New national era. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1870-1874, 1874-07-16

| w WV hepuDiiCdn party IOr burial, capl-
talhas combined to construct more miles
OF railway than all the rest of the world
possesses. Harbors and rivers have
oeen improved, and the trade Of our
Western lakes and rivers now EMPLOYS a
commercial marine exceeding loo, 900
tons.
Enlarged facilities for trade have
swelled the volume of trade.
PUBLIC CREDIT ADVANCED.
Two facts are sufficiently eloquent of
our national growth. First. The six per
cent. bonds issued in February, 1861,
sold for ninety four cents on the dollar.
The nation then owed but sixty million
dollars. The same bonds sold in June,
1874, as high as 1923 cents on the dollar,
III currency, or fraction over ITO in
gold, although the nation then owed two
thousand million dollars. Second. The
value of annual exports of domestic
commodities increased from three hun
| dred and seventy-three million i'm 1860 to
six hundred and forty-nine million in
1873, being an increase during the period
of two hundred and seventy-six million
dollars.
There are those bold enough to assert
that the country is now governed worse
instead of better than formerly. Some
may be found weak enough to believe
such assertions. But it requires great
deal of defamation to prove that the
day is cold when the mercury stands at
50 in the shade. The mercury won't lie.
| Men unhappily sometimes do. And it
will require great deal of rhetoric to
| persuade this country that it is being
ruined 10y a Government which in thir-
teen years has advanced it's credit
| throughout the money markets of the
world fully thirty-three per cent, and
has nearly trebled its surplus produc-
tions.
| LAND POLICY.
But this is not all. Since the advent
of the Republican party the finishing
touches have been given to our land sys-
TEN. 1t was long ago adjudged that a
dollar and "a quarter was full equiva-
lent for an acre of the public domain.
| Accordingly that was fixed as the mini
mum price. That gave to the Govern
ment 5000 for quarter section of land.
But Republicanism adjudged that far
| mer was more worth to the country than
| 5000, and so it has rendered a homestead
not exceeding one hundred and sixty
acres to every head Of a family who will
make farm upon it. And in view of
Il fact which no State can afford to
| overlook, to wit that successful agri-
cultures the primal necessity and grand
inspiration of every other industry, and
| that, to be truly successful, agriculture,
| like every other craft, should be learned,
| prosperous colleges h"ro boon endowed
out of the public domain, wherein field
culture may be reared from the rank of
craft to the dignity of science; to
the grandeur even of an art.
| But, as establishing the future land
policy of the Republican party, the fol-
lowing resolution of the House of Rep
resentatives is submitted:
| Resolred, That in the judgment of this
House the policy of granting subsidies
! in public land to railroad and other cor
pOratiOns ought to be discontinued; and
that every consideration Of public policy
and equal justice to the whole people re-
| quires that the public lands of the United
| States should be held for the exclusive
purpose of securing homesteads to actual
settlers, under the homestead and pre-
emptiOn laws, subject to reasonable APP
preparations of such lands for educa-
tional purposes.
THE UNION PRESERVED.
Fellow-citizens, when you committed
the Union to the keeping of the Repub-
lican party, it seemed on the verge of
dissolution. Many hoped and some
feared it had received an incurable
wound. We present the Union to you
to-day every whit whole. The Republic
is at peace throughout all her borders;
she is at peace with all the world. Her
rightful authority is disputed nowhere
her opinions are respected everywhere.
She stands in the very vanguard of SOW
ereign States. We challenge history to
produce another instance of country
raised from such humiliation to such
grandeur in so short time. And this
transformation has been wrought not
merely without the aid of the Demo-
cratic party, but in spite of its utmost
hostility.
THE OPPOSITION REVIEWED.
You have seen the shortcomings OF
that party in administration. Its faults
in opposition have been still more glar-
ng. Perhaps they can be forgiven for
allowing the ship of State to drift so
near the rocks. But how can they be
forgiven their struggles to prevent her
from being snatched from that peril
That charity, which delights to think no
evil, may excuse their omission to lift
the country; upon the plea of incompe-
tency. But not charity itself can see
anything but malignancy in their per-
sistent efforts to prevent the country
from being lifted. The world does not
| racont but rathar nitipS the halDlaSS