The Daily state journal. [volume] (Alexandria, Va.) 1868-1874, 1873-09-12
TUESDAY NOVEMBER A, 1878,
THE PARTY OF pLUNDER.

1t was not enough that the widows and
orphans of Virginia should have been plum
dered by Conservative state legislation du-
ring the war, but to make their specula-
tive robbery complete it became necessary
for the Bourbon dynasty to take possession
of the state government after the war, and
ran it in the interests of the plunderers and
Wall-street Shylocks, into whose hands their
ill-gotten gains had mostly gone when the
funding-bill iniquity was consummated,
in 1871. We showed yesterday how
these Bourbon shysters got possession of
the old state bonds, largely in the hands
of widows and orphans before the war,
and still more largely after it commenced,
and indicated the motive prompting to
the legislation that followed. First, BY
taxing these bonds during the war so that
they could yield no income to the holders /;
second. by compelling an exchange of
them for untaxed Confederate bonds
bearing interest in gold on their
face third, by gobbling up nearly
all of these securities by the :" hedgingo
process to which financial shysters resort
when the market threatens to tumble or
looks particularly blue; and, fourth and
lastly, by passing the Conservative funding
bill of 1871, which was the grand consum-
nation of all these swindles put together,
and the most infamous measure ever put
through any legislature in any age or
country.
/. was pitiable to hear these Aminadab
Sleeks, who had robbed the widows and
orphans of the state by their legislation
during the war, appeal to the Republic
cans, in the legislature of 1871, to come
to their the widow and orphan's) aid
by voting with them for the most righteous
and equitable funding bll'' Of that year. It
was enough to bring tears from adamant to
hear appeal after appeal made by them for
the very widows and orphans they had
plundered by their shystcring legislation
while the war was in progress, and whom
they designed more effectualy to plumber
by the very act they were then passing. His
tory fails to furnish an instance of moral
and financial turpitude approaching that
of these political shysters. The grand &C.
tuating motive with them was to pile up
Indebtedness, mountain-high, against the
state and, as Ossa went upon Pelion, and
Pelion was topped by another mountain OF
equal weight and size, their capacious wal
lets swelled, until forty-live millions was
laid upon the productive industry of the
state, or financial weight enough to grind
our people in the dust for the next five dec
AIDES of our history.
To show how this indie btedness was
piled up. let usscrutinize single item--an
insignificant one, it is true, but big enough
for oil practical purposes to Handkerchief
ing into the obligations Of the old state of
Virginia, another and different political
entity entirely from the new state. AS
these Conservative flinders had osteasibly
mot really deducted eleven millions from
the liabilities of the old state Ghen politi-
cally dead and shoveled out of sighD, it
became necessary to make this amount
good by adding the suspended interest
amounting fortunately to just eleven mil
lions) to the principal, and compound
ing it through period of thiriy-four
years. We have shown that by this swim
die alone over $4,000. 900 are jerked out
of our people in the period covered by the
fnnding-bill bonds. That our readers NAV
see the accuracy of our statement in this
respect, we reproduce in our columns the
following table of compound interest,
showing precisely what the pundering
bondholders will have received by the time
these Ubiquitous obligations shall mature: