The Jackson standard. [volume] (Jackson C.H., Ohio) 1847-1888, 1873-11-20
From the Cincinnati Gazette.l
Reducing Our Great Infiations.

Gen. Sherman has been giving some of
his nervous utterances on the monetary
revulsion. A Washington telegram to
the Chicago Tribune, of Saturday, reports
him thus:
Gen Sherman has been surprising his
auditors, high and low. by saying that
the run of. failures in railway. mercantile,
and speculative life is of no real conse-
quence, and that it ought to go on until
the conscienceless element is eliminated
from banking and commerce. He thinks
that if sufficient of these failures occur,
we shall have an easy money market in
few months.
The General sees clearly the general
expansion of things, and expresses him
self in his wonted nervous manner. If
the whole country breaks. money will be
easy. This is like the chap who wished
everybody else was dead; for then he
would keep a tavern. THE conscience
less element must be eliminated from
banking and commerce" The beauty of
monetary panic is that it eliminates
the conscienceless element and leaves the
rest unhurt. Thus the severer the pres
sure the more will trade be purified No
matter how great its destruction, for we
have the isfaction that all who break
are conscienceless, and morally deserve
to be ruined.
Banking and commerce are all infected
with the de ire to make money. This is
a constituencies propensity. 1t must be
eliminated by the continuance of the
pressure of discredit until all who have
had this desire shall be forced into bank
ruptcy. This is great moral panic; it
hurts only those it should 1t is a fire
which will go through the field and
~. I
untouched.
The searching operation of panic is
revealing much lack of conscience Men
nave embarked their own wealth and
have strained their credit to build rail
roads. They have borrowed money and
given employ to multitudes of workmen.
The break in credit justly Furnishes them
and the laborers who received wages
from them.
1t has brought down some of those
whom labor demagogues are wont to
speak of as the holders of the capital
which is always at war with labor; and
then the inquest of creditors has found
that the bloated capitalist was little
more than an agent of large multitude
of laborers, using his skill and energy to
gather up by way of loans means several
times greater than his own, to invest in
ed them employment. Conscienceless
manufacturers have used their credit to
increase production. The stoppage. of
consumption has brought them to grief,
and thrown their workmen out of the
means of subsistence, and, in the General
Sherman view, has served them right.
Even if there was little virtuous Sc
verify in this view of the General of all
our armies, the excess of zeal could read
lily be condoned for the service it can
render the country, if rightly directed
1t is true, there has been great initiation
of ideas, and that this has led to great
initiation of private and public expendi-
lures. In no part is this expansion of
ideas greater than in the government;
and in no part of the government so great
as in the army and navy. Fifty-four mil
lions year for an army establishment,
which has only force of 10000 men, of
all grades makes state of things which
could exist only by an initiation of ideas
beyond all reason and conscience. This
enormous expense for so small force is
because the establishment of officers is
greater and is more abounding in high
rank than that of Great Britain, which
has an empire in every part of the world
to guard.
Such imitation could come only by
WniCH titSbTOJGo
all the old-fashioned ideas Of economy,
and made public men conscienceless as
to the burdens of the people.
A navy establishment costing "a mil
lions year, for a country like this
which has no business to have any navy );
and having its Admirals and Rear Ad-
mirals and Vice Admirals and all sorts
of loading at the head, but without sim
gle ship that can meet any modern
frigate of any of the naval powers of
Europe. is such an imposture that it could
exist only by an initiation of ideas which
has showed aside reason and conscience
The elimination of the conscienceless
clement from our public affairs would
quickly reduce these inflated establish.
ments.
They exist by favoritsm--by the same
motives that passed the salary bill They
/ furnish patronage for Congressman, and
places to quarter their relatives on the
government for life. In the conscience.
! less state caused by an imitation of cur,
rency, revenue, public debt, and of all
public and private expenditures, it was
found vain to oppose the expansion oi
these army and navy establishments even
in time of peace. While the volunteer
who bore the brunt of the hardship was
dismissed to his home, sufficiently re
warded by the satisfaction of having
served his country, these high ranks il
army and navy, which are Haytian ab
suTTlitv in siIch an army and navy aS falrs