The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1869-12-18
THE PARTING OF THE WAYS.

Prom, the N. Y. Tribune
Whether our national debt shall in good
part be paid by the generation which con-
tracted it, or made perpetual burden upon
the American people for all time to come, is
one of the gravest questions that ever chal-
lenged public attention. We entreat that peo-
pie to decide it for themselves, and not let it
be made the football of aspiring politicians.
If we now reduce the taxes so as to stop
paying the principal of our debt, we shall
never resume it. Next day the fatal pre-
cedent will plead, and the debt will remain
burden forever. The next war will largely
increase it, the next will swell it still farther,
and our posterity will bitterly rue the short
sighted selfshness that compelled them to
sweat under load that should never have
been piled upon their shoulders.
Our country was less able to pay its Revo-
lutionary debt than it now is to pay its pre-
sent obligations; yet it did pay it. The War
of 1872 heavily burdened it again; but it paid
the last farthing within the next quarter of
century, and had a surplus in the Treasury
to distribute to the States. In short, paying
war debts is a part of the American system,
| as contradistinguished from the European
method of adding debt to debt, and charging
over the cost of each war upon future genera
| tons.
Had our fathers followed the European
method, and left their war debts as legacy
| to this generation, the late Rebellion would
probably have been successful. With the
| three debts incurred in the Revolutionary,
second British, and Mexican wars resting
| upon us, we could not have borrowed the
vast sums required to maintain the late strug-
| gle for the Union. Prudent capitalists would
have said, "How can the United States bear
| UP under this new load, seeing that, in the
long intervals of peace and prosperity, they
| have not wiped out the old ones 2" It was
the fact that we had twice paid off our entire
| debt that enabled us to contract q third so
| immense.
| We cannot forecast the future. Another
| war may come upon us as suddenly, as mex
orably, as the last did. We are not ready to
breast its shock, and shall not be while our
| present debt hangs over us TO be ready
for such emergencies as any nation should
anticipate and provide against, we must
| rapidly and steadily reduce our national debt.
| Our Federal taxes are little more than half
| their amount four years ago. 1t will be posi-
| BILE to reduce them further so soon as we shall
have funded the bulk of our debt at lower
rate of interest-a peace rate, instead of the
war rate we are still paying. So soon as we
shall have saved ten, twenty, or thirty mil
| lions per apnum in interest, we may safely re-
duce our taxes by like amount. But, in
order to do this, the Treasury must be con-
tinually buying up its outstanding obligations,
and thus making them scarcer and scarcer in
the market. Arrest this process, and the great
volume of our debt would press heavily upon
the market, dragging down the price
OF bonds and rendering it impossible that we
should fund those outstanding at o lower rate.
Were it morally certain that we should hence
forth pay one hundred millions per annum
until we had reduced the debt to five hun
dred millions, an American consol, untaxable,
at four per cent, having thirty years to run,
could be sold at par. We're it settled that We
should pay off no more principal, we doubt
the feasibility of keeping the five-twenties at
par. Fortune favors the courageous, thrift
| follows the thrifty, and capital presses its
. loans upon those who are steadily reducing
| their debts. Let us never stop reducing ours,
at least while we are intent on funding our
fve-twenties at 4 to J per cent.
| The Newsboys' and Bootblacks Home, in
Chicago, has received during the year 334 whose
| average was fourteen years. One hundred and
seventy-eight were orphans
| The Toronto grocers have met and unanl-
| mously voted to disregard hereafter their prac-
| tice of giving Christmas boxes to their custom
ers during the holidays.
| DIR. Hazard Arnold Potter, eminent for his
| skill in surgery, died in Geneva on the Sd inst.
l a.c EnAt al