Washington standard. [volume] (Olympia, Wash. Territory) 1860-1921, 1871-05-13
Address Of the Democratic Con-
gressmen to the People OF the
United States.

grcSSmcn to the People OF the
United States.
The following address Of the Democrat
ic members of Congress, issued at Wash
ington bearing date April 10Th, is copied
from the New York Herald:
To the prop'e Of The Uni,cd .S,ates:
Our presence and official duties at Wash
ington have enabled us to become fu!y
acquainted with the actions and designs
of those who contro! the Radical party.
and we feel called upon to utter few
words of warning against the alarming
strides they have made toward the central
ization Of power i'll the hands Of Congress.
aud the Executive. The time and attcn-
ton of the Radical leaders have been
almost wholly directed to dcvising such
legislation as will, in their view, best pre-.
serve their ascenIancy. aud no regard for
the wise restraints imposed by the Con>i-
ton has checked their reckless and Les-
pcrate career.
The President of TIE United States has
been formally announced as a candidate
for reelection. The declarations of his
selfish supporters have been echoed by a
subsidized press, and the discipline Of
party has already made adhesion to his
personal fortunes the supreme test of POI
litical fealty. The partisan legislation to
which we refer was decrccl and shaped in
secret caucus, where the EXTREMIST coun-
sells always dominated, and was adopted by
subservient majority, if not with the in
tent. certainly with the effect, to place in
the hands of the President power to
command his own denomination and to
employ the army, navy and militia, at his
sole discretion, as means of subscribing
his personal ambition. When the sad cx-
perience Of the last two years, SO disap-
pointing to the hopes and generous conf
deuce of the country. is considered, in
connection with the violent uttcranccs aud
harsh purposes Of those who control the
Presidents policy, it is not surprising that
the gravest apprchcnsions for the future
peace Of the nation should be entertained
At the time when labor is depressed.
and every material interest is palscd by
oppressive taxation, the public Offices have
been multiplied beyond all precedent to
serve as instruments in the pcrpe;ua,ion
of power. Partisanship is the only test
applied to the distribution Of this vast
patronage. Honesty, fitness AMI moral
worth are openly discarded in favor Of
trucking submission and dishonorablc
compliance hence enormous dcialcations
and wide spread corruption have followed
as the natural consequences Of this per.
nicious system. by the official report of
the Secretary of the Treasury it ap-
pears that after the deduction Of all the
proper credits many millions of dollars
remain due from cx.Collectors Of the in
ternal revenue, and that no proper dill
gence has ever been used to collect them
Reforms in the revenue and fiscal sys-
tens, which all experiences demonstrate
to be necessary to a frugal administration
of the Government, as we'll as measure
of relief to an overburdened people, have
been persistently postponed or wilful'y
neglected. Congress now adjourns with
out even having attempted to reduce taxa
ton or to repeal the glarng impositions
by which industry is crushed and impov-
erished. The Treasury is ovcrfowing,
and an excess of eighty million dollars Of
revenue is admitted and yet, instead Of
some measure of present relief, a barren
and delusive resolution is passed by the
Senate to consider the tariff and excise
systems hereafter, as if the history of
broken pledges and pretended remedies
furnished any better assurance for future
legislation than experience has done in
the past.
Shipbuilding and the carrying trade,
once sources of national pride aud pros
perity, now anguish under crushing
load Of taxation, and nearly every other
business interest is struggling without
profit to maintain itself
Our agriculturalists, while paying
heavy taxes on all they consume, either to
the Government or monopolists, find the
prices for their own products so reduced
that honest labor is denied its just reward,
and industry is Frustrated by inyidious
discrimination.
Nearly two hundred millions Of acres
Of public lands which should have been
reserved for the benefit of the people
have been voted away to gain corporations
-neglectng our soldiers and cnriching a
handful of greedy Spectators and lobby
lists, who are thereby enabled to exercise a
most dangerous and corrupting influence
over State and Federal legislation.
1t the career of these conspirators be
not checked the downfall of free govern.
ment is inevitable, and with it the eleva-
ton of military dictator on the ruins of
the Republic. Under pretense of passing
laws to enforce the Fourteenth Amend
ment, and for other purposes, Congress
has conferred the most despotic powers
upon the Executive, and provided an off.
cial machinery by which the liberties of
the people are mcnaced and the sacred
right Of local self-government in the
States ignored, if not tyrannically over
thrown. Modelled up to the sedition laws,