The New York herald. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1840-1920, 1876-06-22


zens and the common welfare. The second
resolution is mere buncombe and brag. The
third was adopted while the Convention was
squirting toward the Southern colored
delegates it was the Conventions milk and
water reply to the Rev. Henry High
land Garnet's plea that justice should
be done by the government to the
of over three millions of their hard
earnings by the republican managers of the
Freedman's Bank, and the resolution seems
to have been written by one of those inag-
NATIVE politicians who have ''soarings after
the infinite and divings for the unfathom-
able" but who never pay cash. Instead of
this buncombe the st. Louis Convention
would do just and also shrewd act if it
should adopt a resolution declaring that the
Freedman's Bank swindlers ought to be
prosecuted and that the government under
whose encouragement and authority the
freedmen were asked to deposit their small
savings in this bank is justly and morally re-
sponsible for the losses and ought to make
them good.
The fourth Cincinnati resolution relates
to the currency, and it carefully svades all
direct or practical committal of the party to
sound money. What is q continuous and
steady progress to specie payment" Clearly
the republicans did not mean resumption in
1879; for when that honest gentleman,
Governor Davis, Of Texas, offered.
plea for the Resumption act he was
contemptuously and summarily voted down
by the Convention. Nor can it be said that
the republican party has done anything
since General Grant came into power to set
tie the currency question. The volume of
currency is at this moment far greater, COM
pared with the business of the country, than
it was when the party made the declaration
in favor Of resumption, about which it has
ever since Dragged, and the Resumption act
of last session--an excellent measure-has
fallen into contempt and suspicion only be-
cause the republican administration has
treated it as nullity and paid not the
slightest attention to it. In consequence of
this neglect Of duty it may be now too late
to resume in 1879 T; but as the st. Louis
Convention will undoubtedly adopt hard
money platform why should it not solemnly
pledge itself to the country to bring it back
to specie payments. if not in 1879.
yet during. the four years which
are included in the next Presi-
Dental term? That would be practical
engagement, q promise for the fulflment of
which the people could hold the party re-
sponsible, and upon which business could
be based oil over the country. Such a
specific and definite pledge would secure the
support Of thousands of business men all
party anything to risk in making it, for its
struggle will be, aside from the South, in
hard money States, and with so practical
and square an engagement on the currency
question the democratic party would proba-
bly, carry more Eastern States than it needs
in November.
The fifth Cincinnati resolution is an ex-
tremely mild allusion to civil service reform.
II the st. Louis Convention should declare
for permanence in the lower offices, depend
ing only on efficiency and good behavior, it
would plnce itself on ground where, before an
other four years are past, both parties will be
compelled to stand; and if it should forbid
federal ofice-holders to interfere in politics
in the States where they hold place the dem
ocrats would commit themselves against
one of the most dangerous practices Of
which the republicans have been guilty, in
the South mainly, but also in the North.
The sixth resolution is also buncombe
Instead of that the democrats will probably
frame one demanding and promising econ
omy and retrenchment in government expen-
ditures and lower taxes-a policy which the
republicans not only did not dare to assert at
Cincinnati, but which the republican Senate
is now resisting even at the risk of embarrass-
ing the government The seventh resolu-
ton, relating to the grant of public funds to
verbatim at st. Louis. So far as the action
Of the federal government is concerned it
amounts to nothing, for the federal govern
ment has no occasion to make grants to Sec
tartan schools or other enterprises. So far
as the policy within the States is concerned
it has the consent Of all sensible men, Cath
olics as well as Professionals, and it aims to
cut of gifts which are rs often and in as
great sums made to Protestant as to Catho-
lie solicitors by State Legislatures.
II the democrats cannot frame a resolution
on the revenue more pointed and satisfactory
than No. 8 in the Cincinnati platform we
shall think little of them. A more in
genious straddling of the political fence they
cannot contrive. The ninth and tenth xeso-
lutions are good enough to copy. AS for the
rest--eleven, twelve, thirteen, fourteen,
fifteen, sixteen-they will probably find
their counterparts in the st. Louis platform
Everybody understands that they mean
nothing, but are merely complimentary--or
the reverse. But when the Cincinnati CON-
mittee, in its seventeenthly, at the close of
an Unfortunately long and meaningless series