The New York herald. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1840-1920, 1874-04-01
Our National Condition-The West and
the East Ina Congress.

treasure" and he said when any OF these
ssare mainly shaken or weakened men have
need to pray for fair weather." We certainly
have reason to pray for fair weather SO far as
the Senate is concerned The infationists in
that body maintained solid front yesterday
voting against every amendment calculated to
protect the honor of the country with una
nimity reminding us of the votes of the slave
holders before the war. Again we see the
West and South combining sectionally and
voting against the North and East-resolved it
would seem, TO drive the country into the
Niagara currents OF bankruptcy and repu-
diation.
Certainly when religion and justice fail and
there is no restraint upon men by fear Of pun
ishment either in this world or the next, and
when a nation is at once bankrupt in it's
finances, without wise direction in it's govern
ment and exposed to the unrestrained en-
deavors ofthe worst and most violent and most
ignorant of its people, its condition is as bad
as possible; and if praying is still of any use
it has, at least, the advantage of being the
only remedy that presents any promise, how
ever vague.
Is this the condition of the United States at
the present moment?
As to treasure what is our condition
National bankruptcy and dishonor are before
us, not as necessary results, but solely as the
consequences OF incapacity and folly. With
Congress at the bottom of the Atlantic and
man in the Treasury with capacity enough
to act intelligently on the laws in existence
the finances would right themselves for the
country is rich Its actual prosperity in valu-
able products would meet every possible
necessity. Even the great panic Of last year
might have been far from an unmixed evil if
its results had been wisely met for it stopped
our importations, so that the difference against
US on foreign trade was but fifty-seven millions
in eleven months of 1873, against one hundred
and forty-three millions for a similar period
OF 1872, and it cut away all the balloon enter
prises, all the vast and beautiful speculations
that were threatening ruin to legitimate activ-
tiles by their brilliant promise of sudden
wealth to investors. With the money market
somewhat sobered by that event and the
finances absolutely left as they were by gov
eminent, trade and industry would have re-
covered themselves naturally, and we might
have continued the steady progress we were at
one time making in the appreciation of our pa
per money, and could have seen our way clear
to the fulflment of the national pledges in re-
gard to legal tenders. With our feet once
more on the solid earth as to finance; with the
irredeemable currency put behind US like
another Satan, almost any future was possible
to people of our uncomfortable energy and
industry and country producing enormous
crops of products not to be had save here.
But all that prosperity, to be had with such
very little wisdom, is to be put away from us
because a section of the people is as mad on
the financial topic as the people have usually
been on nearly every other topic that has
come before them. In the good old days, if
the son Of q Massachusetts deacon had the
toothache the people were sure it was because
he was bewitched by some old woman, and
their cure for the toothache was to broil the
old woman. If in a besieged town the
crowded and half-starved people died by the
score with typhus fever the people thought it
must be because some one had poisoned the
wells, and. therefore, they massacred any OBJ
jectionable parties they could find in the town
generally the Jews, if there were any Jews
And with this same sort of wonderful
wisdom the Western people have APP
piled their mighty intelects to the financial
problem-and settled it of course. They find
that the reason they are poor is because there
is not enough money in the country, and that
the remedy is to direct the Secretary of the
Treasury to print some more They also find
representatives in Congress no wiser than
themselves or, if perhaps little wiser, quite
ready to bargain for some momentary popu.
larity by doing any act for which their mis-
chievous fancy may call.
Already. with this readiness they have I'M
done what good had been done in the manage
ment Of the finances since the war they have
increased the legal tender currency by forty
four millions; they have erased from Senator
Sherman S financial bill the only line which
seemed to indicate that there was sense sof
honor in the nation they will either add
largely to the national bank issues or make
such Tree banking law as Will hood the
country with the cheap money they
call for-which will be worth from
five to ten cents, perhaps, for each dollar, and
when this is all done, and the whole Western
wisdom is applied, just as it gets fairly in
operation there will be a remarkable explo-
sion. There will come a financial cataclysm
the equal Of which has never been seen in this
country and which will PROSTATE everybody
and everything in industry, commerce or
finance. That will come just about the time
the country will be called upon to choose
another President but it will be small con-
ISOLATION to know that the public indignation
will then absolutely destroy the republican
party and every man who has pandered to this
present madness.
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