The Rutland daily globe. [volume] (Rutland, Vt.) 1873-1877, 1873-11-13
From the New York Evening Post.
WHY WE WE'RE BEATEN.
4 Conn nOn-Sense View OF the Matter

The reaction against the ruling powers
has not been a positive so much as a mega
tive one, evincng apathy and dissatisfac-
ton on the part of the friends of the adj
ministratiOn, rather than Il determined op-
position and design of revolt A large
number of the people, who have expected
more intelligent, decided and vigorous
policy ON questions of pressing interest,
and been disappointed, have hauled them
selves out of the fight, in order to
watch what is going to be, and to hold
themselves ready to join that body of COM
batants who are the best fitted to deal with
the affairs of the country in their actual
position and circumstances.
1t will not be denied, we believe. by the
most prejudiced adhercnt of tthe republican
party that it has failed to come up to the
requirements of its opportunities, 1t has
been many years in power, with brilliant
prestige-the consequence of successful
civil war-and with every chance of doing
pretty much as it pleased, and has yet left
several of the most serious difficulties of
the nation quite untouched, or has touched
them in so awkward way as to increase
the number and complication of them. The
work OF rcconstructng the reyolted states
was no doubt the first task to be under
taken, but there was another task, no less
dtlNN, hLItI OuSll W nave Dttll Sllll-
ultaneously undertaken. We came out of
the war with an enormous debt, and we
have the debt still, slightly reduced as
matter of administrative policy, but with
out systemization, and without plan as to
its future control and extinction. We
came out of it with an improviscd national
banking system, the result of necessity and
haste, and we have it STILL without amend
ment, and with all its obvious injustices
and imperfections. We came out of it
with an irredeemablc paper currency, n
compulsory circulation of mere treasury
notes, and we have them still, without
the prospect of a return to sOunder methods,
save those which are recently opened to us
by the disaster and ruin it has spread in
every direction.
Hardly step has been taken by the au-
ihorities at Washington to put us in a way
to recover commercial health and sound
ness. Or rather we should say that the
steps that have been taken were not the
assured tread of statesmen who compre-
hended.their problem and had Il clear IN
sight of its possible solutions, but the
groupings of uncertain con lecture and tmid-
lly. Our secretaries of the treasury, Mr..
McCulloch, Mr.. Boutwell, and Mr.. Richard
son, have been honest and wel-meaning
men they have administered their depart
ments faithfully and as well as they could :;
but, in our own opinion, they have not
grasped the position, nor felt the profound
evils under which we suffer, nor made the
herculean efforts that are necessary to
overcome them, if we would not sink into
deeper Serbonian bog of bankruptcy and
distress. And what is true of them is true
to a large extent of the more eminent re-
publicans in Congress They have dabbled
and drfted, almost without aim, certainly
without knowledge of the end to be reached.
or of the means by which alone it could be
reached.
Now that severe commercial pressure
has come upon us, with deepening pros
poets of winter of paralysis and suffering,
we see how profound Il mistake this has
been we see how we should have prOvi-
ded against 1t 1--WE years ago, at least, and
been prepared, not to avert it, for that was
impossible, but to mitigate the severity of
its assaults and lessen their duration. The
people, whose instructive sagacity often
outruns the calculations of the shrcwdest
politicians, ask whether this inadequate
management is to be continued. They
nave no desire to revive the defunct and
condemned democratic party, which was
lried In the great hour of our peril and
FOUND wanting all the hurrahings of the
newspapers to that effect are either par
tlsan deluslon or idle bravado but they do
desire that the men at Washington, whose
positions suppose them to be statesmen,
should cease the petty attempt to manipll-
late the politics of states and wards. and
address themselves earnestly to the very
heavy business of the hour. They saw and
say it significantly, in absenting themselyes
from the polls, ''Let us have better work
no more playing with expedents. but
honest, serious, capable work.
Nor should we be surprised, unless this
warning is at once needed, at a still more