The Wheeling daily register. [volume] (Wheeling, W. Va.) 1864-1878, 1871-09-15
From the Baltimore SUM-
Financial Corruption North and
South.

From the Baltimore Sum-
Financial Corruption North and
south.
The expose which has been lately
made, and which is attracting world,
wide attention, as shown by the com
ments Of the English as well as Of our
own press, Of financial corruption and
ring" management in New York city,
is curiously and suggestively like to
that which has been repeatedly made
of similar state of things in various
Southern States. The indignant reso.
buttons OF the late citizens meeting at
Cooper Institute echo almost literally
the complaints which for three years
past the Southern press and people have
been uttering in the ears of the nation.
The fact that the Republican party has
been most indifferent to the spectacle
presented at the South, while it is vexed
to the Utmost soul at the alleged mis-
doings of Tweed. Connolly d Co, only
illustrates the difference it makes whose
OK is gored. 1t always does make a
difference in politics, although it makes
none in morals, and should make none
in the judgment OF honest and patriotic
men, which side does the stealing In
New York Tammany is accused of
plundering the public to enrich itself
and to maintain the supremacy OF the
Democratic party. The wholesale rob-
berries of the State governments and
people at the South have been excused
and palliated, if not justified, because
the men who perpetrated them were
of unblemished loyalty" and it was
by such means that the perpetuitv
Of carpet bag" rule and Republican
ascendancy was TO be secured.
That our readers may judge how
closely the PARALLEL holds, with the
difference, if any, that the greater en-
ormities and rascalities will be found
to have been committed at the South,
we invite attention to few figures
taken from trustworthy sources. The
results in New York, as summed up by
Republican authority, may be stated
as follows: In January, 1S69-two
years and a half ago-the total city
and county debt was, in round numbers,
$40, 100000. In October, lS7O--not
quite year ago-it was $55,0OO,OOO.
Last May it was SS2,000,O0O, and at
the citizens meeting it was estimated 10
amount, on the first of September, to
$ll3,000,000. At the breaking out OF
the war the State debt OF Louisina was
Sl0,000,000; in 1865 it was Sl4, 100000
in 1870 it was $4l 100000, and on the
first of last June it was $40, 900, 900.
In the same interval taxes had increas,
ed from 80 cents to 81 4j on the 500,
and this year will amount to consider
ably more than 81, while by the loss
of slaves, the depreciation OF land and
the devastatons OF the war, taxable
property had greatly diminished. To
show how the money has gone, before
1860, a sixty days session OF the Legis-
lature cost in Louisiana from 100000
to 100000 The regular and extra
session of 1870 cost more than 500, OOO,
and the regular session Of 1871 cost
more than 100000. In South Carolina,
as shown by the exhibit prepared by
the tax payers convention, taxes In
1870 reached s2,000,0O0, as against
100000, before the war, and this In
the face of the greatly impoverished
condition ofthe State, while to show
the superior cost OF "scalawag' and
"carpet-bag' legislation, session OF
the Legislature which in 1865 cost
$45,S5O, in 1871 cost 100000, and
the State debt from having been nomi'
nal before the war is now about $1,000
600.
If we take the case of a State which
emerged early from "the bonds Of wick
edness and gall of iniquity" OF seces,
sion than either of those named, and
enioyed earlier the benefits Of Repubi-
can rule. the State debt of Tennessee
has increased from 1895, l5S in 1861,
to $42, $50, 6j2 in lS7l-an increase OF
$37, 527, 494-mainly since reconStruc-
ton began. The New York Nation,
commenting upon the figures from Lou
isiana, above given, make this frank
acknowledgement: The State is, in
short. as North Carolina has been, as
South Carolina has been, and as nearly
every Southern State has been, the prey,
since 1865, of grossly and shamelessly
corrupt governments, whose officers
have made fortunes, and OF rings oil
railroad and other spectators All
the Southern States have not suffered
equally, it is true, but not one has wholly
escaped. The history Of Radical mis-
government in the South recalls that OF
the worst period of Roman proconsular
government, when extortions like those
of the Quaestor Verres, in Sicily, fur
nished an immortal text for the indig'
naut eloquence of Cicero. In modern
times it finds its only parallel in the
policy which Spain has remorselessly
pursued towards her colonies, farming
them out among political favor
ties and needy adventures, II II
does not even rival the experience
of Mexico and Peru in the hands OF
the conguistadores. Every word of In
dignant protest and denunclation con-
tanned in the resolutions passed by the
New York citizens meeting in reference
to their own municipal grievances is
appropriate to the condition OF the
south, feeced and plundered by its