The Stark County Democrat. [volume] (Canton, Ohio) 1833-1912, 1876-09-28

They came into power on March 4th,
1861, when the country was in high
state of prosperity, and they have held
power ever since. For fourteen contin-
uous years they could pursue any policy
| they saw fit to pursue, enact any law
they saw fit to enact. 1t is, therefore,
undeniable that so far as our distress is
the result of either legislation or the
want of legislation, bad policy or the
want of wise policy, the responsibility
rests upon our Radical rulers. For they
being in power, should not have made
laws that would be productive of evil,
and, on the other hand, they should have
made laws that would avert evil so far as
it was possible to avertit. Now, is there
a man in this audience who believes
that our troubles are in degree the result
of bad solicy and bad legislation, or the
want of wise policy and laws, or both
combined? If there is such man fear
that he has shut the eyes of his under
standing for good many long years; or,
to say the least, has observed but little
and reflected less. Ask Radical orator
what produced the panic of 1873 and the
subsequent depression in business, and
he will answer overtrading, overproduc-
ton, building of unproductive railroads,
and in general an enormous expansion
of the credit system; that is to say, an
immense increase of the Indebtedness of
the country. Very well, as far as it goes,
but what was it that stimulated over
production, overtrading, unproductive
railroad building and running into debt?
Can any man truthtully deny that Rad
ical legislation and policy were the chief
stimulants? When the Federal Govern
ment flooded the country with promises
to pay, tnat passed from hand to hand in
making purchases and paying debts, un-
! til the aggregate of such irredeemable
paper illegal tenders, demand notes, GER
tifcates of indebtedness, seven-thirties,
&C., &C., &C., exceeded $2,200,000,0O0, it
was as certain as the rising of the sun
that all manner of speculation and over
trading would be stimulated to excess,
and all manner of visionary and unpro-
ductive schemes be embarked in. And
hence we saw the country wild with a
rage for making money; not by the an
cient and approved modes industry, thrift
and economy, but by the IL ost daring and
hazardous schemes that hope, credulity
and avariGe could invent. All business
became more or less gambling opera
ton, end fortunes were acquired in day
to be lost in turn of the wheel with
equal rapidity. The example set by the
Federal Government of running head
long into debt was followed by every
form of municipal organization from the
State to the school district, by every cor
poration that could issue bond or bor-
row dollar, and by the people them
selves, from the capitalist with his mil
lions, down to the laborer dependent
upon his daily toll for his daily bread
In further aggravation of this speculating
mania and debt-creating madness, Con-
gresa stimulated the building of thou
sands upon thousands of miles of unpro-
ductive railroad by profuse loans of the
national credit and gifts of the public
lands to the enormous amount of seven
times the area of the State of Ohio. Ev-
cry railroad corporation thus created ad-
ded to the already inflated mass of prom
ises to pay by issuing its bonds and sell
inc them wherever it could find mar
ket, in either America or Europe. BY
this action of Government and corpora
tions, and immense amount of American
securities, came to be held in foreign
lands, draining us year by year, for the
payment of interest, of the bulk of our
coined money and the products Of our
gold and silver mines. At length the
crash came, whose coming was ineyita-
BILE. The credit bubble, fostered and
stimulated to madness by our Federal
rulers, burst, and for three long years you
have been suffering from the effects, with
the sad prospects before you that the bot
tom has not yet been reached. To add
to your difficulties and distress, taxation
has taken share of your earnings, great
er than ever before contributed by any
people to their Government You have
paid to the General Government since
the close of the civil war $4,500,000,OOO,
and in State and local taxes $3, ,000, 0,000,0 900
more. Your Federal taxes alone are es-
timated at $40 per head every year
that is to say, an average of SIS per head
for every man, woman and child in the
Republic. The money thus profusely
gathered has been as profusely, and Of
ten wastefully expended. There is not
a Department of Government whose ex-
penditures do not exceed any expendi-
lures by it in time of peace before the
Radical party came into power. Now,
my friends, is it not as plain as the sun
at MONDAY that our hard times ere in a
great degree attributable to the causes !
have stated, and that these causes lie at
the door of our Radical rulersP 1t is in
vain to say that the Government could
not do otherwise than it did, that the
war entailed upon it the necessity to food
the country with its paper promises and
thereby inflated the bubble of credit and
speculation. Certainly the war compell-
ed the Government to use its credit, but
it did not necessitate the use of those
forms of credit, short paper and ire
deemable notes, that swelled beyond all
measure the circulating medium; that is
the instruments, whether legal tender OF
not, that passed in the making of loans
the payment of debts and the purchase
of property. Napoleon l, battling with
the half Of Europe, was compelled to use
the credit of France; but instead of re.
sorting to irredeemable paper promises
he maintained intact the payment oi
specie. do not say that our Govern
ment could have keptup specie payment
during the war, though very able men
have argued that it was both possible
and polite. But do contend, what !
believe all intelligent and candid men
who have studied the subject now admit
that the use of paper credit not only ex-
ceeded the necessity, for it was most in
excusably profuse, excessive and waste
full. And now in business wrecks that
lie all around us, in industry depressed
labor unemployed, capital too timid fol
investment, and universal want of con-
tidence in the near futurey we are reap
ing the fruits of this unwise and reckless
policy, Nor is this all. The public debt
was, in effect, nearly or quite doubled by
this mistaken policy. The Government
sold its bonds for greenbacks, worth from
thirty-fve to fifty cents on the dollar in
l. l.