Wyandot County Republican. [volume] (Upper Sandusky, Ohio) 1869-1903, 1869-03-04
The Bond Tonic.

The Bond Tonic.
1t is refreshing to lear that the
action OF one or other House OF
Congress has given lift to the
price of bonds, or as it is expressed,
has strengthened the public credit,
OF has given q more-healthy teneste
the finances, or some such pretty
phrase, which means that he who
bought bonds yesterday can realize
an advance to day, and that progress
is being made in adding &c per
cent. to the value of bonds that we
had to sell for so cents on the dol
lar. And upon this it is assumed
that Congress has done good
work, and it is encouraged to keep
on doing SO that the bonds may
rise in the hands of the cheap
i purchasers. Iu admiration we have
to ask if it is the business of Con-
gress to legislate to raise the value
of the bonds after it has sold them !;
if this country has no. other in
terest than the bondholders' inter
est, and if Congress, has no better
occupation than legislating for the
benefit Of the bondholders.
In opposing the hostility of the
Democratic arty to the debt which
was created to suppress their Sc
cession war, and in repelling their
rascally cry for reputation, we
seem to have gone to the other
extreme, and to be determined to
set up the bondholders as a sacred
class, and to enhance their claims,
and to declare that all we have is
theirs. Nearly all the schemes Of
finance inh oduced into Congress
make their chief object not to pay
the bonds, nor to buy them in at
the market rate, but to legislate an
appreciation of them, so that they
who took them at sixty cents on
the dollar may receive one hundred
without waiting for their maturity.
And we have made it into the form
Of a political creed that the validity
Of the public debt shall not be ques-
toned, and we have put this in the
Constitution. and have tried to
make it so sacred that it will be
profane to inquire what we really
do owe.
But it is not by prohibiting the
questioning of the validity of the
public debt that it will be paid nor
is it by increasing the obligation
that the public credit will be
strengthened; nor is it the business
of Congress to guarantee that
holders who took our bonds in our
distress at so cents on the dollar,
shall have them appreciate imme-
diately to 100 cents in the market
The creditor who receives six dol
lars in gold interest on every sixty,
dollars which he lent the Govern
ment, and has our obligation to
pay him one hundred dollars at
maturity, does well enough. We
need not commit financial suicide
in order that he may speedily
realize a speculation of 66 per cent.
on the principal. And as for us,
it is for our advantage that the
bonds after we have sold them,
should remain as low as the rate
we sold them for. In every way
it was loss to the country to have
them rise.
If the bonds had remained at
sixty, we could use our surplus
revenue in buying them in at sixty.
The Government has the same right
to 90 into market and do this as
any other purchaser. OF course we
could not prevent their rising to
some extent upon our improved
prospects; but all the rise is to our
financial disadvantage; and for US
to make sacrifices to boost it, looks
as if we were stricken with folly,
and had made of the bondholders
our golden calf. The thing is
overdone, and we suspect that they
who are OVERRIDING it, and who are
promoting legislation, not for pay
ing the bonds, but for enabling fhe
holders to realize a great specula-
ton before payment, and who are
for swelling the obligation of the
debt, in order to show how much
our wordy honor exceeds what we
really owe, and who are thus giving
to Congress the appearance of leg
islating solely for the profit of the
bondholders, are not in reality
the chances Of paying
the debt Gin. Gazette. FEB. 2Sth.