Clarksville weekly chronicle. (Clarksville, Tenn.) 1873-1890, 1877-05-19
OPINION In TENNESSEE ON THE
PUBLIC DEBT.

We have been careful to keep our
readers posted regarding the spirit |
of our daily and weekly contempt
raries in reference to the liabilities |
of the State. We consider this to
be, especially at this time a most |
important topic, for on the expires
sion of public opinion during the
next few weeks depends the action |
which will probably be taken in the
premises at the extra legislative ses-
sion, if one should be called, de
ponds, also the expediencey of call
ing one at all. We have more than
once made these extracts the subject
OfunfavOrable comment. Last week
we gave two quotations from papers
which held sOunder opinions,
though one of them was, we think,
needlessly Respondent on the sub
ject; this week we call the attention
of our readers to two important doc
uments bearing upon the subject,
viz: the very able editorial article
extracted from the Baltimore Sun,
on our first page and the proceed
ings of a public meeting of Robert
son county voters held at Spring
field last week. Both these furnish
matter for reflection, but we must
pause for a few words in reference to
the articles quoted in our last weeks
issue, which for want of room we
were compelled to present without
note or comment. They were from
the Knoxville Tribune and the
Brownsville Democrat. OF the for
mer we will only say that it was
relief to us to read it. We had read
so much of tempOrising and tamper-
ing with the State debt question in
many of the Tennessee papers, with
not little barefaced dishonesty, that
it was like a shower in the desert to
the patriotic and plain-speaking
sentiments of our East Tennessee
contemporary. The Brownsville
paper thinks that the sixty per cent.
proposal of the arbitration commit
tee was never before the Legislature,
inasmuch as it was not a proposal
of the bOndhOlders but an after
thought of the arbitration commit
tee, and that therefore whatever the
Legislature might think it right to
do in the way of funding the bonds
at a discount on theIface of them, it
ought to have done on its own mo-
ton, and not as upon a position of
the bOndhOlders. AT the same time
he plainly calls the transaction ga
humbug and sharp practice on our
part" whether we make such a pro-
position to our creditors or compel
them to make such proposition.
Fully agreeing with our cOntempO-
rary in the last sentiments, we must
differ with him as to his first prOpO-
sition. The bOndholders who orig
inally proposed the arbitration COM
mittee were, as we are informed on
the highest authority, in cOnsulta-
ton with the arbitration committee
throughout and were as ready to ac-
cept their second proposition as their
first, and, suppOsing it closed with
by our Legislature there is no doubt
of other bOndhOlders coming in.
The gentlemen actually represented
owned about 81, 100000, of the
bonds and the plainest cOnsidera-
lions of self-interest would dictate
to all other bOndhOlders to fall into
any arrangement which they might
make.
So far we have confined our quo
tatiOns and cur comments to papers
published within the State; the ex-
tract we giveOn our tirstpage is from
a Baltimore paper of high respecta-
bility. 1t is not the Only paper we
have read from without the State,
indeed friends have handed us ar
ticles from several other papers,
which they have urged us to TepUb-
IiSh; we have been deferred from
doing so by the partisan char
acter of most of them-we are anXi-
Gus to get this question outside of
party politics there is much
worth considering in them. One of
them for instance, the Louisville
Commercial, after some undeniable
structures on the ability of Tennessee,
To pay her debts if she will and the
iniquity OF not doing so, takes Occa-
sion to speak of our State delin-
QUences as a stigma on the Demo-
cratic party in Tennessee, and to
intimate that the whole Democratic
party is stamped with the same ten
dency To dishonOrpublic obligations.
Those who have knowledge of poll
ticsin Tennessee, know how baseless
this charge Is, they know that the
whole danger from the low tax par
ty mt the last election, arose from a
coalition between the Radicals and
sOre-head Democrats, against the
true Democratic party, rs defined in
its platforms, and they know that
the negroes of the State are Radi-
Gals and rupudiators almost to a
man ;Sbut outside of the State, the
scandal does attach to the Demo-
cratic party and needs decisive de-
monstration ON the part of that
party to throw it off. The action of
ourlaSt Legislature nd that Ofthere-
cent public meeting ut Sprintield are
not calculated to remove the inn
preston.
We proceed however to the paper
we have reprinted from the Balti-
more Sun. This is no partizan af-
fair and it comes from no decrier of
the South, on the contrary its au-
thor evidently desires to think kind
" and speak kindly of the people
of Tennessee, as identified in inter
est with those of Maryland, and he
gives a candid review ofthe circum-
-+onapS which have cOOtTi butou so