressed to alaboring or free people. You
may take the Ten Commandments of the
Holy ScriptureS-no one reverenceS them
more than / do-resolve them into sepa-
rate resolution, put the whole Ten Com.
mandments into political platform, and
then add one more plank indorsing ine-
quality in taxation, and that one plank
would drag down the Ten Commandments.
No party on earth can stand for moment
upon platform that has embodied in it
the principle OF inequality IN bearing the
burdens of this Government In my own
town there lives man worth three mill
lions of money. On the tax -gatherer's
books, for Federal revenue purposes, open
to the inspection OF any body, that man
stands charged with, and as having paid,
twelve dollars for Federal revenue the last
year. There is three millions of wealth
that goes untaxed. If that three millions
were brought under taxation, some other
three millions of wealth, perhaps yours,
would be lightened OF taxation just so
much. But, says some man, 'sThese bond