Grant County herald. [volume] (Lancaster, Wis.) 1850-1968, 1869-08-10
The Agreeable Outlook Revenues In
creasing, Expenses Diminishing, Pros
perity Apparent.


From the New York Tribune
One year ago we were making no
progress in the reduction of our
national debt, had made none for
months. and were likely TO make
none for months to come. Mr. Alex.
Delmar, the leading copperhead Free
State statistician, had recently put
forth q manifesto, at the suggestion,
and with the emphatic Endorsement
of Messrs. Wilson G Hunt, Henry
Grinnell & Co, showing, by elaborate
computations and marshaling of long
columns of figures, that there would
be Treasury deficit of S175, 100000
on the first day of this present July
And as nothing but a rebel victory
every exhilerated the sham Dem
oerocy like a prospect of national
bankruptcy, the World had surren-
dered many columns to Delmar's ex-
hibit, and the Democratic press had
everywhere hailed il with exultation
as sure premonition of future
national distress, discredit, and hu,
initiation.
One year has passed, and with it
the rule of Andrew Johnson. The
wholesale thieves whom he installed
in power over our great Custom
Houses, with the lesser villains to
whom he largely confided the coll
lection of internal revenue, have been
dismissed to the obscurity for which
they should feel so grateful, and Re-
publicans appointed to fill their
places. The laws are the same az
ever-there has been no change cali
culated to increase the revenue or
essentially reduce expenditures yet
the revenue is increased, while the
expenditures are reduced, SO that we
are paying off nearly ten millions per
month of the principal Of our debt,
after discharging every current obli-
cation, including the payment of
over ten millions per month OF inter-
est in coin.
Meantime the general thrift is quite
beyond precedent. We are building
new railroads at the rate of some
thousand of miles per annum. We
are improving and relaying many
old ones, in many cases with steel
rails. We are erecting factories and
furnaces by hundreds, mainly in the
West and South, where they have
hitherto been deficient. In spite of
too prevalent fondness for trade
and speculation, we are building
many new farm houses, and repair
ing old ones, as every one who travels
in whatever direction must observe.
More than this; we are making new
homesteads and farms out of wild
prairie forests, with unwanted energy
and rapidity. Michigan, Wisconsin,
Minnesota, Iowa, Missouri, Kansas,
Nebraska, are growing as new States
have seldom grown, though hundreds
of thousands are reaching beyond
them to Colorado, Wyoming, Idaho,
Montana, Neyada. California, and
Oregon. In spite of our heavy debt,
and of the formidable State, county,
city and township war debts which
we are more rapidly paying off, this
country, including her States lately
desolated by civil war, is increasing
its productiveness and wealth as no
country ever did before.
The achievement next in order is
the funding of our debt at a lower
rate Of interest. We are now pay
ing six per cent, which is entirely
too high for state of peace and pros
perity. We made the bulk Of that
debt redeemable after five. and with
in twenty years, expressly that we
might, after the return of peace, be
at liberty as to fund it. We ought
to begin the process of funding, dir
ectly, and complete it within Gener
al Grants first term. If the hve-
twenties could be funded in new
four-per- cent, the saving in inter,
est would be some thirty millions per
annum, which, of itself, would ex-
tinguish the debt within a lifetime.
We trust, therefore, that the peo-
pie will turn deaf ear to all pro-
lects of essential tax reducing till the
work of funding is complete. To
effect it, the Treasury must be in the
receipt of large surplus, and must
be constantly paying off, not merely
converting debt. So long as it shall
persist in buying and putting aside,
or burning five to ten millions per
month, it will be master of the situa-
tion, and may dictate terms to the
holders of the Five>twenties. Let
every citizen who believes in nations
al honesty realize that every dollar
distracted from the revenue now,
will cost many dollars in keeping up
the interest of our debt, and the
schemes of open or covert repudia-
tors to deplete the Treasury by re-
ducing taxation will be repealed and