Belmont chronicle. [volume] (St. Clairsville, Ohio) 1855-1973, 1876-03-30
Stuck I'm the Mud.

SATISFACTION 10 KNOW Wnere ne Is, even ii II Dt
in particularly deep mudhole. The Demo,
cratic party was lost, and is found-up to its
eyes in the slough of Reputation. 1t has 8
financial policy at last. That policy lacks
sense as much as it lacks honesty, but the
caucus, that court of last resort for all true
Democrats, has decided. Hereafter the
wretched hireling OF bondholder who would
pay any respect to promises of the United
States, or preserve any of the restrictions by
which Republicans have prevented an unlim-
tied issue of paper notes, may be branded as
g deserter from the Democratic camp. We
have not desired to see that party take this
ground. We pity the man who, for the sake
! of partisan advantage, can see with pleasure
| the honor of the nation thus assailed by great
party. In vain have we warned hard-money
! Democrats, so-called, that they were being
dragged into the deepest and nastiest of po-
| litical bitches. Earnest but insufficient pro-
tests have been treated with contempt. Mr..
| Wells, within week nominated for Congress
| by Democrats of the Hid District in Connect
icut, denounced the caucus bill as the original
rag-baby very slightly disguised in a new
dress, and predicted that it would soon be
loved and nursed as their own by all the in
f1ationists. All effort was wasted, The So
called hard-money Democrats hid not the
pluck to break away from caucus dictation,
though knowing that dishonest policy must
prevail, for more tnan two-thirds of the Dem
ocratic Representatives had voted for the un-
qualified and. unconditional reputation pro-
posed by Mr.. Holman. They stayed, and Of
course were subjugated. The bill to which
they now stand pledged is scarcely less than
unqualified reputation. and nothing less than
unlimited imitation. Mr.. Wells was right it
is the same rag-baby, and every bit as ugly q
brat as when Allen and Cary were displaying
it before yelling communists in Ohio.
The blunt repudiation of the pledge of 1875
is qualified only by new pledge, that re-
serve of coin shall be accumulated yearly
The same dishonesty which now repeAls the
solemn pledge of one year ago, the ice being
once broken, may at any time the more easily
repeal the pledge to hold coin. Nor is there
any provision that the coin thus held shall
ever be applied to the payment of dishonored
notes. That would be contraction. That con-
traction, we may be sure, will be quite as
stoutly resisted at any future time as now.
Of what possible value, as q step toward re-
sumption, will the mere accumulation of idle
coin be when there is not the slightest pro-
vision that the coin shall ever be used to pay
and retire notes, when the opposition to pay
ment and retirement of notes is so strong that
hard-money Democrats, so-called, do not dare
even to propose that course, and when they,
as well as the avowed repudiationists, show
such contempt for public pledges as to make
it certain that the accumulation of coin will
be stopped whenever communists or repuda-
tors object to it? Such provision for re-
sumption" by such Congress, is altogether
too thin or gauzy to cloak or qualify the re-
pudiation of the pledge of 1875. 1t leaves
plainly exposed in all its ugliness that act of
shameless bad faith, and decent men will de-
test it, whenever the smoke of party strife 10
longer clouds their eyes, as they would detest
any other swindle.
To make it more certain that the promised
store of gold will not and cannot be accumu-
lated, this same caucus bill provides for un-
limited issues of paper. Wherever the chan
nels of circulation are filled with paper it
drives out coin; wherever prices are ruled by
paper, coin is exported, driven to other lands,
and becomes hard to get. But this bill pro-
poses, first, to increase the amount of legal
tenders in active circulation by decreasing
the amount required to be held as reserve.
1t provides that the banks shall accumulate
about ten millions yearly of coin, but may
hold this in place of part of the reserve now
required hence the amount of legal tenders
free to be poured into circulation would be in
creased by about ten millions yearly. Nor is
this the worst. When the raving and wild
eyed infiationists in the Republican party de-
manded ''free banking" even they consented
that it should be restrained by retirement of
greenbacks amounting to so per cent of the
new bank notes issued. But the hard-money
Democrats, so-called, now propose that new
issues by the banks, unlimited in amount,
shall be unrestrained by any retirement of
greenbacks whatever. In comparison with
them, the Republican inhationists were mar
velously conscientious, for they acknowledged
that it was possible to issue too much paper,
and believed that the retirement of $50, 900,
600 of legal tenders, in which bank notes are
to be redeemed, would effectually prevent an
increase of more than 800, ,OOO, 900 in the vol
ume of bank issues. But the Democrats are
acting upon the threat of veteran leader of
that party, who said: ''During the war you
made us take that stuff (greenbacks) at the
point of the bayonet now we mean to give
you more than you want of it."
! Is this the best end of the Democratic par
ty? 1t maintains that the solemn pledges OF
the public faith, given by the acts of 1869
and 1875, are not binding upon the nation be-
cause Republicans passed those acts. 1t is
then the most sacred duty of a high-toned
Democrat to repeal and repudiate everything
done by Republicans as far as possible, in
cluding pledges of the public faith3 At any
rate, some facts must be observed. Since the
| New Hampshire election, those Tools get
soundly rated who have been telling what the
! party means to do. But let the Presidential
election give them the long g-desired power,
and some Democrats in caucus will straight
way consider whether, among other things OF
Republican origin, this blood-sucking debt,
created to carry on an abolition war, should
not be repudiated. Possibly such Demo
Gratis may then be sufficiently high-toned to
repeal the war itself; who knows PIN. y
| Tribune
From the st. Louis Globe.