Public ledger. [volume] (Memphis, Tenn.) 1865-1893, 1868-03-13
why Tennessee Bonds DO not Advance.

just after the August election OF last
year the Press and Times exultingly told
It's readers that Tennessee bonds would
20 up very near TO par Perhaps the
men who read that very confident predic'
ton have wondered thai our bonds have
fallen below the prices they then COM
manded, with no prospect Of an improve
ment. There is good and sufficient
reason for this decline, and the wonder
is that our bonds have kept up as well as
they have. While our taxes have been
enormously increased year after year,
and are now FIVE or six fold greater than
they we're in the prosperous.year Of 1860,
we are compelled to borrow money to
pay the interest on these bonds every
time II falls due. So extravagant has
been our State administration that the
State Treasury is always upon a strain.
But the other day Will r. MoBath. the
Clerk of the Circuit Court for Knox
county, presented a small claim against
the State to the Treasurer, and that Off
Ger frankly told him he could not pay it..
Here is what Mr. McBath says in letter
published in the Knoxville Press and
Herdld Of the 7th instant:
"In my communication from Nashville
I wrote the truth, the whole truth, and
nothing but the truth Col. Henry did
inform me that the State Treasury was
empty, and twelve thousand dollars worse
than nothing, and he did not give me the
information as secret. thought it but
an act Of justice to myself that inform
those who were looking to me for money
due them from the State of Tennessee,
and which they expected on my return
from Nashville, that l inform ttem of the
emptiness Of our State Treasury through
our public Journals Whatever comment
the public see proper to indulge in is no
affair of mine. / mean to vindicate my
self while / can, although learn some
not very complimentary remarks have
been made by some about me in Knox
vile since my return from Nashville, on
Tuesday last, in consequence of the let
ter wrote at Nashville, which was pub
lished here. lam Union man died in
the wool. / am also freeman, or try to
be, and whenever this country gets so
loyal that a man cannot give an honest
expression of facts as they really are,
without some men on the streets con-
troverting the sincerity of his motives,
think it time to quit trying to be free
men, and sell out to those who, in their
wisdom, can tell you what to do"
Here we are attempting to run the ma
chinery of great State upon an empty
treasury, and yet what have we to do? Be-
sides meeting the ordinary expenses of
the State, which through the most reck.
less extravaganza, have grown out of all
proportion, we shall have to provide for
the July interest on our bonds, and then
a very large amount of our bonds fall
due this year. On the 7th of May, less
than two months off, $l,0O0,00O fall due,
and yet the treasurer states that the
treasury is $4,000 worse than empty.
During the month of November $245, 900
more of our bonds fall due. Now what
are we to say to the holders of these
bonds? We have been preaching about
the good faith ofTennessee about as long
as preaching will accomplish anything.
The time for showing that we were honest
in what we professed has now come. When
the men who hold the $l,000,000 of our
bonds that will fall due on the 7th of
May present them for redemption, will
we offer to issue new and deprecated
bonds to these men for those for which
they paid perhaps thirty cents in the
dollar more than our bonds will com
mand to.day2 Of course, the proposed
exchange would not be accepted. How,
then, with worse than empty treasury,
are these bonds to be taken up2 Here
is question in which the taxpayers of
the State are interested. 1t has sufficed
only to pension horde of hungry off :
ciais that they have been loaded down
with taxes. The large sums that have
thus been wrung from an oppressed and
impoverished people have been dissipated
in wasteful extravaganza, and now when
our maturing debt comes upon us, that
must be met if we expect to retain even
the poor standing we have in the great
financial mart of the country, we are
frankly told that we have worse than an
empty treasury. Do the people of Ten
nessee, who were met with such great
promises of financial prosperity as the
result of Radical victory in the August
election, now wonder that Tennessee
bonds do not advance in price Mash
vilLe Union dispatch