Clarksville weekly chronicle. (Clarksville, Tenn.) 1873-1890, 1876-09-02
GO TO TIE NAVY DEPARTMENT


The expenses of this bureau for the
fourteen years before the war were 1884,
100000, or averaged something over
II, 100000, year. Its expenses since
the war for eleven years have been over
381, 100000, averaging thirty or
nearer 5000, 900 a year.
Our navy then has cost us three
times as much per annum since the
war as it did before, which we should
not grudge if it left us an efficient sea-
going navy; but the reports of all our
naval officers made it evident that we
have a rotten lot of unseaworthy ships.
the greater part of which would be
blown out of the water the first month
of any war we might get into with a
third rate power.
Now which are the best agents for
spending your money, the parties who
carried on the government with efici-
ency and moderation before the war,
or the men who have wasted your
money with such astounding extrava-
gance ?
Since 1874 we have had Democratic
House of Representative. As soon as
they took their seats they set them
selves to work as guardians of the pub
lie purse in reducing the expenditures
of the nation. Thwarted and impeded
at every step by the efforts of the rad
ical minority in the House, the radical
majority in the Senate and the Presi-
dent and his cabinet, they have never
theless succeeded in reducing the esti-
mates g, 900 900, of dollars, and would
have made the saving 64,OOO,0OO, but
for the pertinaeious opposition they
met with.
All this extravaganza naturally sug-
gests corruption.
We have not space to follow the
Governor throughout his black record
of the shameless populations of the
highest officer Of Government, the gifts
so profusely showered upon the Presi-
dent, the briberies of Belknap, the
populations of the Naval Department,
theeomplicity of the Treasury with the
MeDonalds and JOyces, the nefarous
promotion of the Emma Mine by
Schenck when Minister to England,
the versatile intervention in every form
of rascality by Babcock. All these
are familiar to our readers.
But what" asks the Governor.
What is the answer when all these
things are brought home to the Radi-
cal administration?
Always the bloody shirt. Negro dis
turbances fostered by the Radical party
occasional collisions - blood, some
times of white men, sometimes ofblack.
RECONSTRUCTION.
The matters Of detail concluded.
and our meagre outline has done but
scanty justice to them, the address rose
to a high tone of eloquence as he spec
ulated on what might have been if
those who undertook the rehabilita-
ton of the country had been capable
of rising to higher plane than that of
party expediency. He said that the
men who fought this war went into it
with honest convictions. whatever may
be thought of their judgement in the
matter; that after having fought it out
with spirit of consistency and endur-
ance which extract admiration even
from their enemies, they bowed to des-
tiny and surrendered with equal hon
osty of purpose. Much might have
beea done by meeting them in a spirit
of Cancellation. They came out of the
war with no other purpose, no other
aspiration than a restoration of the
Union, no other hope than in peace
able life under the institutions of that
which was still their country, no other
allegiance than to that country's flag
s.--y i.as mo- otner country, no other
flag. Theparty 10 power choose rather
totreat them as enemies, and while they
professed to have been eontending four
years for the Union, angrily repealed
all advances towards a unity of feel
ing. The consequences ofeleven years
of this policy are plain enough, the !
nation is tired of them and longing for