The Anderson intelligencer. [volume] (Anderson Court House, S.C.) 1860-1914, 1876-07-06

tice, inequality and false pretence. 1t
yields a dwindling, not yearly rising,
revenue. 1t has impoverished many in
dustries to subsidize a few. 1t prohibits
imports that might purchase the products
of American labor. 1t has degraded
American commerce from the first to an
inferior rank upon the high seas. 1t has
cut down the sales of American manu-
facturers at home and abroad, and de-
pleted the returns of American agricul-
ture or industry followed by half our
people. 1t costs the people five times
more than it produces to the treasury.
It obstructs the processes of production
and wastes the fruits of labor. 1t pro-
notes fraud and fosters smuggling, en-
riches dishonest officials and bankrupts
honest merchants. We demand that all
customhouse taxation shall be only for
revenue.
Reform is necessary in the scale of
public expense, Federal, State and mu-
nicipal. Our Federal taxation has swol-
len from s60,OOO,O00, gold, in 1860, to
$3.50, 100000, currency, in 1870; our ag-
gregate taxation, from s1S4, 600, 900, gold,
in 1860, to $730,000,OOO, currency, in
1870; or in one decade from less than
five dollars per head to more than eigh-
teen dollars per head. Since the peace
the people have paid to their tax-gather-
ers more than thrice the sum of the ma
tional debt and more than twice that sum
for Federal government alone. We de-
mand rigorous frugslity in every de-
partment from every officer of the gov
ernment.
Reform is necessary to put a stop to
the profigate waste of public lands and
their diversion from actual settlers by the
party in power, which has squandered
two hundred millions of acres upon rail-
roads alone, and out of more than thrice
that aggregate has disposed of less than
sixth directly to tillers of the soil.
| Reform is necessary to correct the
omissions of Republican Congresses, the
error of our treaties and our diplomacy,
which have stripped our fellow-citizens
of foreign birth and kindred race, recro2-
ing the Atlantic, of the shield of Ameri-
can citizenship, and have exposed our
brethren of the Pacific coast to the inclr-
sions of race not sprung from the same
great parent stock, and, in fact, now, by
law, denied citizenship through natural
ization, as being neither accustomed to
the traditions of progressive civilization
nor fitted for the exercise of liberty un-
der equal laws. We denounce the policy
which thus discards the iberty-loving
German and tolerates the revival of the
Coolie trade in Mongolian women, i'm
ported for immoral purposes, and Mon
golian men hired to perform servile labor
contracts; and we demand such a modi-
6cation of the treaty with the Chinese
Empire or such legislation by Congress,
within a constitutional limitation, as
shall prevent the further importation or
immigration of the Mongolian race.
Reform is necessary and can never be
effected but by making it the controlling
issue of the elections, lifting it above the
false issues with which the ofice-holding
class and party in power seek to smother it
the false issue with which they would
enkindle the sectarian strife in respect to
the public schools, the support of which
belongs exclusively to the several States,
and which the Democratic party has
cherished from their foundation and re-
solved to maintain without partiality or
preference for any class, sect or creed,
and without contributing from the treas
ury to any; the false issue by which they
seek to light anew the dying embers of
sectional hate between kindred peoples,
once unnaturally estranged, but now re-
united in one indivisible republic and a
common destiny.
Reform is necessary i'll the civil service.
Experience proves that efficient, econom-
icaf conduct of the government is not
possible if its civil service be subject to
change at every election, be a prize
fought for at the ballot-box, be brief
rewarL of party zeal instead of posts OF
honor assigned for proved competency
and held for fidelity in the public en-
ploy; that the dispensing of patronage
should neither be tax upon the time oi
all our public men nor the instrument o1
their ambition. Here again promises
falsifed in the performance, attest that
the party in power can work out no prac-
tical or salutary reform.
Reform is necessary even more in the
higher grades of public service. Presi-
dent, Vice-President, Judges, Senators
Representatives, Cabinet officers, these
and all others in authority, are the peo
ple's servants. Their Offices are not 6
private perquisite they are public trust
When the annals of this Republic show
the disgrace and censure of Vice-Pres
| ident; late Speaker of the House o.
Representatives marketing his ruling as
presiding officer; three Senators profit
ing secretly by their votes as lawmakers
FIVE chairmen of the leading committees O.
the late House of Representatives exposed
in iobbery; late secretary of the treasu
ry forcing balances in the public accounts
a late encouragement misappropriatine
public funds; secretary of the navy en-
riched or enriching friends by percent
ages levied IF the profits of contractor!
with his dep; rtment; an ambassador tt
England censured in dishonorable spec
ulation; The Presidents private secretary
barely escaping conviction on trial fol
guilty completely in frauds on the reve'
nue.; secretary of war impeached fol
high crimes and confessed mis- iemeanor
the demonstration is complete that the
first step in reform must be the peoples
choice of honest men from another party
lest the disgrace of one political organi
zation infect the body polite, and there
by, taking no change of men or party
we can get no change of measures and ne
reform. All these abuses, wrongs ane
crimes are the product of sixteen years
ascendency of the Republicans them.
selves; but their reformers are voted
down in convention and displaced from
the cabinet; the party's mass of honest
voters is powerless to resist the eighty
thousand ofice-holders, its leaders ano
guides. Reform can only be had by q
peaceful civil revolution.
We demand a change of system
change of Administrations change Of
parties, that VIC may have change Of
measures and of men.