New-York tribune., 1874-04-11
SHALL THE NATION LIEF

Understand that the way of initiation upon
which the country seems destined to enter
under the guidance and the spur of the Nor
tons and Logans and Carpenters and Buffers
of the party in power, is not merely a path
beset with lying and with temptations to ly
ing-it is itself lie. The mentwho are advis-
ing it, whether they call it initiation or by
whatever eupbuism delights them, know
that they are repudiating the prom
ises which they as party leaders
made; that they are counseliDg that wholesale
sort of lying of which political organization
is guilty when it deliberately refuses to do
what it has covenanted to, and does what it
has solemnly bound itself not to do. There
is no mistaking this situation Mr.. WIN.
Walter Phelps and other Members of Con-
gress have in recent speeches cited at length
the promises of the original legal tender
acts, the promises of official utter
ances, the promises of Presidential mes
sages the promises Of party platforms,
and above ALL though only tact and implied,
the promise of the public faith and that de-
cent regard for common honesty and National
honor which is the base of public credit, that
resumption should be the objective point of
our legislation. Whoever votes or has voted
for any proposition to dilute the value Of the
present Government notes, by increasing the
volume of them in circulation, must know that
he is falsifying his word-his own personal
wOrd-tO the people.
All parties have committed themselves posi-
lively and unequivOcally in favor of speedy
resumption Of specie payments, and in Oppo-
sition to whatever shall retard such a consum-
nation. There is not man in either branch
of Congress-or we may go further and say in
any elective Office In this cOuntry-who is not
personally committed to the fulfllment of this
promise. The greenback that bears the prom
ise to pay of government that takes no step
toward paying is falsehood on Its face.
Is there any short pet name which
rises to the lips of respectable community
having regard for the fitness of things, in
definition sharp and clear, of the men-states-
men they call themselves-who repeat year
after year to the people the promise of the
paper dollar, and then, with as fixed and de-
lberate purpose as ever a three-card monte
man set his table with. proceeded to cheat
the people and belle their promises
This business is not merely proyid-
ing currency for the people, not merely
initiation; it is absolute and downright
lying, and architectural lying at that. Upon
the broad basis of engraved falsehood uttered
by the Government, fabric of deception is
built up into which no grain of truth enters.
A great political party having control Of the
Government stands between it and the people.
pretending that by and by it will receive the
capstone of Truth, which will redeem the
whole structure. By all sorts of jugglery, by
miserable pretexts of expedency, by the false
dogma of the great Am of political trickery.
meanness, and deceit, whose very vision is a
delusion and snare, that the people never
revolt against what puts dollar in the
peoples purse, by wordy fallacies, tricks of
speech and all manner of pettifoggery, these
men are trying to deude the country with
such a sham as any man who knows the diff
ference between dollar and pauper's prom
ise of dollar can detect at once.
And they call this craftsmanship. States
manship! What is it but organized lying
Debasing the coin was the sum of human
wisdom compared with it, for that lad some.
thing valuable at bottom. This is the dilution
of emptiness. And with this question uend-