The Daily state journal. [volume] (Alexandria, Va.) 1868-1874, 1873-09-11
ELECTION-DAY
TUESDAY NOVEMBER a, 1878. |
THE PARTY OF FRAUD AND COR
RVJPTl0N.

all the state Offices for another four years,
and the people are appealed to as the arbi-
tiers of that question, to grant their request
on the sole ground and for the sole reason
that the state should not be allowed to fall
into the hands and under the control OF
ignored that the Republican ticket is just
as white as the Bourbon, aud good
deal cleaner, politically, il the dirty
linen of the Conservative party is not
promptly put out to wash, and some of the
thieving and other rascally stains
removed. To say nothing of the disap-
pearance Of the twenty-five millions, IN
the shape of available state assets, between
1870 and 1873, the people are interested in
knowing why it was and is, that, without
a dollars actual indebtedness standing
against the new Virginia when the Bourbon
party came into power, in less than
four years over forty-fve millions
have been piled up against her, independ-
emily of the twenty-five millions of steal
ings in question. AS this is the largest debt
that any state in the Union is now carrying,
the question is one chat presses SO sharp
ly on the attention of the people that
no Bourbon cry of "bugaboo" is
going to divert inquiry from the direction
in which it should be made. Taxes have
doubled, trebled, quadrupled, quin-
tupled- gone up, in fact, to ten times the
amount assessed under the old regime
and the old state--and the people demand
inquiry aud investigation, and do not care
to be bugabooed out of their five senses
more than once by the same party in the
same year.
The fact has TRANSFERRED, since the Bour-
bon funding bill of 1871 was hurried and
monied through the Virginia legislature, that
the English and other foreign bondholders
were not consulted at all in reference to the
terms of adjustment, but that the bill was
put through in the interest of the Wall
street brokers, who, in connection with
certain local asDirants for place, power
and plumber, were possessed of pretty much
all the bonds held by Virginia widows and
Orphans (of whom so much has been pte-
ously said) before and after the commence
ment of the war. How these bonds hap
pened to change hands during this time,
and why so few We're found to be held by
widows and orphans in Virginia, after the
war, we will explain. The history is not
little curious, especially when consid-
cred in connection with the fact that the
same identical Bourbons who are
now clamoring for new lease, of place,
power, plumber, peculation, ETC., We're in
the Virginia legislature when the special
legislation to which we shall refer was
vllainously eoncocted and put through
that body. In order to compel these wild
ows and orphans to exchange the old Vir-
GINA for Confederate bonds, these same
Bourbons, as members of the state legis-
lature during the war, put tax of six
per cent. on the state bonds (Which
was equivalent to confscating the entire
INTEREST,", and operating largely in Conled-
crate bonds themselves (Which bonds were
untaxed by the state), secured the great
bulk of the old state bonds IN their hands.
AS no revenue could be derived from these
old bonds, the state tax being exactly equal
to the interest, the widows and orphans
were easily induced to part with them in
exchange for Confederate bonds, and the
result was that they Ghe bonds) passed,
almost en- bloc, into the hands of those
who were hedging" at the time on Con
federate stock, and who, with the WALL
street brokers, bribed their way, and that
of their infamous funding bill, through the
Conservative legislature of 1871 {
The English and other foreign bond.
holders, except as a few might be repre-
sented here and there in the state, were not
consulted at all. They stood ready to saw
to the people of Virginia, (and we have the
highest authority for making this state
ment), and would have said, that. as thew
the people, had been financially crushed
and ruined by the war, suffering loss of
one-third their territory and more than
tWothlrds their property in taxable |
value, they the bondholders) were
willing to take whatever our peonle
could pay If it was fifty cents on the
dollar, that would be satisfactory If #
was more or less, it would be satisfactory
SO long as the state evnced a disoosition
to pay what it could. This was The een-
erons and manly attitude of the English !
and other foreign hondholdcrs. Two-thirds
oil the debt could have been funded at fiiv |
cents on the dollar, without the compound
interest swindle, which, as we have shown,
jerks not less than $50, 100000 out of the |
productive industry of the state in the next |
lhirty-iour years, in interest upoa interest
only T... r..
There never was in the history Of any
state legislation, in this OF any other conn
Try, more Infamous swindle put upon