The Portland daily press., 1874-04-01
Some Of the More Remote Consequences
of Imitation.


likely to follow from the perpetuation OF the
paper money system, and especially from AL
increase of the volume OF irredeemable cur
rency, were to be the only result OF receh'
legislation, there would surely be reason
enough for aserious apprehensions. Du' Ine
more remote consequences are the most I'LL
portant after all; and when we come to take
them all into consideration it will not be
very rash conclusion that the Mortons, Lo-
gans and Buffers have proved as deadly, if
not as criminal, enemies to their country as
Davis, Floyd, Mason and Breckenridge.
"What will Europe think o. us % is ques-
tion oftener asked in a spirit of uneasy vanity
than otherwise. But in this case the qnes-
tion is pertinent. Will not this deliberate
plunge into a financial quagmire-this buy
ing an hours false exhilaration at the cost of
years of depression-undermine confidence
in popular institutions? European mon arch
les after fighting through their great struggles
for national existence, have taken steps as
soon as possible to get on financial terra fir
ma again. Present sacrifices and many a
hard pinch have been endured for the sake
of the ultimate good. Will it not be said
that there is not in republic steadiness of
purpose and self control enough to resist ma
tional temptations? For here is the fore
most republic of the world giving way to the
impulse which prompts it to financial de-
bauchery, at the very moment when reason,
conscience and enlightened self interest ale
impelling it toward Spartan herosm and
wise, provident morality. If the right course
had been chosen, there was good prospect
of genuine, permanent relief within short
space of time. But first was little space Of
rough ground to travel over. The nation had
NOT wisdom and self denial enough to do right
and has taken the most needless as well as,
probably, the most disastrous false step in its
history.
The direct encouragement given to specu-
lation by additions to the volume of the cur
rency is not so much matter of regret as
the moral deterioration which will be the in
direct consequence of it. Let it never again
be said in America that war is not an as,-
nai1ed evil. When it has once been entered
upon, no human power can compute its con-
sequences or tell where the evil forces to
which it gives rise will cease to be operative.
Here we are at the distance Of almost ten
years from the close of the rebellion, appar-
emily just entering upon our harvest of the
fateful crop sown in 1865. From the spirit
of reckless, uuprincipled money getting, the
rage tor sudden wealth and the faith in null
titudes of wild schemes stimulated by 'cheap
money! we may confidently expect the rise
of al. sorts of moral delinquencies like those
which have made Credit Mobiliel and the
humiliation of America. On public and pri-
vate life the inevitable blight will fall.
Neither angels nor men can prevent it for it
is in the nature of things. The moral bal
ance of a people is necessarily disturbed by
the deliberate perpetration of crime-the
enactment of a lie into law.
Who can tell where the demand for "more"
will stop? The South and West are cor
daily united in the mad enterprise, and New
England is no more needed than an old
grandmother who stands in the door, with
warning finger raised in air, exhorting head
strong children not to go skating on thin ice.
We may yet buy our -four, as the Haytians
do, at a hundred dollars pound, and ex-
change cord of the coveted greenbacks for
like quantity of wood.
Carlyle, while yet in his saner mood, said,
speaking of the great revolution in human
affairs begun by the French people in 1850
"Two centuries of it still to fight; hardly
less, before democracy can go through its
due, most balefil stage of Qnackocracy.''
We had fondly hoped we had got through
that most baleful stage in much quicker time
than the roaring Scotchman, allowed for the
operation. But this imitation scheme, to
which about two thirds of the nation seems
committed, is the most shameless piece OF
quackery Of which any people was ever
guilty. How shall nation of quacks borrow
money when their next great trial comes?
Will they not jeeringly tell us to start up our
printing machines?