The Portland daily press. [volume] (Portland, Me.) 1862-1921, 1869-10-21
What to Pay FirsI.

1t is easy to make statement not only very
curious but very ridiculous, by putting enough
to it. D. P. B. makes neac statement, when
he adds to ours that the buying of bonds in
the market with greenbacks, is paying gov
| eminent bonds in greenbacks, these words,
at par aoithout the consent of the holder"
He should have had the frankness to make
the usual note-the italics are our own. He
may be left to toy with the proposition so fix
ed up, and find in it such curiosity or amuse-
ment as it may afford We return to the pre-
else thing we did say.
1. The proposal to pay government bonds
in greenbacks has been secuted by the Re-
publican press and orators as the heresy of all
heresies, the objectionable political sin. No
excuses of the bond-holders being ,oilling to
be thus paid have been tolerated, no qualifi-
cation of bringing first the greenbacks to par
have been admitted. For case in point
this very paper, under its former management,
denounced prominent republican in our own
State, and contributed the small influence ne
to insure his defeat from other causes, for say
ing, that he favored the payments of govern
ment bonds in greenbacks and of redeeming
greenbacks in coin. ..
2. Secretary Boutwell, is doing this very
thing, j. e. paying the fve-twenty bonds in
greenbacks,-and oh fie! payingin greenbacks
when they are at a discount of 80 or 40 per
cent! and with no sort of an official or unof-
fetal resolution, declaration or intimation that
the greenbacks are ever to be paid, nor the
naming of the most distant day for paying
them, but leaving it fairly to be inferred that
that they must wait till by sturdy taxation
we shall have first paid more than two bill
ions of interest-bearing debt.
Are these bonds paid or not? We have
been told, that since Grants administration,
we have paid S56,0O0,OOO of the public debt.
But 40 of that SO millions were 5-2O bonds. IF
those bonds have not been paid, then this
boast of paying $56,000,OOO, upen which we
have saved the States of Pennsylvania and
Ohio, was not honest. Secretary Boutwell,
himself went to Phidelphia on the eve of the
election and said, that, having surplus fund,
he could not pay the Treasury notes, because
forbidden by law OF Congress; he could not
pay the 8 per cents without embarrassing the
banks, and so he paid so much of the bonded
debt. .n
We have not censured the Secretary. We
have over and over again said he has done
the only thing possible, hampered as he was,
that it was neither dishonest nor improbable.
Our point is that paying bonds in greenbacks,
when you come to do it, does not look half so
dishonest, as when you only talk of it, Itwas
a great establishment to the shepherd to be told
by the wolf, reproached for his cruelty in
Strengthening and eating the sheep: but 1 OBJ
serre that you, ,ohen you are hungry for NUT
ton, do not hesitate to do the same thing.
The willingness of the debtor to be paid does
not affect the validity of our statement If
bank should stop payment of its notes, but re-
fer all corners to the presidents back-ofice,
where that functionary was buying up bills at
IS cents on dollar, if merchant should re-
fuse to pay his acceptances, but should keep
his brother-in-law in his basement buying them
at Is cents for a commission paid by the mer-
chant, would not this look like compounding
at discount of rs per cent? Willing would
be mild word, unless used with Mr.. Barkis'
emphasis, to describe the eagerness withwhich
all creditors would besiege the doors of this
back-ofice and basement. These $4O,OOO,OOO
Of bonds were actually due by their terms,
due according to the letter and spirit of the
Chicago platform in coin, and there was more
IMAM SsO,OOOO0O in the Treasury TO pay them
with. Pay in greenbacks by all means, if it
is mutually satisfactory, but meantime is there
not humble apology due to Messrs. Sher-
man, Morton, sprague, Butler and Pike for
questioning their orthodoxy?
But we need have no controversy with n.
P. 3. who after pleasant gibe at us. comes so
to our side, and gives such weigh
ty and pertinent suggestions to the effect that
e it is the currency and not the bonds that
IS the diseased part of our financial SYSTEM"
The very point that we have heretofore so
deliberately set forth in these columns.
The fact is, and it should lead us to high
er tone of candor and charity, the whole dis
,ussion about paying and not paying bonds
IN currency has been perhaps unavoidably
niSemevous-mischievous in the democrats,
whose talk sayored of repudiatine the bonds