The New York herald. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1840-1920, 1874-03-31
The Meaning Of the Issue.

Infationists should not fall into the error
Of supposing that the apparent tranquility of
the country, in view of the oppression, rob-
berry and wrong of the laws they are making
in Congress, is due to want of perception or
Indifference. 1t is due to the nature of the
people. Things are taken coolly with us until
the moment for resistance comes. This fact
has misled some close observers of our
character as people. So quietly did
the nation at large take the early re-
sistance of the Southern States in our
late war that the astute Emperor of
the French was led to believe we would
not fght-that we would fall to pieces quietly,
and that the moment was therefore, propi-
tious for him to get foothold on this Cont
nent
His error was disastrous and just SO
disastrous will be the error of whoever supposes
the people of the Eastern and Middle States
will accept that future which has begun in the
imitation laws. Initiation means, as we clearly
see, national dishonor. 1t is not the first step
towards that ignominious goal for the first
step was taken long since in the radical errors
of our financial system but it is the first step
that may be universally recognized as taken at
q great turning point, as leading us on path
that can come out at no other place. 1t is the
first Of the steps which, once definitely taken,
will be found to be irretraceable, and to which
future inquiry must inevitably turn with the
same strange wonder with which we now turn
to such legislation in the past as the Fugitive
Slave bill-a wild project to compel by law
the acquiescence of revolving reason and JUS
tice.
Only the East in this confederation of States
can be either ruined or dishonored financially,
for only the East has financial existence.
Eastern cities, and pre-eminently this city, are
the money capitals of the nation. Out West
there is plenty of real property, but the money
to create it went from the Atlantic slope, and
the energy and the skill as WE'LL and on the in
vestment thus made of Eastern wealth the West
pays interest and this interest it looks upon as
q bond of slavery, though it had erydifferent
views when it borrowed the money. Now, the
addition of forty-four millions Of dollars to the
currency is the reputation by the West of
one-sixteenth Of all the interest it owes to the
East or to Europe, and that is why the
West votes roundly and steadily for
imitation. 1t votes distinctly, openly and
knowingly to make its financial burdens
easier It owes certain number of nominal
dollars in legal tenders and if it can buy the
legal tenders in the market at half price-if it
can get twice as much paper money for the
same quantity of wheat-it ightens its bur-
dens, and that is its purpose. The fact that
it can do this by legislation, that Western and
Southern votes together can by law SO ''re-
organize" our finances that the Western men
shall presently own what now actually belongs
to Eastern men, and own it without having
paid for it, is dangerous lesson for the West
and South to learn; but they have learned it
by the votes in the House and Senate on the
Initiation bill.
The circumstance that this is repudiation-
covert kind of theft-does not stand in the
way, for the West is not sensitive as to
honesty. Honesty is a dull virtue that will
not thrive in the broad and breezy area of the
prairies, to which nature has denied the glory
of trees in order that the world might more
readily admire the freemen of those plains,
the sprouting and towering splendor of Nor
ton, and the ve)vety, mushroom-like coming
up of Logan. Western men have won the
wilderness from the Indian and the bear
and the WOLF and the result has been to i'm
press upon them that the world belongs to the
strongest. Whoever can take and hold is the
owner, whether against the bear or against
the builder of railroad; whether the victory
be by bowie knife and rifle in the forest or by
votes in Congress.
Now, as the addition Of forty-four millions
of legal tenders is the reputation of one-six-
teenth, and the coming addition of fifty mil
lions of national bank notes will be repudi-
alton in slightly greater degree, Eastern
men can already see that Congress has confs-
Gated or converted one-eighth of their prop
erty; and free banking, which is meant to
food the country with worthless paper, will
melt away rapidly what will remain. Free
banking is kind OF dust which the West means
to raise to hide its theft But the practical
issue is, What does this all lead to? Where
must it oil end?
Here is grave point that it seems to us
the President should weigh before he takes
the irretraceable step of signing the Four Hun
dred Million bill. Can he or any one else,
contemplating the ultimate results see any
other issue but new secession and new
civil war? He is Western man, and the
Western pressure is on him, and he will sign
the bill because it is Western measure, though
we do not believe he can be Indifferent to the
future but the signature of that bill is in
evitabiya turning point in our history. Slavery
made war because of the essential con-
fict Of two industrial systems, and the ire
pressible conflict of financial views will make