The New Orleans crescent. [volume] (New Orleans, La.) 1866-1869, 1868-10-10

The screenings, squirmings, and contor-
sion of rat, with both feet in . steel trap,
afford but faint idea of the distressing
plight of poor old Greeley and some other
Radical editors who have rashly undertaken
to rebuff the charges of financial mismanage-
ment and profigacy which have been urged
against their party. Recently, they attacked,
with the fury of Spanish bull rushing at
red rag, the exhibit of the present and the
prospective condition of the United States
treasury, made by Mr.. Delmar, director of the
statistical bureau. They announced, with
huge emphasis of preliminary flourish, that
they would, before they were through, tear
his statements into tatters, and cause him to
rue the day when he dared to bring in ques-
ton the financial impeccability of the
Radical party, by pretending to transcribe
from the records of the treasury depart
ment certain arithmetical figures and cal
culations for the information of the public.
But the result of the assault in is ludicrous
contrast with the swelling bravado with which
it was commenced. They fancied at first that
they could invalidate Mr.. Delmar's facts by
invalidating his character as an official statis-
tician. According to them, he was the most
incompetent man for that position who could
be found in the United States. They asserted
his inability, with the books of every branch
OF the treasury department under his inspec-
ton, to give a reliable account of receipts and
expenditures for any specified period of time.
Bnt these assumptions, it turned out were al
together irrelevant. Laying his reasoning
aside, all the material statements of Mr.. Del
mar are found to be simply Transcripts from
the treasury records 1t is here that the
great forte of Radical journalism in the pres
ent campaign breaks down. Plain, unvar-
nished mendacity may serve measurably
well for disappearing Southern sentiment
and conduct, and for denouncing honest OPP
position to Radicalism as disloyalty.
But Radical lying cannot put down arith-
metic; and Mr. Delmar is simply the expo
nent of arithmetic when he sums up the
items of financial waste and extravaganza
under Radical policy. There the huge amount
stands, shamful, hideous, appalling to the
contemplation of every right-thinking citizen.
AS to Mr.. Delmar's deductions from the data
before him, their gist is to show that, accord
ing to receipts and expenditures, actual or
estimated, for the current year ending June
80, 1869, the government is bankrupt to the
extent of s154, 100000 There are but two
ways to meet this deficit-by increased taxa
ton or by additional loans. One expedient
would utterly crush the industry of the
country; the other utterly PROSTATE its
credit. On either hand, disaster is inevitable
under the continuance of Radical rule
for eight months longer. 1t has raised
the rate of annual expenditure, to
satisfy the requirements of its reconstruc-
ton frauds and usurpations, and its manifold
corruption and rapacity practiced under shell
ter of the tenure of Office, to upwards of $780,
100000. Stop the squanderings of the Radi-
Gals under pretense of restoring States to the
federal Union, while they are really destroy
ing States and the federal Union and stop
the impunity of Radical stealage provided for
by act of Congress, and this sum could be re-
duced at once about one-half, and at the same
time the taxes could be diminished and the
public credit enhanced in u corresponding de-
gree But it is clearly preposterous to think
of retrenchment and solvency under pro-
longation of Radical policy. Tyranny was
always costly, but Radical tyranny is the cost
lest of modern times The party, in fact,
cannot live and be economical, for it can only
live by corruption, fraud, and force, and it
must extort somehow from the people what
ever may be the price of these. Hence the
significance of the money question in this poll
teal conjuncture.