The Ottawa free trader. [volume] (Ottawa, Ill.) 1843-1916, 1876-10-21
THE WAR CLAIMS BUGABoo AGAIN.

1t is sickening and pitlable to see with
what tenacity the republican organs, since
that overwhelming defeat ia Indiana has
shown the impotcncy of the bloody shirt as
an electioneering dodge, cling to the long
ago exploded southern war claims humbug
These papers, as a last, desperate resort, have
seized upon one bill, introduced at the last
session OF congress, and read twice and re.
ferred (all bills introduced, no matter what
their purport, are read twice and referrcd)
which proposes to allow claimants rent for
the use and occupation of property and
ground by the Union armies during the war.
Now under this bill, should it ever pass in
the crude form in which it was introduced,
which of course is not at all likely, these pa
pers say would authorize the payment OF rent
to the rebels for every battlefield on which
Union victories were won for every building
or even fort(D destroyed, and for every bale
of cotton burnt hog killed or chicken stolen !!
And one ingenious cypherer has figured II
out that the claims under this bill would
amount to $2,450,960, 762.S3!!
Now do not these fools know that the very
foundation stone of every claim sent to the
committee Oh war claims is the Loyalty of the
claimant, without convincing proof of which
the bill is at once rejected. More than that
the South is ten times poorer than the North,
few of the property owners during the war are
now there, their estates have been wasted,
sold by the sheriff or tax-gatherer aod are
gone to decay and ruin. The allowance of
So 900, 0OO, 900 of such claims would burden
the south more than the north with the debt
because the south is ten times less able than
the north to pay. Besides, this whole cry
rests on the assumption that the northern de-
mocrats are fools enough to destroy them
selves and all their party prospects by voting
money unjustly, foolishly and recklessly to
claimants 9-10ths of whom are dead, and
whose claims, if presented at all, would be
presented by an infamous brood of claim bro.
kers and lobby buzzards.
We commend to the Ottawa Republican,
which has gone into Mysteries on this sub
iect, the remarks of Mr.. Wall at the democra.
TIC meeting in South Ottawa on Tuesday eve
ming. The lobby system of working corrupt
Jobs through congress had its birth with the
republican party, and never flourishei until
the advent of the hldeously corrupt reign of
Grantism. In no other congress, since the
immortal declaration of 1116, except Grant
republican congress, with Morton and
Conkling in the Senate and Grant in The
executive chair, would it have been possible
to consummate such colossal rascalities as
were Involved in the Pacific railroad steals,
amounting TO over S9OO, 00O, coo of the peoples
money; the credit Mobilier thieveries, the
Boss Shepherd steals, the bond rascality of
the specie bill of 1869 and the decentralization
of silver IN 1873 If the people would have
perfect assurance of safety against the allow
ance of any of these rascally rebel claims, let
them therefore see to il that they never get
another Grant Hayes is nothing but third
term of Grant, in power, and never put into
both houses of congress SUCH be nd of thieves
as those who pushed through the great rob-
be-ies 10 which we have alluded. There is,
as Mr.. Wall most truly and forcibly said, no