The Portland daily press. [volume] (Portland, Me.) 1862-1921, 1868-07-02
L II e PR ESS.
Thursday Morning, July Q, 1868.

Thursday Morning, July Q, 1868.
TAXING THE BoNDs.-lt is an unauthorized
assumption to hold because the House of
Representatives, on Monday by a vote of
s2 to 55 instructed the Ways and Means Com
mittee to report bill taxing the interest OF
government bonds ten per cent that the bill
itself will pass. Thirty-six Republicans were
absent and one, Mr.. Bingham of Ohio, voted
in favor of the resolution for the purpose OF
moving reconsideration and no other. We
have hitherto spoken of Mr.. Blame OF this
State as among the absences, but 1t appears
from correct list OF the votes in the mega
tive that he voted in accordance with his well
known views If national honor. Only Mr..
Pike of our NJ nine Representatives votel
with the majority. 1t is scarcely conceiva-
BILE that the measure should pass the House.
If Representatives believe that in still further
weakening the public credit they act in ac-
cordance with the prevailing public senti
mrnt, they are egregiously mistaken. Such
Republican journals as comment upon the
strange proceedings of Monday express
opinions in exact accord with those persist
0uUiy SCI IOrlu III JueSe cOluueS. IHoy Onc
and all denounce the movement as in direct
contradiction of one of the best planks in the
Chicago platform which declares that Nthe
best policy to diminish our burden of delt
is to SO improve our credit that capitalists will
seek to loan us money at lower rates of in
terest than we now pay, and must continue
to pay so long as repudiation, partial or total,
open or covert is threatened or Suspected
The Boston Journal and Advertiser and the
New York Post and Times denOunce the res
olution as having tendency to unsettle the
confidence of our own people as well as our
foreign creditors in the honor and good faith
of the American government. The propo-
stion offered by Mr.. Boutwell, Tuesday is
in strict accord with the Republican plat
form. 1t proposes to fund the debt at low
rate OF interest and thus save the taxpayers
money without committing the crime of
robbery. Mr.. Boutwell's resolution will prob
ably be received with favor in the House
and it certainly will be preferred in the Sen
ate to that of Mr.. Cobb.
Gen. Howard aud ihe Freedmen's
Bureau.
A few days ago the Argus professed to be
greatly shocked because o corresp ondent of
the Press had said that the flag-bearer in the
procession of conservative soldiers" at Angus
ia, was taken out of the Jail there ON the
morning of his appearance in the distinguished
part assigned him. The Argus chose to apply
this statement to Mr.. B. A. Norton, a delegate
who went from Portland, we are told, on the
morning of the convention, and who conse-
quently could not have been taken out of Au-
gusta Jail that morning. Our correspondent
did not name Mr.. Norton and evidently did
not mean him. Whom he did mean he win
probably explain tor himself. That he has ut
tered an 'infamous SANDER" we do not believe
We do not intend to employ or harbor SLAM
derers upon the Press. Honest and decent |
men of all parties" as the Argus forcibly saws,
"recoil with disgust" from the performances of
"mendacious correspondents" and the crime
OF defamation is if possible aggravated when |
1t is practiced upon the brave men who cheer |
fully rsked health and life in defence of the |
country few years ago. Of all these brave |
sons Of Maine there is none whose name has
been more spotless than that of General How
ard. Of all his subordinates in the Freed mems |
Bureau there is none whose record is brighter
tnan Colonel Whittleseys Subjected to polit-
lcai persecution by the President spies, Sted-
man and Fullerton, he yindicated his conduct |
at all points before court of enquiry. rer-
haps the soldiers of Maine would like to see
what rumors, set afoat by mendacious cores
pondents, the Argus sees fit to circulate about
these their honored comrades. 1t is not
trusted correspondent of the Argus, but
correspondent of the New York Express, who
writes from Washington the following incredi-
BILE stories, which we find selected and copied
into Wednesdays Argus without note or
comment:
made mention sometime since of the new
Howard University now being built in this
city or the education of the cOlored people
As the building itself will cost somewhere
near one hundred thousand dollars. the cues
ton has been asked by some where the money
comes from. My information is as follows 1t
seems. that when General Butler was in COM
msnd of the Army of the James, and was en-
listing negroes to fill Northern quotas he kept
back certain portion of the bounty of each
800 think-ostensibly for the support of
their families. AS large number We're either
without families or were afterwards killed, a
fund ofseveral hundred thousand dollars re-
mained in the honest hands of Butler at the
close OF the war. This with half a million an
propria ted by Congress for the support of col
ored schools, was placed. under yer, loose Ie-
strlctlons as to lis expenditure. to the credit |
OF me Bureau "for educational purposes"
with Gen. Howard as cashier Howard pro-
ceeded with the funds thus obtained to pur-
chase 150 acres o. land at $1,000 per acre in the
northern suburbs of this city and to nj Ike |
contract for the erection of q University build
lngs thereon at $4,000. He appoints one
Whlttesev, whom Gems. Steedman and Full
!erson found in The southwest sli ghtly defic cot
in his Government records, as his fnapLal
agent
Howard at once persuaded the Trustees to |
give hum he choicest acre in the whole patch
III which he has built an elegant residence |
He then has public" sale of lots on portion
OF the purchase, whereas by some hook or.
crook his satellites OF the Bureau the
best. He secures parent for the District for |
making brick, and at the same time a CONTRACT |
for himself to furnish the brick for a new edi- |
hce. The whole history of this transaction, if |
published, would place in new light the |
great Christian phl3nthropst and soldier,
who magnanimously countenances amalgama-
ton and labors so dslnterestedly 10 promote
the welfare of the negro race He is also to |
be empowered by Congress to sell all the i'm
mense property now belonging to the Bureau,
without any restrictions regulations govern |
ing the sale. People as yet have no idea of
what tremendous fraud is covered by the |
name of Freedmen's Bureau. Whether as a
political or as financial fraud it is greatest,
1t Is not easy to say. Perhaps Gen. Howard |
could tell should have mentioned that Rev. |
DIR. Boynton, Chaplain of the House of Rep
resentatyes, who was originally President
University seeing how things were going on
under Towards management, deemed it
necessary to his own self-respect to resign |
his position, which he did. The whole con
Germ OF tins Bureau management, from attic
10 basement, is so rotten, apparently, that it
could nor Tor moment Withstand the agita-
Llon OF thorough examination. So far as the |
University is concerned, it appears to be part
and parcel of grand real estate speculatio \,
III Wnlch Howard and his coadjutOrS consti- |