Port Tobacco times, and Charles County advertiser. (Port Tobacco, Md.) 1845-1898, 1873-09-19
..Reform and Retrenchment.'

|
This is the specious motto which the
Radicals have adopted, in the hope, no
doubt, of giving ''independent" men a pre-
text to support them in the present cam
paign in this county. It has been the
motto of every party, no matter how cor
rupt or how pure, ever since we could re-
member anything about parties. When
the s'outs' wished to be the Gins" the
people were usually appealed to with the
humbug promise of Reform and Retrench-
ment." Our Radical friends having tried
in vain almost every other unfair means
to secure the management Of our county
affairs, have at last-with brazen 'front.'
come with this cry, insinuating thereby
that the party in power-the majority of
them taxpayers-need the management
of non taxpayers to reform and retrench''
for them. That the people of Charles
county may not be deceived, we here
give few extracts from papers at hand,
which will serve to illustrate in some mea-
sure the meaning of Radical 'retrench-
mant and reform" We give the following +:
eve do not believe that so vast scheme
for robbing the citizens of city was ever
devised and successfully carried out as the
so-called public improvements of the Dis
trict government. When Congress meets
again, there will doubtless be another in
vestigating committee, and, if that COM
mittee does its work faithfully, there will
be another exposure of the damning frauds
so characteristic of public men in these
evil days. The District or Territory of
Columbia has already spent, it is asserted,
forty millions of dollars, and is in debt at
this date seventeen millions. Hundreds
of people are ruined by the Ubiquitous as
sessments upon their lots for so-called i'm
provements. The last act of this Legisla-
ture is law to turn over these assessments
to the contractors in payment of their
claims. Now, when it is remembered that
the Territorial Legislature was elected by
non property holders, and chiefly by the
negroes who are employed to do the work
on the streets, it is readily seen what a
minimum chance the property owner has
of obtaining Justice. Cecil Dem.
The Tuscaloosa, Alabama, Times says
that the present condition of Alabama is
appalling under the rule of those who now
have control of that State. 1t adds: mo
thoughtful citizen can contemplate it with
out shudder of apprehension and alarm
as to her future. The treasury is bank
rupt; her public debt, actual or prospect
i've, equals in the aggregate one fifth of the
amount of the whole taxable property OF
the State. Enormous taxes crush her peo-
n tT1rp
exceed her available income from every
source. Her public schools, her State u
University, and her hospitals and asylums
are threatened with suspension for lack OF
means to carry them on. Labor is demon
allied. All her industries are paralyzed.
Onerous taxes and unstable rules are, driv-
ing both capital and population from the
State, and deter both from coming into it.
Her people are overwhelmingly in debt,
and her revenue laws are working rapid
confiscation of their lands under enforced
sales Of them to pay taxes" 49,
s"Farm to rent for less than the taxes
is the startling caption of an advertisement
| in the New Orleans Republican, the official
journal of the State of Louisiana. The
Memphis Register declares this circum-
stance proves the lamentable fact that
the rule of Radicalism in Louisiana has de-
stroyed the value of real estate in and a
round one of the most fourishing and
prosperous cities in the South The rule
of Radicalism Injuries real estate in all 10
cations by augmenting expenses and in
creasing taxation. The people of Phila-
delphia are suffering from this at the pres
emit time," &c.-PhilodelphiG Age.
Here is another An Alabama paper,
the Selma Argus, gives a timely state
ment of Radical fondness for free educa
ton among the negroes of that State. The
journal remarks Each year that Col.
Hodges, Conservative, held the office of
the Superintendent of Public Instruction
of Alabama, there was an average of $4,000
white pupils and Al 900 black pupils in
the public schools of the State for the u
sual number ofmonths. Joseph Ell. Speed,
Radical, had been in office but few months
until the fourishing schools to the control
of which he succeeded had ceased to exist;
and the deserted school-houses of whole
Commonwealth stand to-day so many mon
uments of the incompetency of himself and
his Radical associates in the State admin
| istration. The men now in power here
have increased the taxes fifty per cent,
stripped the Treasury of almost its last
dollar, destroyed utterly the crdit of the
State, and closed the only schools in which
the poor of both races could hope for the
rudiments of education.''