The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1867-03-14
The National Dcbt-NsodIcss Alarm fOi
Its Premature Payment.

The National Debt-NsodIess Alarm for
Its Premature Payment.
Fran, the Tines
Mr.. Kelley, of Pennsylvania is alarmed lest
our national debt should be paid too soon.
He has fallen into the habit Of introducing re-
solutions into Congress protesting against its
payment 'by this generation" Congress
hesitates about passing them. and the Tribune
halls this hesitation as the dawn of a financial
millennium. 1t declares Mr.. Kelley's propo-
sition to be 'not much better than qualified
reputation and insists that the debt must
be paid at once-"by those who contracted it.,
not by their posterty."
Mr. Kelley's alarm is as absurd as the Tri-
bme'S political economy. Ifh will be patient.
he will soon recover from it, "rhis genera
ton" is much more likely to double the debt
than to pay it. The country has been amused
with the idea that we are paying it of at the
rate of hundred or hundred and fifty nal
lions year; but 1t fOrgets that we are increas-
ing 1t quite as fast in other directions. The
Bounty bill of 1866 added about eighty mil
lions. Another is under way which will add
from tive to four hundred millions more.
Mr.. Schenck says this bill will do "to
begin with" and General Banks pledges
himself to vote for whatever sum the sol
diers want-he does not care whether it is four
or eight hundred millions of dollars. Mr..
Williams OF Pennsylvania, has presented an
other, and MT. Perham, of Maine. still another
bill of the same sort. The soldiers constitute
powerful part of the great body of voters.
They have one common interest, and nothing
is more certain than that Just so long as
aspiring partisans want their votes, Just so
long will millions be voted out of the public
Treasury for the purpose of securing them.
Neither party in Congress can now dare vote
against any such proposition. No prominent
public man dare take ground openly and
boldly against the policy thus foreshadowed,
ruinous and fatal as they know it to be! Who
ever does so is forthwith denounced as an
enemy of the soldiers--a Rebel sympathizer-
traitor or a Copperhead more or less dis
guised. And an epithet or two Of this sort is
quite enough to silence any member who, in
a rash moment, might have dreamed of con-
sulting the public good.
Then, too, Mr.. Blaine 5 proposition to trans
fer to the National Treasury all the debts in
Cured by States and counties in raising sol
diers and prosecuting the war, is pretty GER
tain sooner or later to become law, and this
will add not less than five hundred millions to
the aggregate of the national debt. And
lurking behind all these stands another class
of claims, of which no man can estimate the
amOunt-we mean the claims of loyal men,
North and South, for property destroyed dur
to come in at the beginning of the the first
session of the last Congress, and were referred
to the Committee on Claims, at the head of
which was Hon. Columbus Delano, of Ohio,
Que of the ablest and most considerate men in
| public life.
So startled was the Committee by the
/ amount of these claims that they reported q
resolution, which was forthwith adopted that
until otherwise ordered no claims of this char
acter from the citizens of the Southern States
should be entertained. But this was simply
temporary evasion of an inevitable duty. 1t
was like shutting ones eyes to danger too
fearful to be faced. The Committee did not
dare to let the country understand the extent
! of these claims,-which are perfectly just,
and can no more be ignored than can the
| Seven-thirties or any other part of the public
debt.
What the amount of these claims will
prove in the end to be the country has no
means of knowing. Mr. Delano has intimated
two or three times, while urging vigorous
measures of taxation in Congress, that they
would be large enough to tax to the utmost
the resources and courage Of the whole coun-
try. And we have very good reason to be-
lieve that the amount of such of these claims
as will be found to be perfectly just, and such
as must be paid, will approach very nearly, if
it does not equal, what is understood to be
the present aggregate OF the national debt.
This may seem eXtravagant, as it is certainly
alarming; but we believe time will show that
it is not an Over-statement of the actual fact.
Congress, meantime, seems inclined to cut
off one after another the sources of revenue
whereby the interest on this gigantic debt and
the decrease of its principal, can alone be met
Twenty or twenty millions of the income
tax were released at the last session. The
tax on cotton, which yields twenty millions
more, came within very few votes of being
abandoned. Every branch of manufactures
clamors for release-and those which are the
most powerful, and which are therefore the
most important, are pretty sure to get it. The
same interests demand protection from foreign
competition to an extent which will cripple
commerce, and seriously diminish its vast
contribution to the public treasury--and ex-
perience shows that their demands are quite
likely to be conceded
Both Mr.. Kelley and the Tribune may pos
sess their souls in patience. They can lay
aside all apprehensions of rash and prema-
ture payment of the national debt. Both
those gentlemen are much more certain to see
it doubled than to see it paid. 1t will never
probably be repudiated-that is, not by any
! formal vote or direct action of the Govern
ment. But voting additions to it, and refusing
the taxation required to meet it, are methods
of avoiding payment quite as effective as oper
repudiation. And the tendency towards botl
is strong already and likely, under the pres
sure of party necessities and party reckless
ness, to become still stronger.
, -
Conaress and the President ON the De-
tails OF RecOnstructtOn.
From The Herald.
A bill supplementary to the act of Congress
ltfa. Al, ,,,ora affciant