The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1867-10-04
nd 22O SOUTH FRONT sTREET,

tion whether the Government did, or did not.
engage to pay the principal in coin. We have
already given our views on this point. and
will net repeat them now. There is only one
new point in Buffers last letter, and that we
will try to dispose of at the end Of this article.
Our purpose is not to confute Butler anew,
but to expose Chase.
Butler's letter to the Tribune does not de-
monstrate his main position, but it does de-
monstrate that the financial policy of Mr..
Chase was muddle and a bungle; demon
strates that his policy was so vacillating in
consistent, and self-contradiotory, that amid
the confusing cross-lights the rights of the
public creditors and the obligations of the
Government are open to endless Questionings
and liable to be tossed hither and thither on a
fuotuating sea of uncertainties. The editor
of the Tribune stands foremost among Mr..
Chase's admirers and eulogists, and the
evasive feebleness of his rejoinder to Butler
corroborates the conclusion that Mr.. Chase
was a financial charlatan. 1t is susceptible of
historical proof that the contradictory loan
laws were drafted by the then Secretary of
the Treasury. We know this fact from the
most authentic source; it was publicly
stated by Mr.. Hooper, the organ of the
Committee of Ways and Means, in the House
of Representatives. General Butler is enabled
to make out plausible case, because the
various laws are a clashing set of inconsistent
enactments, instead of a harmonious system.
1t is quite true, as General Butler states, that
the greenbacks are tender for everything
except Government interest and duties on
imports. The language inscribed on every
greenback means nothing, or it means that
the greenbacks must be accepted in payment
of the public debt. 1t is true that there are
other enactments inconsistent with this; it is
true that Mr.. Chase made promises and held
out inducements OF quite contrary tenor; but
is farrago of jostling enactments and pro-
misses such a financial policy as the country
had a right to expect from an able minister of
finance? The fact that he left the door open
for such unsettling controversies as have
arisen; that he furnished materials for such
specious arguments as those advanced by
General Butler, must cause his lauded ability
as a fnancier to pass into a total eclipse.
How easy it would have been, by little
consideration and foresight, to avoid discus
sions which tend to shake the public credit to
its foundation! How easy it would have been
to furnish argument to the Tribune which
would have tripped up Buffers heels by
single touch of its toe A single additional
word inscribed on the greenbacks, the two
little words Sin coin' transplanted from the
ten-forty to the fve-twenty loan bill, would
have left Butler and those who think with
him without a shred of plausible argument.
the Tribune declares it to be, why was there
not forecast enough to shut the door against
it The Tribune says:-
"If every American would say, we will pay
our public debt TO the uJtermost larthingr 1--WE
might soon fund our debt at per cent AS it
is, we shall long pay fifty millions per annum
IN extra interest because of the threat and
i1idr 6read OF dt5 virtual And tn t9at fifty
than forty years. We are for reducing both
principal and interest so fast as can honestly be
AHrN nd obi all I,9s
reputation that they preclude this most de-
sired contamination"
1t is but a day or two since the Tribune
praised Mr.. Chase as our most accomplished
iinancier since Hamilton. But how could so
great genius for finance have lett open this
yawning gap through which, by the Iribuae'S
own showing, there flows annually fifty mil
lions of wasted treasure, when the insertion of
TWO short words in the statutes drawn by this
amous inancier would have shut up this
reat sluice-way forever Why were the
Ords Gin coin" in the ten-forty bill, and not
n the five-twenty bill What could Butler
say for himself, if those words had been in
serted instead of being omitted Their omis-
sion, which can be proved to have been by
design, and the making of the greenbacks
tender for everything except customs duties
and Government interest, enable Butler to
make out case so plausible that his views
will find a wide acceptance as soon as
considerable contraction OF the currency
causes the pressure of taxes to be more
severely felt 1t is for the admirers of Mr.
Chase to explain why he left the public credit
exposed to such specious and damaging at
tacks. If he meant to pay the ive-twenties in
coin, why did he not so draw the statute as to
leave the point free from doubt The Tribune
would not then be driven to "Paley's Moral
Philosophy for arguments to supply the ao-
knowledged silence of the law on point
deemed vital to the public credit. 1t is Mr.
Chase, not General Butler, that is shaking
public condolences for General Butler is
merely exposing Mr. Chase's financial disar-
rangements. His System is chaos of con-
tradictions, of which it is as easy to prove one
thing as another, according as attention is
drawn to one or another of its elashing parts.
We could point out other Inconsistencies
equally gross; but those now exposed will
suffice for the present. If Mr.. Chase is run
for President, we can promise that his fnan-
cial renown will be pretty thoroughly riddled.
1t remains to redeem our promise of meet
ing General Buffers single new point. He
states it with specious ingenuity as follOws;-
"If the United States should now choose to
exercise its right to pay them (which would
seem To be wise. as they are uutax xable, so that
thelT interest Is, in fact, from one 10 three per
cent. highertthan six per. cent TO the holderl IN
thai case, why should the Government be called
upon TO pay In gold or its equivalent IN cur
rehey. say l4S, when anybody else can buy them
AT ll2?
"W by should the Taxpayers be called upon to
pay The holders from 80 10 40 per cent. more IN
oruer 10 redeem these bonds. than, as tney now
have the right 10 do, the capitalists now Will
ing 10 sell them for TO anybody else 2
This is artful, but it lacks substance. Its