Grant County herald. [volume] (Lancaster, Wis.) 1850-1968, 1871-06-06
A Doubtful Argument


around the circle, lecturing on free
trade and hard money currency. lie
can prove that black is white by his
flexible, ever changing statistics. In
Cincinnati few days since he told
Of the immense prosperity of the
country during that happy, memora-
Bile period between the revulsion OF
1857 and the war in 1861. The
Chicago Tribune quoted the lecture
with approval and great gusto.
Commissioner Wells says that "the
"resources of the country were new
Ger so rapidly developed as during
"this period every industrial inter-
"est hourished The collapse was
,the crisis Of disease that resulted
Gin unexampled health. Then we
chad sound currency-then we had
ga low tariff-then labor was reward
"ed, and the nation rapidly increased
Gin wealth"
Now if this is the true picture of
that blessed period, two-thirds of the
psesent generation must have been
asleep through the whole of it, and
dreaming with the nightmare
dreaming that most of the farms in
the West, as well as the East, were
mortgaged for more than they could
be sold for-dreaming that whole
States had become stepped in debt in
those times of peace and prosperity.
And we bought their bonds to pledge
as security for the bank bills we is
sued, which were redeemable ia spe-
Gle. And wo recollect, unless it was
dream, that the building of rail-
roads had been entirely suspended,
and no work this Of kind was under
taken again till subsequent to the
war. Then the iron track was
stretched across the Continent. Cy-
rus w. Field had TO abandon the
ocean telegraph, but renewed the at
tempt and succeeded in it after the
war begun. 1t was only after the
war begun that railroad trains with
out stoppagc ran from st. Paul to
Boston. From 1857 to 1861, unless
we have forgotten, our principal cur
rency was State paper. Who does
not remember carrying in those days
Il Counterfeit Detector, and how our
paper rags were curtailed when we
went out of our own State, and each
State shaved the 9th er's paper, al
though every bank promised to re-
deem it's paper in gold.
To show how this golden period
was viewed by the leading men of
the nation, we give an extract from
a sermon Of DR.. Bellows, preached
by him in the city of New York in
1859. (See Re-statements of Chris
tian Doctrine, page 342.)
"In respect to the commercial rec
ord of the year, no doubt it must be
called year Of great disaster OF
enormous losses and unexpected dis
appointments of general depression
and universal anxiety. | suppose
the general balance-sheet looks as
discouragingly as it has done any
New Years Day this twenty years
past. The universal panic Of eighteen
months ago left such paralysis, tim
idity and distrust behind it, that the
real causes Of business depression
have been doubly aggravated, and
their effects greatly protracted. The
poor harvest of the West, due to the
floods and hurricanes of last Spring,
has crippled our best customer; man
uiactures lie crushed beneath a poll
CIV which our legislators seem not
free enough from party theories to
abondon and commerce finds her
ships empty and rotting at the
wharves. | suppose an untold de-
gree of mental distress and anxiety
has afflicted our merchants the past
year, the more perhaps, from the
general and brave efforts made tc
keep up appearances, and so boldly
over the sandy bar Of panic, scraping
the bottom, but not lowering the
top-sails, much less casting the an
Choir. | have no doubt that thc
dreadful pressure of the last yea
has consolidated the foundations o
our commercial credit, and thos'
who, by every sacrifice, have main
tanned honor and faith, are, though
stripped of nearly everything else
in a condition to reap glorious har
vest on the inevitable renewal O.
business, upon the succession OF two
or three fair crops"