Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1874-06-11
WHO COULD HAVE DONE BETTER

WHO COULU HAVE DONG
The Republican majority in Congress
began the session by repeating the Oh.
noxious salary bill. They have reduced
expenditures nearly or quite thirty mil
lions. They have succeeded in carrying
the Government over the exigency OF the
panic and the loss of revenue without any
increase of taxation. They have passed
in one branch and are preparing In the
other measure of moiety reform. They
are striking down the wrongs of the DIS
trict Board of Public Works, and devising
a new and improved system of govern
ment. They have broken up the Sanoorn
contracts, repealed the law under whlch
they were made, and, in conjunction with
the President, are driving from the SER
vice all the officers connected with them.
Besides these questions the only other
of general interest and Importance before
Congress is the currency problem. On
this point at the present time, the net re-
suit is nothing-or rather it is the failure
of mischievous legislation and the pro-
gress of sound and healthy sentiment. A
more intelligent and correct opinion has
grown in Congress and out of j; since the
beginning of the session. Whatever di-
vision existed on the subject has not been
one of parties, or amenable to party influ-
ence or involving party responsibility.
Congress met with the representatives OF
the West and South. regardless of party
lines, intent upon an expansion of the cur
rency. Their own eagerness has since
been curbed. They are gaining
ulster conception of the real sentiment
of their own sections. They are
awaking to tfuer understanding OF
the character of the question. Remem-
boring the spirit with which they came to-
gether, it may be considered great gain
that vicious legislation is defeated The
President has saved us from the i'll effects
of their misjudgment, and a great advance
towards just conclusions and wiser action
has been made.
Reviewing the whole field what better
would have been done with any other
party in power? Is there any reason to
believe that the Democratic party would
have done as wellp Does its past history
furnish any ground for thinking it would
have instituted so searching an examina-
ton into the wrongs Of its own members?
Could it have done more in the way of re-
form even if it would ?-would it have
been likely to do as well even if it could !?
Going back over this record of the past
winter, there is scarcely anything the
country would change except the action
on the currency question. On that point
there would have been no different result
If the Democrats had been in the majority,
for the Democrats of the East are no more
against initiation than the Republicans, and
the Democrats of the West are just as
much in favor of it as their opponents in
that section. Indeed, when we remember
all the heresies Of the Democracy on this
questionable advocacy by some of direct
reputation, the declaration by the Ma
tional Convention in favor of indirect re-
pudiation through the payment ofthe debt
in greenbacks-it must be evident to
every candid mind that the question is far
safer in the hands of the Republican party
than it would be in the hands of the OPP
position.
So far as the other points are concerned,
the cou ntry could ask nothing more than
Congress has done. Its investigations
have confessedly been of the most rigor-
Gus character. Its action has been all
that the investigations suggested. The
facts we have named stand out clear and
sharp as the distinguishing features of the
session, and they must satisfy the de-
mands of the most exacting. Everything
in the present action of the Republican
party and in the present attitude and pas,
character of the Democratic party goes to
show that the country would suffer by
change from the one to the other. Happily
there is very little prospect of such mis-
take.-Albany Journal