The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1868-08-27
SPIRIT OF THE PRESS.
HpIToRIAL oPHIoHs OF THB LEADING JoUREALs
UPON CURRENT FoPIcs-CoMPILRD EVERY
BAY FOB TIE EvKEIEa TELEGRAPH.
The Weight OF the Taxes.

The Weight OF the Taxes.
From the Boston Post Be- -..@.-a
While the journals OF the faction now in
power are telescopically hunting out single
cases of murder and manning in farthest
Texas and Arkansas, oblivious of the scores OF
wife and child murders close at hand, the peo-
pie are impatiently demanding to know what
all that has to do with such a Giving" ques-
ton as that of the enormous taxes which are
annually drawn from their pockets. The
special and subordinate officers under the
guidance of this party may bring out as many
reports on the Government expenditures and
resources as they like-there stands the great,
overshadowing fact still, that the rate OF
taxation in this free and naturally rich
country reaches fourteen dollars for every
man, woman, and child in it. 1t is prepos-
ferrous. We are taxed more heavily than the
English, and yet they have a debt almost
twice the size of ours, and Church establish
ment, royal family, an immense navy, and
an army to support. Our revenues for the last
fiscal year amounted to four hundred and
sixty millions of dollars. Enormous That
has been going on for three years and more,
since peace was secured. What has been
done with these four hundred and sixty mil
lions England manages to spend but four
hundred millions, all her expenses included.
We spend sixty more. What becomes of it
Is the debt diminished No. Are the taxes
GghtenedH No. Ninety millions go for for the
army. What the need of supporting so large
n force in time Of peaceH Thirty millions of
it to keep twenty thousand men in the South;
and three of the ten Southern States expressly
forbidden by radical Congress to vote for
President and Vice President, for fear that
they may not vote for the radical candidates
Forbidden to exercise o clear constitutional
right, although the war was waged to compel
them to observe nothing but strict constitu-
tional obligations What the need of an army
in States like these, already impatient to be
admitted to their relations within the Union
But besides the army there is the Freedmen's
Bureau, costing, according to General Howard's
report, nearly t,UetUe millions from jan, 1867
TO JAM, 1868. And what appears on the surface
in this Bureau business, is but pebble stones
OF expenditure compared with the solid rock
of extravaganza underneath. Seven or eight
hundred thousand able bodied black laborers
are taken from steady tasks, at which they
might earn regular wages and gradually learn
the lesson of confluence and thrift, and intro.
duced to midnight party leagues, taught mys-
FERROUS passwords which lead only to vagrancy
and crime, and drilled in habits which forever
unft them for serviceabe industry. Were
these men--never more needed in the pros
trated South than now-employed, as they
would be but for the idle teachings of vaga-
bond partisans, their applied labor would start
mp confidence in that entire section attract
capital and immigration, guarantee peace and
prosperity, and help lift this heavy load of
taxation from the bent Northern neck. Besides
reducing the expenditures by the withdrawal
of the army and the Bureau, such revival Of
Industry in the Southern States would bring
revenue directly into the Treasury, and aid the
North in paying its lessened share by opening
the channels of business which radicalism has
10 obstinately obstructed.
This is simply what it has done, and what
1t might still do; but nothing is to be looked
for from such party different from what its
record declares OF it in the past. The single
thing it has steadily refused to do is to cur
tail the expenses of the Government. 1t may
profess and propose economy in every other
form, thinking to hoodwink the people, but
until ii cuts off the waste at its source, it is
not honest and sincere in anything it says.
Congress adjourned without actually reduc-
ing the expenditures or curtailing its crimi-
nal extravaganza. There was good deal of
talk about reducing the army, and abolishing
the Freedmen's Bureau, and doing several
other things of like character; but it all
amounted to just what Commissioner Rollins
resignation did-nothing. 1t was trick,
catch, blind, in the hope that the
people would be deceived as they had
long been defrauded. The appropriations
voted were comparatively moderate for cleo
pioneering purposes; but large deficiency bill
will be certain to make up the lack before the
end of the year. The fact still stands out,
were taken from the pockets of the people for
the last fiscal year, no movement has been
honestly made for the reduction of the public
expenditures, for staying this fearfully wasting
tide of extravaganza, or for limiting the name
less operations of corruption. The radical
party is committed to precisely the same order
of things which it followed last year, and has
followed for the three years and more since the
termination Of the war.
The people understand it all now. They
see with clear eye what this power-seeking
faction would conceal from them. Aud they
wait only for the day to come when they may
constitutionally exercise the full measure of
authority which reverts to their hands. They
will send away in disgrace faction whose
highest conception of government is, that it
Confers power on a few men to prey on the
rights and prosperity of whole people.
The Two Plans.
From the N. Y. Times.