Bristol news. [volume] (Bristol, Va. & Tenn.) 1867-189?, 1876-07-04

hausting all our surplus income, and
while annually protesting TO intend a
speedy return to specie payments, has
annually enacted fresh hindrance
thereto.
We denounce the resumption clause
of the act of 1875, and we demand its
repeal. We demand judicious sys-
tenn of preparation by public eCOno-
mics, by official retrenchments and
by wise finance, which shall enable
the nation soon to assure the whole
world of its perfect ability and its per-
feet readiness to meet any of its prom
Uses at the call Of the creditors entitled
to payment.
We believe such a system we'll de,
vised, and above all, entrusted to COM
petent hands for its execution, Great
ing at no time an artificial scarcity of
currency, and at no time alarming the
public mind into a withdrawal of that
vaster machinery of credit by which
95 per cent of all business transactions
are performed.
A system open to the public and in
spring general confidence, it would
from the day of its adoption bring
healing on its wings to all our harrow
ed industries, set in motion the wheels
of commerce, manufactures, and the
mechanical arts, restore employment
to labor and renew in all its national
source the prosperity of the people.
Reform is necessary in the the sum
and mode of Federal taxation to the
end that capital may be set free from
distrust and labor lightly burdened.
We denounce the present tariff
levied upon nearly four thousand
articles as masterpiece of injustice,
inequality and fale pretense. 1t yields
dwindling. not a rising, revenue. 1t
has impoverished many industries to
subsidize a few. 1t prohibits imports
that might purchase the products of
American labor. 1t has degraded
American commerce from the first to
an inferior rank upon the high seas,
1t has cut down tho sales of American
manufactures at home and abroad and
depleted the returns of American
agriculture and industry, followed by
half our people. 1t costs the people
five times more than IL produces to the
Treasury, abstracts the process of pro-
ductiOn, and wastes the fruit of labor.
1t promotes fraud, fosters smuggling,
enriches dishonest officials and bank
rupts honest merchants,
We demand that all custom house
taxation shall be only for revenue.
Reform is necessary in the scale of
public expense. Federal, State and
municipal. Our Federal taxation has
swollen from sixty millions gold in
1850 to four hundred and fifty millions
currency in 1870, and our aggregate
taxation from one hundred and fifty.
four millions gold in 1860 to seven
hundred and thirty millions currency
in 1870, or in one decade from less than
SIS per head to more than SIS per head.
Since peace the people have paid their
taX-gathers more than thrice the sum
of the National debt and more than
twice that sum for the Federal Gov
eminent alone.
We demand vigorous frugality in
every department, and from every
officer of the Government. |.t.N
Reform is necessary to put stop to
the prohigate waste of public lands
and their diversion from actual settlers
by the party in power, which has
squandered 200 100000 of acres upon
railroads alone, and out Of more than
thrice that aggregate has disposed of
less than a sixth directly to tillers of
the soil.
Reform is necessary to correct the
omissions of Republican Congress
and errors of our treaties and our
diplomacy, 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 coast to the incursions of race
not sprung from the same great parent
otnnlY onA in nnf h., 10 ;oI
citizenship. Though naturalization,
is being neither accustomed to the
traditions of progressive civilization
nor exercised in liberty under equal
laws, we denounce the policy which
thus discards the liberty-loving Ger
man and tolerates the renewal of the
Coolie trade in Monaghan women inn
ported for immoral purposes, and
MongOlian men held to perform servile
labor contracts, and we demand such
modification of the treaty with the
Chinese Empire, or such legislation
by Congress, within constitutional
limits, as shall prevent further i'm
portation or immigration of the Mon
goilian race. ...... 81.
Reform is necessary and can never
be effected but by making it the con.
trolling issue of the elections and lift
Ing ii above the two false issues with
which the oflice-holding class and
party in power seek to smother it
The false issue with which they would
enkindle sectarian strife in respect to
the public schools, of which the estab-
lishment and support belong exclusive
ly to the Several States and which the
Democratic party has cherished from
their foundation, and is resolved to
maintain without Partially or creed
and without contributing from the
Treasury to any false issue by which
they see to light anew the dying en-
bers of sectional hate between kindred
people once unnaturally estranged, but
now reunited in one indivisi6le le-
public and common destiny.
Reform Is necessary in the civil
service. Experience proves that an
efficient and economical conduct of the
governmental business is not possible IL
its civil service be subject to change
at every election, and be prize fought
for at the ballot-bCx, be a brief party
zeal instead of post of honor assigned
for competency, and held for fidelity
in the public employ that the dispen-
sing of patronage should neither be a
tax upon the time OF all our public
men, nor the instrument of their am
bition. Here again professions falsi-
fled in the performance attest that the
party in power can work out no prac-
ticrl or salutary reform.
Reform is necessary even more in
the higher grades of public SERVICE
The President, Vice-P President, Judges,
Senators REPRESENTATIVES, Cabinet