The Ebensburg Alleghanian. [volume] (Ebensburg, Pa.) 1865-1871, 1869-01-21
THURSDAY, JANUARY 81, 1869.
schemes and schemers.

iOr your own Speclal interest ana luStruc-
ton At last. we got something Not
that we had nothing at first, for we had
plenty; but it was only Commonplace
matter about commonplace things, such as
commonplace people think, and speak, and
write about We wanted something aeri-
al, or romantic, or chivalrous, or startling.
We thought of the last accident on the
Panhandle Railroad below Pittsburg, but
instantly dismissed it as trifiaS; for an
accident that breaks the skulls, or tears
out the hearts, or smashes the bones, or
crushes into jelly tie bodies of four or five
people, b. pitching them hundred feet
down to the rocky bed Of a creek OF river,
or over a precipice, or by running two
trains or boats against each other at twen-
ty miles an hour, is not of that impor-
tance, somantically considered, to make a
frst-class article even for country week
ly. Before rising to that dignity, at least
: fifty people must be killed and wounded
the scene to wind up by the cars or boats
taking fire, much to the dismay of the
t:1nId and easily frightened passengers.
We are certainly great people. We
live in an age Of progress. We are past
the middle of the nineteenth century. We
don't hang people any more for stealing
sheep. We don't convict man any more
for shooting or killing any body (any male
body) without warning, or self-defence,
whom he suspects of having been mutual
" agreeable with his sister, or wife, or
grandmother. And why should we, for is
not this all age of progress We have
rejected the fogy notion that it takes two
to make bargain. This is an age Of
progress.
Surely we are great nation. Haven't
We put down the rebellion 2 Didn't We
catch jeff. Davis in petticoats Didn't
We back down johnny Bull p? Didn't we
buy Alaska Didn't we have an earth
quake in California ? Can't we kill more
people by bursting boilers, and smashing
railroad cars, and exploding kerosene
lamps, than any of the old, cfete monar-
chies of Europe? Lastly, can't we under
take to collect more revenue, and get
cheated out Of Il larger amount Of it, than
any other people? Doesn't it follow, then,
that America s the Sresrtest nation in the
world Just as the eagle S the biggest
bird.
SO, then, we ought to have the biggest
schemes and schemers and haven't we?
Our debt is not big, compared to our size.
Only something short of three billions.
1t mi ght be twice, or ten times, the size it
is. Who cares for expenses, unless it is
General Grant, and his bosom friend,
Washburne, from Illinois ? 1t is a grand
thing to think that we can afford to have
such mighty schemes, and the national
debt besides.
just look at me of our schemes and
schemers.
First Of all is the great American pro-
tectorate over the West India republics Of
Hayti and San Domingo, with an eye to a
like protcctorate over Cuba, and finally
over Mexico and here is General Banks
tho schemer. But Banks was immeasu-
rably outschemed by the proposition to
extend the protectorate over Ireland,
(which could whip England on a fair field
any day; and member of Congress Rob
inson, from New York, is the schemcr who
outschcmcd the schcmer Banks.
Next is the scheme to pay an ingenious
individual the nice little sum of $50, ,000
10 aid him in constructing Il telegraph Of
his own invention that dispenses with the
use of wires and poles, and substitutes
mother earth and mother air. The name
of this inventor and schcmer is Mahlon
Loonlis.
Then there is a very fat and sleek
scheme to induce the Government to pay
$4,000 mile to aid in constructing
railroad from Little Rock, away down in
Arkansas, to some point on the Rio
Grande. thence to the Pacific, distance
of not less than fifteen hundred miles,
The godfathers Of this scheme are the
scheming Senators from Arkansas.
But the biggest scheme is to give the
c untry; in lieu of the national bank cur
rcncy, three hundred and fifty millions of
United States Treasury certificates, in is
sues Of from one dollar to one thousand
dolIars, which shall bear little better
than three and a-half per cent. interest,
for which the Government will not even