The New York herald. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1840-1920, 1874-03-07

miseries OF war legislation. We have never
really recovered from the troubles of the war
time. Our expedients for raising large sums of
money suddenly, our plans for currency, our
legal tender laws, our intricate bonds and
securities. our attempts to advance or decrease
the price of gold by gislaton-above all, our
extraordinary and shifting tariff laws, our
whiskey taxes and taxes on tobacco, and the
appalling scandals attending their collection,
all combined to degrade the country and
enervate her financial strength. All the
evils of the war time were summed up in
the policy of imitation. We had only
| certain sum of money, and, in order to make q
| show in the world, it became necessary tor us
to make it pass for double the amount. In
private life we know the effect of such ex-
pedients. We inspire false confidence,
which is sure to fall sooner or later and make
genuine confidence impossible. Consequently
we began to distrust our own government, and
this distrust was speedily shared by other
nations. They felt that there was no absolute
confidence to be placed in the United States;
that in financial affairs especially we were
tricky, shifty, evasive people. To emphasize
this feeling we had premature and unnecessary
discussions on reputation, on the real mean
ing Of our national bonds and whether we
meant to pay the principal in coin or paper
We had financial experiments like the Erie
Railway, and State money scandals like
those in Alabama and Minnesota. AL
though we made unusual efforts at Washing
ton to redeem confidence, although we paid
our interest promptly and imposed burden
some taxes to reduce the debt, although we
made sacrifices to protect our credit quite I'M
precedented in history, it was all in vain.
The great American Republic, whose prodig-
ious wealth was the envy and the establishment
of the world, whose achievements in peace
were only surpassed by her successes in war,
the nation capable of fighting five years for
principle, found her credit shiveringa and creep
ing in foreign money markets, among the Sc
curities of nations like Spain and Brazil and
Turkey. Wewere compelled to pay exorbitant
interest for our money, and when we offered
the rate paid by Russia and France the loan
was refused.
Confidence is slowly won and soon lost. It
comes as coyly as virgin and flies away in
dream. This we see every day in our social
affairs, and if we were wise we would see it in
our national affairs We are to-day virtually
dishonored nation in the money markets of
the world because of the policy advocated by
Mr.. Morton and his friends. For this is the very
policy which began with the amazing lie that
silk paper printed in green should be legal ten
der; which proposed, with Thaddeus Stevens,
to regulate the rates in Wall street by reso-
luton in Congress to pay our bonds in paper
money, after promising to pay them in gold.
The natural progress of policy Of this kind
may be found in the proposition now advanced
by Mr.. Morton, that because the West
and the South are poor therefore we should
have new issue of paper money. Why we
suffer already from the effects of paper money.
We have been living life of national dissipa-
ton, and the only way to escape from its
effects is to change our life to reduce our vol
ume of currency, to increase values and to
inspire confidence in our financial purposes.
Let us have policy not series of makeshift
schemes. Instead of turning back to the
desperate measures of the war, let us 90
ahead in the old paths. MIR. Morton may tell
US in his breezy, Rocky Mountain fashion
that there are no old paths in America; that
we are new, original, developing and rap
idly growing people, that we cannot bind our
selves down to .'the old, effete systems Of
Europe. But Mr.. Morton should remember
that these ''old, efete systems" go back to
Mount Sinai, and that it was there written as
an underlying principle of financial policy that
we should not give what we do not have to
give-that we should not among other things,
call printed paper money.
Mount Sinai, we admit, is long way back,
and it is hard to impose record of such an
tiquity upon these young financial giants of
the West If modern precedents will be more
apt then let our Rocky Mountaineers study
France We know well enough that espe-
cially since the German vote has arisen in the
West, France is not in favor with the Rocky
Mountain statesmen. We admit in advance
all of these fine prairie arguments, and their
unmistakable importance as affecting the Ger
man vote. Somehow France is an argument,
whether we regard her wisdom or her folly. We
see what men like Mr.. Morton did in France
when they began to ''relieve the country by
imitation Of currency They found France in
sad way, surely enough. There was no
money, no credit, no bread tor the laborer, no
shoes for the feet of marching soldiers; and
as for French credit, it had been sacrificed to
the e1igencies of the Regency and Madame
Pompadour. France was as uneasy as
Illinois or South Carolina. Instead of seeking
comfort in reformation she began print
ing new reams of currency; and ''relief"
came so rapidly that loaf of bread cost q