The Louisiana Democrat. [volume] (Alexandria, La.) 1845-1918, 1876-10-25

| iooUCAo OuilOuCC
officials ard bankrupts honest merchants
ton shall be only for revenue. Reform il
necessary in the scale of public expenses
! Federal, State and municipal.
FEDERAL TAXATION HAS SWOLLEN
from $16,O0O,O0O gold in 1860 to $450,OOO,
900 currency in 1870; our aggregate taxa
ton from 1884 100000 gold in 1860 tt
S730,000,O00 currency in 1870, or in one de
cade from less than five dollars per hea(
to more than eighteen dollars per head
Since the peace the people have paid tt
| their tax gatherels more than thrice the
sum of the national debt, and more thar
twice that sum for the Federal Govern
ment alone. We demand a vigorous fru
gality in every department and from every
officer of the Government. Reform is ne.
cessary to put stop to the prof1igate
waste of public lands and their diversion
| from actual settlers by the party in power
which has squaudered two hundred mil
| lions of acres upon railroads alone, and
out of more than twice that aggregate
has disposed of less than sixth directly
to tillers of the soil. Reform is necessary
to correct the
| OMISSIONS OF A REPUBLICAN CONGRESS,
and the errors of our treaties and our di.
plomacy which have stripped our fellow
citizens of foreign birth and kindred race
recrossing the Atlantic of the shield of
American citizenship, and have exposed
our brethren of the Pacific slope to the in
Gursions of a race not sprung from the
same great parent stock-in fact now de-
MED by law citizenship through naturali-
cation, as being neither accustomed to the
exercised in liberty under equal laws
We denounee the policy which thus dis
cards the liberty loving German, and toll
crates the revival of the coolie trade in
Mongolian women imported for immoral
purposes, and Monaghan men hired to
perform seryiie- labor contracts, and de-
mahd such modification of the treaty with
the Chinese Empire, Or such legislation
by Congress within a constitutional lmi-
tation, rs shall prevent the further impor-
tation or immigration of the Monaghan
race. Reform IS necessary, and can never
be effected but by making it the control
ling issue of the elections, and lifting it
above the two false issues with which the
office-holding class and the party in power
seek to smother it. The; false issues with
which they would enkindle sectarian.
strife in respect to the public schools, of
which the establishment and support be-.
long exclusively to the; several States, and
which the Democratic party has cherished
from their foundation and resolved 'to
maintain without partiality or preference
for any class, sect or creed, and without
contributing from the treasury to ahysLj
The false issue by. which they seek to
light anew the dying embers of sectional
hate between two kindred peoples once
unnaturally estranged, but now reunited
in one indivisible Republic and common
destiny. s#& 81"
REFORaI IN CIVIL SERVICE.
Reform is necessary in the civil service.
Experience proves that efficient economi-
cal conduct of the governmental business
is not possible if its civil service he sub
jected to change at every election, and be
a purse offered at the baiiot-box as q brief
reward of party zeal, instead of posts of
honor assigned for proved competency
held for fidelity in the public employ
That the dispensing OF patronage should
neither be tax upon the time of all our
public men, nor the instrument of their
ambition. Here again professions. falsi-
fed in the performance. attest that The
party in power can work out 10 practical
or salutary reform. %''<'i5s'o e'i@ .ae.
REFORM IN HIGH PLACES.
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 a
private perquisite; they are a public
trust. When the annals of this Republic
proclaim the disgrace and ceusure of a
President; q late Speaker Of the
House of Representative marketing his
ruling as a presiding officer; three Sena-
tors profting secretly by their votes as
lawmakers; five chairnten of the leading
committees of the late House of Represen.
tatives exposed in jobhery; late Secreta-
ry of the Treasury forcing balances in the
public accounts; a late Attorney General
misappropriating public funds; Secreta-
~ of the Navy enriches or enriching
friends by per centages levied off the profits
of contractors with his department.; an
Ambassador to England concerned in
a dishonorable speculation; the Presidents
private Secretary barely escaping convic-
ton, upon trial, for guilty completely in
frauds upon the revenue; a Secretary of
War impeached for high crimes and con-
fessed misdemeanors; the demonstration is
complete that the first step must be the
public choice of honest men from another
party lest the disease of one political
organization upset the whole body polite,
and thereby making no change of men or
party, we can get no change of measures
and no reform.
All these abuses, wrongs and crimes,
the product of sixteen years of ascendancy
of the Republican party, create,a necessity
for reform confessed by the Republicans
themselves. But their reformers are vo-
ted down in convention and displaced
from the Cabinet. The party's mass Of
honest votes is powerless to resist the
eighty Thousand ofice-h holders, It's leaders
and guides Reform can only be had by a
peaceful civic revolution. We demand a
change of system, a change Of administers
tration, change of parties, that we may
have change of men.
ALL the monopoies with which
our distressed people are burthened
are the outgrowtb of Republican rule.
The Republican party has never al :
ated monopoly. The Democratic
has never creaed one. The Republi-
can party always multiplies legis q
ton. The Democratic party persis-
tently removes bad laws from the
Statute book.
GOVERNOR Tilden reduced the
tax of the State of New York the
first year of his administration, 81,
500. Sol Al: in the second year the