Belmont chronicle. [volume] (St. Clairsville, Ohio) 1855-1973, 1876-07-06

by half our people. 1t costs the people five
times more then it produces to the Treasury,
obstructs the processes of production and
wastes the fruits of labor. 1t promotes fraud
and fosters smuggling, enriches dishonest Of
| ficials and bankrupts honest merchants We
demand that all Custom House taxation shall
be only for revenue.
Reform is necessary in the scale of pub
lie expense-Federal, State and Municipal.
Our Federal taxation has swollen from $780,
600, ,000 in gold, in 1860, to $3.50, ,0O0 600, cur
rency, in 1870. Our aggregate taxation from
1854, ,000, 900 in gold in 1860 to $3.50, 0O0, 900
in currency in 1870, or in one decade from
less than five dollars per head to more than
eighteen dollars per head.
Since peace was restored the people have
paid to the tax gatherers more than thrice the
sum of the national debt and more than twice
that sum for the Federal Government alone
We demand a vigorous frugality in every de-
partment and from every officer in the Gov
ernment.
Reform is necessary TO put a stop to the
profigate waste of public lands and their di-
vision from actual settlers by the party in
power, which has squandered two hundred
millions of acres upon railroads, 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 Republi-
can Congress and the errors of our treaties and
our diplomacy which have stripped our fellow
citizens of foreign birth and kindred race, re-
crossing the Atlantic, of the shield of Ameri-
can citizenship, and have exposed our breth-
ren of the Pacific coast of the ineursions of
race not springing from the same great parent
stock, and in fact now by law denied citizen
ship through naturalization, as being neither
x1l ~ af
civilization nor exercised in liberty under
equal laws. We denounce the policy which
thus discards the liberty loving American and
tolerates the revival of the CoOlie trade In
Mongolian women imported for immoral pIr-
poses, and MoDgolan men held to perform
servile labor contracts, and demand such modi-
fcation of the treaty with the Chinese En-
pire, or such legislation by Congress within
constitutional limitation as shall prevent the
further importation or immigration of the
Mongolian race.
Reform is necessary, and can never be eff
fected but by making it the controlling issue
of the elections, and lifting it above the two
false issues with which the officeholding class,
and the party in power seek to smother it.
The false issue with which they would en-
kindle sectarian strife in respect to the public
schools, of which the establishment and sup
port belonging exclusively to the several |
States, and which the Democratic party has |
from their foundation, and is resolv- |
ed to maintain without partiality or preference !
for any class, sect or creed without contribu-
ting from the treasury to any. The false is
sue by which they seek to light anew the dy- |
ing embers of sectional hate between kindred
people once unnaturally estranged, but now
reunited in one indivisible republic and COM
mon destiny.
;o int fhaC Civil
Derience proves that efficient economical con-
luct of the governmental business is not pos
ible if its civil service be subject to change at
every election, be a prize fought for at the
)allot box, be a brief reward of party zeal in
tead of posts of honor assigned for proved
and held for fidelity in the public
,mploy. That the dispensing of patronage
hould neither be tax upon the time of all
,ur public men, nor the instrument of their
mbition. Here, again, professions falsifed
n the performance attest that the party in
,ower can work out no practical or salutary
eform. '
+ grades of public service, President, Vice
President, Judges, Senators, Representatives
nd Cabinet officers. These and others in au-
hority are the peoples servants. Their off,
es are not private perquisite. They are
ublic trust. When the annals of this repub-
c show the disgrace and censure of a Vice !
resident, a late Speaker of the House of Rep
marketing his rulings as a presi-
ing officer, three Senators profiting secretly
y their votes as lawmakers, five chairmen of {
be leading committees of the late House of I
exposed in jobbery; late /
ecretary of the Treasury forcing balances in [
ne public accounts, late Attorney General
public funds Secretary of I
ne Navy enriched or enriching friends by per ,
entages levied off the profits of contractors =
nth his department.; an ambassador to En- =
land censured in dishonorable speculation;
ne Presidents Private Secretary barely esca-
ing conviction upon trial for guilty compli- 10
ty in frauds upon the revenues Secretary of {
Var impeached for high crimes and confessed C
r
The demonstration is complete that the first U
ep in reform must be the peoples choice of b
Dnest men from another party lest the dis O
.se of one political organization infest the
)dy polite, and lest by making no change Of n
en or party we can get no change of meass o.
res and no reform. All these abuses, wrongs :.
Id crimes, the product of sixteen years as g
ndancy of the Republican party create ne r
ssity for reform confessed by the Republi- e
ms themselves; but their reformers are voted p
,wn in Convention and displaced from the
ibinet. The party's mass of honest voters
powerless to resist the eighty thousand Of
e holders, leaders and guides.
Reform can only be had by peaceful civic Ia
volution. We demand change of system, nj
change of administration and a change of :,
rites that we NAV have q change of men, | u