The Louisiana Democrat. [volume] (Alexandria, La.) 1845-1918, 1876-08-16

deuce would from the day Of it's adoption
BRING healing on it's wings to AL onr har-
asSed industry and set in motion the
wheels of commerce, manufactures and
the mechanical arts, restore employment
to labor. and renew in all it's national
source the prosperity of the people. Re-
form is necessary III the sum and mode Of
Federal taxation, to the end that capital
may be set free from distress and labor
lightly burdcned.
WE BENOUNCE THE PRESENT TARIFF
levied upon nearly four thousand articles,
as masterpiece of injustice, inequality
and false pretenCe 1t yields dwindling
not yearly rising revenue; it has impov-
erishcd many industries to subsidizo a
few; it prohibits imports that might pur-
chase the products of American labor;
it has degraded American commerce from
the first to an inferior upon the high seas:
1t has cut down the sales of American
manufactures at home and abroad, and
depleted the returns of American agricul
tire, an interest followed by half orr
people; it costs the people five times more
than it pro luces to the treasury, obstructs
the processes of production and wastes
the fruits Of labor; it promotes fraud and
fosters smuggling, enriches dishonest
officials and bankrupts honest merchants.
We demand that all custom house taxa
tion shall be only for revenue. Reform is
necessary in the scale of public expenses,
Federal, State and municipal.
FEDERAL TAXATION HAS SWOLLEN
from SIG 900 900 gold in 1860 to $3.50 000,-
900 currency in 1870; our aggregate taxa
ton from 1874, 100000 gold in 1860 to
S73003O, 600 currency in 1870, or in one de-
cade from less than five dollars per head
to more than eighteen dollars per head
Since the peace the people have paid to
their tax gatherels more than thrice the
sum of the national debt, and more than
twice that sum for the Federal Govern
ment alone. We demand vigorous fru-
gality in every department and from every
officer of the Government. Reform is ne
ceSsary to put a stop to the profiigate
waste of public lands and their diversion
from actual settlers by the party in power,
winch has squandered two hundred mil
lions of acres upon railroads alone, and
ont of more than twice that aggregate
has disposed of less than a sixth directly
to tilers Of the soil. Reform is necessary
to correct the
and the errors Of orr treaties and orr di
p!omacy which have stripped our fellow
citizens of foreign birth and kindred race
recrossiug the Atlantic Of the shield of
American citizenship, and have exposed
our brethren of the Pacific slope to the in
cuisions Of Il race not sprung from the
same great parent stock--in fact now de-
MED by law citizenship through naturafi-
zatiou, us heing neither accustomed to the
tradition of a progressive civilization, or
exercised in Liberty under equal laws.-
We dennuncc the policy which thus dis
cards the liberty loving German, and toll
crates the revival of the coole trade in
Monaghan women imported for immoral
purposes, and Mongoiian men hired to
perform servile labor contracts, and de-
maNd such modification of the treaty with
the Chinese Empire. or such legislation
ny Congress within constitutional lin,i-
tation, rs shall prevent the further iupor-
tatian or immigration tf the Mongoian
race. Ref I'm is necessary, and can never
he effected bnt by making il the control
ling issue OF the elections, and. lifting it
above the two false issues with which the
office. holding class and the party in power
seek to smother it, The false issues with
which they would enkindle sectarian
strife in respect to the public schools, Of
which the establishment and support he
long exclusively to the several States, and
which the Democratic party has cherished
from their foundation and resolved to
maintain without partiality or preference
for any class sect or creed, and without
contributing from the treasury to any,
The false issue by which they seek to
light anew the dying enbors of sectional
hate between two kindred peoples once
unnaturally estranged, but now reunited
III one indivisible Republic and common
destiny.
REFORM IN CIVIL SERVICE.
Reform is necessary in the civil service
Experience proves that efficient, economic
cal conduct of the governmental business
is not possible if its civil service be sub
iected to change at every election, and be
a purse offered at the ballot-hox as briet
reward of party zeal, instead Of posts Of
honor assigned for proved competency and
held for fidelity in the public employ
That the dispensing of patronage should
neither be a tax upon the time of all our
public men, nor the instrument Of their
ambition. Here again professions, falsi-
lied in the performance, attest that the
party in power can work out 10 practical
or salutary reform.
REFORM IN HIGH PLACES.
Reform is necessary even more in the
higher grades of public service. Prcs-
dent, Vice-President, Judges, Senators,
Representatives, Cabinet officers - these
aud all others in authority are the peo:
ple's servants. Their offices are not
private perquisite; they are a public
trust. When the annals of this Republic
proclaim the disgrace and censure of a
Yice-President; % late Speaker Of the
House of Representatives marketing his
ruling as presiding officer; three Sena-
tors protiting secretly by their votes as
lawmakers; five chairmen of the leading
committees of the late House of Represen-
tatives exposed in .jobhery; late Secreta-
ry of the Treasury forcing balances in the
public accounts; late Attorney General
misappropriatiug public funds; Secreta-
ry of the Navy enriches or enriching
friends by percentages levied off the Profits
of contractors with his department; an
Ambassador to England concerned in
a dlshonorable speculation; the Presidents
private Secretary barely escaping couvic-
tion, upon trial, for guilty completely i'll
frauds upon the revenue; a Secretary of
War impeached for high crimes and con-
fessed misdemeanors; the demonstration is
complete that the first step must be the
public choice of honest men from another
party lest the disease of one political
organization upset the whole body polite,
and thereby making no change of men or
party, we can get no change of measures
and no reform.
All these abuses, wrongs and crimes,
the product of sixteen years of ascendaucy
OF the Republican party, create a necessity !
for reform confessed by the Republicans |
But their reformers are vo-
ted down in convention and displacel |