The Republican journal., 1876-09-07
A Letter to q Doubter.
MIR. MANTON MARBLE REVIEWS TIE PRESI
DENTAL CANDIDATES.

MI. MantOn Marble mas written u letUeT
to Liberal Republican reviewing the chief
contested points of the Presidential can
vass The following extracts show its
leading features -
DEAR SIR-Your letter is received x
AS q hard money man, as a Liberal Re-
publican, your indecision should be ended
| by comparison, either
/. Of the platform Of the two parties :;
2. Of the letters of acceptance, or,
3 OF the characters and capacities of
the two Presidential candidates.
And now, compare the two men. In
what school Of large affairs has Governor
Hayes been trained? TO the handling of
what great questions of public policy has
he been bred ? He canddly makes no pre-
tence to an executive initiative, but the
writer has long believed (and this has
been the ground Of his persistent devotion
to Governor Tiden's candidacy that, ex-
cept by an executive initiative, the prob
lem OF reaching specie payments is insol-
ube. If so, the highest personal compe
tency in the Executive is the prime con-
dition of success. No man who does not
know currency as science and large bus
mess as a practice is competent to this
great task. Under either test Governor
Hayes fails conspicuously. Tried by either
test Governor Tilden is the foremost man
among us. His capacity has long been no
torious to the greatest corporations and
the largest interests in the land while he
was AS yet a private citizen. Nor in his
brief career as a public officer could he
keep from bursting the swaddling clothes
of routine, as a Hercules fit for the twelve
labors
Your solicitude exaggerates the impor
tance Of clause foisted into the platform
which, without that addition, was satisfac-
tory to Governor Tidcn's friends; for the
repeal of the resumption day clause Of the
act OF 1879 leaves, in undiminished vigor
each and all the means to prepare and
provide for the resumption (unuscd by
Secretary Blstow, whom you would now
prefer to Governor lIayes) which that act
created The repeal of that clause cancels
the promise, to be sure, but it does not
cancel any, the least, of the means there
in provided to make that promise good
And if, indeed, there be, as Western Dem
ocrats and Western Republicans alike al
lege. any considerable number of persons
who are in mortal trepidation lest resump-
ton day shall roll the heavens together rs
a scroll and melt the business world with
|
folly, nevertheless, must it not in candor
be said that to cancel the promise may be
to dsengage real preparations torresump-
ton from one serious impeachment to their
success? The promise never should have
been cancelled till something better had
been put in its place; yet one of the first
steps OF any successful effort hitherto is
step which cremation projects and econ
| tran ,at nvar10nl, hn
cessity of "a step which such an open con-
tractionst as Amasa Walker was at last
driven to the necessity of-to wit, the ne
cessity, in a country governed through
universal suffrage, of dissipating the vague
alarms and even the untounded fears of
any large class of people. having votes,
that progress toward resumption will
cause, either in the wise process or the
berilicent result, additional disaster. This
is practca! difficulty which economists
who are not statesmen and hard money
men. who do not appreciate the essential
conditions of political leadership, are liza
bic to underrate. But it is a difficulty
which Governor Tilden, in his letter,
handles, both as economist and statesman
with consummate sagaclty
But your correspondent is not in Ques
|
of the two parties that you affirm. Can
You then possibly think any man compe-
tent to lead his party to specie payments
who is not competent to lead them to eff
feet a great reduction OF the aggregate OF
federal taxation, not to say a great i'm
provement OF its modes? Not every party
leader could accomplish that had his par
tisans an interest in all established abuses.
| bpS b,a
enjoys in common with any Republican
candidate, he has an incompetency all his
own. For, of the Just mentioned condition
Of currency reform he betrays a blank un-
consciousness His record, too, as Con-
gresham and Governor leaves him with
his proofs to make. Not so Governor Til
den His proofs are made. Not merely
in what he has persistently written, but in
what he has successfully DONE has he dem
onstrated the ability to take that ndispcn-
sible step toward resumption of specie
payments, the reduction of taxation, the
administration of the Government upon a
smaller scale of expense. In two years he
has reduced the State taxation of New
York nearly one-hat. In the improve
ment, moreover, Of the modes of Federal
taxation, is it a delegate to the Cincinnati
Convention Of 1872 (Which remitted the
question of free trade to the Congressional
Districts, who now expects more of par
tv controlled by protectionists. whoever
their titular head, than of Il trained and
| instructed economist like Governor Tilden
leading party which in its St. Louis plat
form dared 1aenl. con to denounce, in sum
and in detail, in cause and in consequence,
the monstrosities Of the present tariff, and
| h1tJ n p
But AS to the immediate problem Of
specie payments and the parity of power
in the chiefs of the two parties-nay, let
me rather say, as to the capacity of any
Republican President to carry out that Re-
form-the evidence to satisfy or even to
encourage you is far to seek Gen. Hayes
as an exhorter to specie payments, would
never surpass General Grant. He would
never approach his personal supremacy.
What has General Grant done for specie
payments? That he did prevent one worse
initiation let us gratefully remember But
with all his exhortations and all his per-
sona supremacy what has he been able
ailirmatvely to effect? Like Gen. Hayes,
he quite lacks that high personal compe-
tcncy to deal with the difficulty which
would have assured to tho Executive in
itiative the outcome of a legislative ratiti-
cation. He could not bulge his party one
inch. Could General Hayes do more?
Governor Hayes. like President Grant,
would be obliged to work through Il par
ty interested in every abuse and the heir
of its own history. lie would have to deal
with the party which created legal tend
ers; which cancelled the early provision
for their exchange into interest bearing
bonds: which made the law that enabled
President Grant to pack the Bench of the
Supreme Court with Judges willing to re-
verse its previous decision against the con-
stitutionality Of the Legal Tender act;
which in every year of war and during
ten following years of peace, by success
sive intlations, put fresh hindrances in the
way of resumption; which violated un-
blushingly every partisan and every Off