Dodgeville chronicle. [volume] (Dodgeville, Wis.) 1862-current, 1869-10-15
Commissioner Delano ON the Debt.

WE suspect the grief OF the Ch!cago
Times, at the absence of Commissioner
Delano from the Revenue Department, is
not so much on account OF the loss OF his
services at Washington as from dislike OF
the facts he is spreading before the people
in Pennsylvania. If it were true, as the
Times asserts, that he "comes before them
to proclaim two audacious falsehOods,
knowing them to be So" his character
would be such that the less he was present
at the Revenue Department the better.
And yet, while branding Mr.. Delano thus
as willful liar, our neighbor declares that
the duties of the Revenue Department
"cannot be properly performed but by his
| daily and constant supervision" and says
"his reputation as an honest man will
give to his statements on financial ques-
| ticus an authority which will impress the
| people" The two "audacious talsehoods'
perpetrated by this honest liar, to whose
"daily and constant supervision" we owe,
in the estimation of his enemies, the col
lection of the revenue, are, first, that the
debt is decreasing, and, secondly, that this
decrease is being accomplished through
the fidelity of Grants administration. AS
these assertions are thorn in the Copper
head flesh, it is well, doubtless, to brand
them as "audacious falsehoods" But
there our neigEbor should leave it, 1t
should not, after charging an honest liar F"
with uttering the audacious falsehood that
the debt is being reduced, proceed to
argue that the public debt has been re-
datced, under Secretary Boutwell's manage
ment of the Treasury, because the receipts
from customs and internal revenue have
largely increased" Such a mode of sus-
tanning his charge against Mr. Delano lays
the writer open to the suspicion of having
written the article in condition of physi-
cal helplessness and moral responsibility.
The fuddled Bohemian then supports his
denial that any credit is due to Grant, Bout
well, Delano, or any other part of the
Radical administration, for the collection
of more customs and revenue, by averring
that the increase of revenue is wholly
due to the reduction of the taxes effected
by the late "imbecile and UNANIMOUSLY cor
rupt Congress-"
This staggers us We can understand
how the duty and mission of Democratic
journalist may require him to deny that
any credit is due to Republican for any
thing. But we fail to see the "great
Democratic. gain" by taking the credit ,of
collecting the revenue from Republican
administration in order to give it to Re-
publican Congress. Mr. Delano AYERS that
during the fiscal year ending June 30,
1868, while 10O,000,000 gallons of whisky
were made and consumed, only 6,709,546
gallons paid tax. But, during the last
fiscal year, including four months Of Grant,
there have beene2, 0o9,s 31 gallons returned
subject to duty. He shows that, compar-
ing the last six months of the year ending
June 80, 1868, with the like six months of
1869, of which four months are Grants,
we find an increased revenue from spirits,
tobacco, sales, banks, stamps, incomes, and
one or two other small sources of $22541,-
600, while there is falling off in no item
OF Importance, except one of $242,000 in
the salaries paid for collecting them,
owing to discharge of superfuous officers.
He shows that in the quarter, July, Au-
gust and September, 1868, we collected less
than thirty-nine millions of internal reve-
nue., while in the same months of 1869 we
collect forty mine millions-an increase of
thirty per cent. He declares that, apart
from any gains on the customs revenue we
will collect in internal revenue S25,000,000
more than last year, while our expenses
will be $25,000,000 DESIGNATING a total
gain from these two sources of $50,000,000
year. AS, during the last year of John
son, we paid off $50,000,0O0 of the debt,
during every year of Grant we will pay off,
without increasing single tax, one hun
dred millions. Within the eight years
during which President Grant may, per-
haps, continue in Office, the funded debt
will be reduced, probably, to $1,200,000,-
OOO To all these revelations our irate and
apparently intoxicated neighbor replies
that the credit is due to "a Congress so
imbecile and UNANIMOUSLY corrupt that it is
spoken of with contempt by the press of
its party" The readers of the Times will,
doubtless agree with us that it's editor, in
compromising this theory, must have got
entangled in the elbows of a financial
Minico. The next time he essays to criti-
else the Government upon its success in
collecting the whisky tax, it would, at
least, promote the coherency, if not the
truth, of his assertions, to improve the
quality of the whisky which inspires his
O,ur ocSau jcUoo Yb.;b,taao