National Republican. (Washington City (D.C.)) 1872-1888, 1874-11-27
THE WORKING MEN and THE Or
ns4rC IN TuE 1TO EODOTTCTS

4
The recent articles in this journal calling
upon the Republican leaders in Congress to
take measures to relieve the industries of
the country and put the workingmen to
work have attracted the widest attention
all over the nation, and, as we predicted,
have met with the stern opposition of the
monOpolist organs in New York. Nearly
every leading paper in that city is owned
by men whose interests are directly hostile
TO those of the working people. For in
stance, one is owned principally by rail
road operator, whose sole occupation is to
cheat and rob his brother spectators in
Wall street another is the paid organ of
the free-traderS and the English manufac-
turcrs, and as such is uDccasing and indie
Gatigablc in its efforts to break down the
American system, and reduce our mechanics
TO the condition Of the half-paid and half
fed labor Of Europe. The policy which we
have recommended to the Republican lead
ers in Congress, which President Grant
recommended two years ago, and which it
is to he hoped he will again recommend in
his forthcoming annual message, strikes di-
rectly at the secret interests of the rings
and corporations that stand behind and own
these large newspaper properties in New
York city; hence the Indignation with
which our suggestions have been received
10y them. But it is 4 significant fact that
the smaller papers all over the country
the "Tural journals, - as they are sometimes
contemptuously called, but which really
come nearer to the people, and more accu-
rately and faithfully represent public opin
iOn-are all, or nearly all, in favor of the
policy we have marked out.
The arguments advanced by the papers
10 which we have referred against a sys-
TEN of internal improvements are simply
ridiculous and absurd. The New York
World, for instance, in the course of a long
TRADE on the subject, calls our proposition
government by largess, and then goes
on TO parade its cheap sophOmorical
learning, by quoting Gibbon, and referring
us TO the successors of Constantine, the
policy Of Augustus Caesar, Falentinian III.
and Aurelian. Every schoolboy knows
that there is no analogy whatever between
the two cases-between the condition of
the Roman Empire and the American Re
public. 1t must know that the policy we
have recommended has been pursued from
the very beginning the Governmental
least, from the time that the Government.
coming out Of the Revolutionary war, was
strong enough financially to begin i'm
prOvements. The whole case has been
argued and debated again and again in Con-
gress and before the people, and the World
knows the fact as well as we do. The
entire question came up in the construc-
tiOn Of the old Cumberland road, and what
the Government did then in the interest of
the people cannot, on a larger scale, Ger
tainly be improper now. The World adj
mits that ''thepublic distress at the present
time is as widespread as it is pinching, 8"
but it has no remedy to propose except
free trade; which would kill every indus
try in the country beyond all hope of re-
vival
Another New York journal, which every
morning does the bidding of Jay Gould,
follows the leadership of the World in
pretty much the same vein. The develop
ment of the internal resources of the coun-
try it looks upon as the establishment of
Government ''soup-hOuse. The idea
would be ccmical if it were not really sad