The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1868-09-30


shall lower the national credit, appeal to Mr..
Delmar as the fitting man to produce it. He
promptly responds, and furnishes forth three
columns of figures that darken knowledge
and insinuate falsehoods most beautifully.
Let us look at g few of the more glaring mis-
statements
|. Mr.. Delmar's object is to show that under
Republican management the Treasury is be-
coming bankrupt; that taxes have been re-
duced for campaign purposes only, at the ex-
pense of an inevitable deficiency of a hundred
and fifty millions at the end of the year, to be
made up by future increased taxation. He
accordingly seeks to manipulate the figures
SO as to show large expenditures and small
receipts. His first remarkable achievement
in this line is the estimate that for the cur
rent fiscal year the receipts from customs will
be only one hundred and fifty millions. Now,
the receipts from customs last year are given
by Mr.. Delmar himself at $l64464, 500. To
make out his case he only asks us to believe
that they must this year be trife of four
teen and a half millions less. The Chairman
of the Committee of Ways and Means, in an
elaborate discussion of this subject before the
House, said:-"It is difficult to imagine a con-
tipgenoy which shall, for the present, reduce
the customs receipts below one hundred and
siXty-fve Millions" But man has been
found who is equal to this feat of the imagi-
nation. His name is Alexander Delmar.
II. We are next informed that the receipts
from internal revenue for the ensuing year
will only be hundred and twenty-five mil
lions. Last year, with all the stealing OF Mr..
Johnson's revenue agents, they were hun
dred and ninety-thr millions We have i'm
proved the law, and made more rigid provi-
sions against the stealing of the Democratic
taxi x-gatherers; We mean, next March, to turn
out the thieves and put in honest men. Yet
Mr.. Delmar expects us to believe that We shall
thus secure for the Government the bagatelle
of seventy one millions less than the thieves
left it. The Chairman of the Ways and Means
Committee, being responsible to the House
and the country for the accuracy Of his esti-
mates, in matter wholly within his hands,
declared his belief that, under the amended
law which he proposed, the receipts would be
$210, 800, 900. He was not able to carry
through all his amendments; but his very
lowest estimate, avowedly based upon pos
sible failure to collect any more of the whisky
and tobacco taxes for 1869 than for 1868, was
! $l64, ,000, 900. Mr.. Delmar has more faith in
Mr.. Johnsons thieves than this. He ciphers
down the taxes that may be expected oescaps
their clutches forty-two millions below this
figure.
III. On the receipts from the sales of public
! lands Mr.. Delmar is quite moderate. The re-
ceipts last year were 81, ,34S, 7l5. Neither the
Commissioner of the Land Office, the Secretary
of the Treasury nor the Chairman of Ways
and Means, dreams that they will be any less
next year, and SO Mr.. Delmar only cuts them
down one-fourth. In the same way, the direct
tax having only amounted to about two
millions last year, Mr.. Delmar moderately
restraints himself to a modest reduction to q
million and half.
". But it is on the miscellaneous receipts
that MIR. Delmar comes out again in all his
glory. In the last fiscal year these were
within few thousands of forty seven millions
This year our financial oracle thinks they will
be-fve millions He gives absolutely NJ
explanation of this enormous falling of
which he pretends to anticipate. Perhaps
however, we can aid him. A large part o
the miscellaneous receipts has been derived
from the premium on the sales of gold. This
item has been wholly left out. The result il
blunder Cor swindle-and such is the com
posite character of this remarkable fnancia
light that we are in constant doubt as to how
much of him is blunder and how much swim
dle)-the result is blunder of only forty-tw,
millions
V. The entire expenditures of the Govern
ment for the last fiscal year were 1910, 339, ,073
There is no page or porter about the Treasur,
Department ignorant enough not to know tha
the appropriations for the next year wer
largely reduced-to the iufnite grief of tn
Secretary and the continued lamentation @
his underlings. Yet Mr.. Delmar cOoly guesse
that for the ensuing year-with the Freed
mems Bureau expiring by Limitation, wit
army expenses largely reduced, bounties paid
naval bills cut down, reconstruction measure
: bly, over, and general system OF retrench
; ment-the expenditures will be four hundre