The Portland daily press. [volume] (Portland, Me.) 1862-1921, 1874-09-03
Imitation and Pendletonism Combined.

W. ISoiS dsO Ouc WOulu nave SWOTu IudL
the financial heresy which was called ''Pen-
detonism"for the first time in these columns,
would never re-appear. Its first descent was
marked by the ruin OF all who touched it.
The whole Democratic party inundated it.
self anew on its polluted altar, and of all the
prominent individual Republicans, who
thought that political preferment lay in that
direction, only one, so far as we know, still
exists; and to this exceptional individual the
Republican party may well say Ike the Moor
to his adversary:
"In that thou be'est devil, I cannot kill thee"
Notwithstanding the notable judgments
and "providences" that followed contact with
this most deadly of political sins, here it is
again, thriving in Democratic conventions
from Ohio to Missouri. One would as soon
have expected to hear of the plesiosaurus
romping on the banks of the Father of Waters,
dense copses of the Wabash, while the shrill
cry of the dodo walked the echoes of the Gin
cinnati streets. The reputation restored to
life by the Democratic platforms of Ohio, Mis-
souri, and other Democratic states is not an
emasculated descendant of the monster over
thrown in 1868, when Seymour was nomin-
ated instead of Pendleton, and when repudia-
tion candidates were defeated all over the
country-it is the same old beast. Not
scale is displaced-not a horn is missing,
while its "barbaric yawp'' is as unpleasant to
the ear as ever. This foul offspring of political
quackery is akin to the initiation or "cheap
money! heresy to which Gen. Grants veto
message gave mortal wound, but it is more
deadly. Nominally its most important specific
purpose is the payment of the fve-twenty
bonds in greenbacks, but the whole scheme saw
ors of reputation, pure and simple. Just see
how the two heresies supplement each other,
and how unmistakable the result! First the
removal of all definite restriction on the vol
ume of the currency, and then the payment
OF the bonds in the resulting ornamented
waste paper! First make the money worth
less and then pay Herewith the obligations
that are both by law and by the well-under-
stood implied contract of the maker and buy
er OF them payable in gold! Truly the wick
edness OF 1868 was relatively not so very
wicked after all, for at that time the notion
of unlimited dilution as preliminary to the
swindling of the bondholders, though it was,
perhaps, necessarily involved in the latter no.
ton, was not presented to the public mind
with so sharp outlines, and under so naked
and repulsive form as at present.
All this is very well for the Republican par
fV and had far no
all citizens OF the United States, as citizens,
no matter what their party, it is bad and bad
only. No man or body of men has ever pro-
posed dishonorable thing to the people of
the United States and lived. As soon as the
true meaning and purpose of the man and his
proposition have been seen, both have been at
once consigned to oblivion. So that we NAV
confidently predict disaster, complete and
overwhelming, to the party that once more
becomes sponsor to the idea of reputation,
There is undoubtedly some comfort in this
consideration, but the satisfaction is more
than neutralized by the reflection that the
old suspicion touching the worth of our ma
tional promises to pay may be revived and
perpetuated by the renewal of these wretched
assaults upon the public credit. America
may yet get an indelible stain from the reck-
lessness of the minority party which vainly
imagines that there is latent dishonesty
enough in the country to more than balance
the worth and honor of the people, and that
this diffused rascality only needs to be organ
lied and led to gain the control of public af-
fairs.
Nothing could be more inopportune and
unpatriotic than the revival of Pendletonism
just now when the treasury has succeeded in
refunding part of tine bonds which the
western Democracy propose to repudiate, at
five per cent interest, and has a good pros
pect of replacing the rest with obligations
that demand the payment of only four and
four and half per cent. The old reputation
had been well-nigh forgotten both at home
and abroad, and if Democratic magnancy
had not broken out afresh, there is not much
doubt that in few years the annual burden
of interest on the public debt would be re-
duced more than twenty millions of dollars
without the breaking of any contract, or any
but the most honorable treatment of the pub
! ic creditor. To most minds such a consum-
nation would seem not only more desirable
on moral grounds but also more productive of
mere material prosperity and financial securi-
ty than the jail-birds short cut of repudia-
ton.