The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1870-01-15

4
the crushing burden of needless taxes. Mr.. |
Boutwell, boasts that he is prepaying the pub |
lie debt, in advance of its maturity, ut the |
rate of hundred millions year. The taxes |
may be safely reduced to the full amount of |
these uncalled-for advances. Who would
have o right to complain? Not the public |
creditors;i for their principal is not due in
fifteen years, and meanwhile the Government
discharges every obligation to them if it
raises money enough to pay the interest. The
suffering people will not complain for relief
from taxes is the very thing they are seeking.
If anybody complains it will be set of shallow,
gasconading demagogues, who fancy thatit is
finer for the country to be getting out of debt
than to be getting rich. Pray, what is the
object, wherein lies the advantage of re-
funding the national debt, which Boutwell,,
Sumner, and everybody unite in regarding
as desirable? They tell us that it will tighten
the taxes. But if it were possible to refund
the whole debt tomorrow at four per cent,
the relief would be only half as great as would
result from bringing the present revenue OF
the Government down to its present wants.
The greater relief is practicable; the lesser
relief is, for the present, impossible. Why
not, then, do at once what can easily be done
at once, and proceed to cope with the difficult
problems after the simple one is solved? Let
the burden be first reduced by simply taking
off taxes which are not needed, and then let
us do our best to reduce them still further by
exchanging the six per cent. bonds for others
at lower rate.
Mr.. Summers views respecting the justice
of spreading large portion of the debt over
future generations are sound and aptly illus
| trated. The war, he says following Mr..
Wells) has cost the North upwards of six
thousand Millions and Eonly about twenty
| four hundred millions now remain as debt.
| The results of the war will benefit all future
Al1o.,
| this, which has borne so great proportion
| of the burden. Has not this generation
| already done its share, and far more than its
| share, in defraying the cost of the war?
! Of its actual money cost we have paid more
| than three-ffths; we have borne all the
anguish, all the mourning, all the sundering
| of dear domestic ties; and on this genera
| ton falls the whole burden of derauged
| industry, disordered currency, and fnan-
cial peril, which are the evil legacy of
| great war. This generation has done its part;
| and posterity will have no reason to impugn
| its equity, if, with the greater portion of the
| benefits, it transmits also some share of the
| burdens This reasoning would hold, even
if the population and resources OF the coun-
| try were to remain stationary but as these
will be tenfold their present amount within
| the next century, the burden will be spread
out so thin by diffusion as to be scarcely felt.
| At any rate, we have done our part towards
| the extinction of the principal. IL we faith
| fully pay the interest and refund the debt on
terms favorable to those who are to come
after us, they will owe us, not complaints,
| but gratitude.
The refunding of the debt comes next in
| order after the resumption of specie pay
| ments ilasmuch as successful refunding de-
pends upon the national credit, and the
national credit can never be good so long as
an inflated and unstable currency holds over
| all our business a constant menace of con-
| vulsion. Mr.. Summers scheme therefore
deserves attentive examination only SO far as
| 1t bears upon return to the specie basis.
| That Is too extensive O subj ject to enter
upon at present, and we postpone it to
another day.
FREE LOVE, FREE IvORCES, CON.
FLICTING STATE LAWS, AND GENE.
RAL DECENTRALIZATION.
From the N. Y. Herald.
The Rev. Horace Cooke Is the latest free.
love sensation. A fine looking, dashing fell
low, it appears that he has been gay divine,
o man of fashion, ladies' man, given to fir
tations and addicted to opium. His incohe-
rent letter on his late escapade betrays a mind
unhinged, brain disordered, man driven to
remorse and desperation by the crime which
he meditated, the folly of undertaking it and
by the hue and cry which has hunted him
carry out his base design, and in resisting the
temptation at the point when he had ruined
himself, in order to rescue his deluded com
panion, he challenges something of respect
for his apparent repentance, though passed
beyond the pale of restoration to confidence
except through long probation.
This unfortunate affair, however, we cannot
limit to the wi cked Establishments of the Rev
Mr.. Cooke and the weakness of the silly CIR
in her encouraging firtations In the ex
tremity of his distress and despair he write;
to the New York Tribune statement mainly
intended to establish the innocence of the
misguided young lady in his late adventure
and this little circumstance puts us on the
track which leads to the sources of all these
aggressions upon aud departures from the
laws of society touching the relations between
the two sexes In addressing his letter to th,
paper in question the happy thought doubt
less occurred to the discriminating writer, il
connection with the late Richardson McFar
land tragedy that if sympathy could be ex
pected in any quarter for his fdltD pas in tn,
way of free love, he would get it at th
Tribune Office. And here we strike the veil
of Fourierism, passional attraction, spiritua
/ afinities, and free love in all their glarin
manifestations. Here too, we enter upon
| broad highway of modern reform in moral
J and religion which leads to Plymouth Churc
{ on the one hand and to Sing Sing on tn
other. The destinations of the Gospel G
Plymouth Church, where Mr.. James Fisk, Jr
f as one of the highest bidders for a pew, ha
learned the easy way to salvation, are chea
, at any price. The Rev. Mr.. rockingham
in the deathbed marriage of poor Richardson
| hoe fol what thaca