The Portland daily press. [volume] (Portland, Me.) 1862-1921, 1877-08-24
OHIO CAMPAIGN.
Geo. HI. Pendleton and Tom Ewing ON
Labor and Finance.

COLUMBUS, Ohio, Aug. 22.-In speech to a
Democratic mass meeting tonight Geo. Ii.
Pendleton said:
Fellow Citizens-I speak to you tonight
because our country suffers, because honest,
Industrious men seek employment in vain. In
a word, the men are idle, the women suffering,
the children hungry, and all are unhappy.
Our industries are all deranged, business is
stagnant enterprise and energy sit with folded
hands, and all men look with anxiety for that
which shall come to pass. Now why is this?
There must be cause. What is it? One TACT
comforts us in this inquiry. The laws of taxa
ton and the laws of the tariff, the commercial
system, the financial system. These touch the
very lie and being of the whole social aud
industrial fabric. The Republican party has
established and administered these laws and
these systems. 1t has had power for half a
generation-since the war absolute swing. Once
only in that time has there been an adverse
House of Representatives. 1t has used this
power without stint; The internal revenue
system, even what is left of it, bears almost
entirely and very heavily upon Western indus
tries The tariff is an i'll adjusted tax. IL pro-
duces little revenue; it is extremely OnerOus on
those who import and pay duties.
The financial system, which may be briefly
stated as an immense public Indebtedness
payable in paper, has by the effect of two laws
been made payable in gold only, and thereby
has been increased 30 per cent Silver has
been demonetized, and gold, the only remain
ing legal tender for the bonds, has been en-
HANGED accordingly. The resumption of specie
payments has been ordered for January, 1879,
and no plan except the illegal contraction of
greenbacks or the impossible boarding of gold.
The first measure largely increased the
indebtedness, the second diminished the
currency in which that indebtedness can be
paid, the third effectually and necessarily
destroys the industries and energies by which
means of pay can be earned.
Mr.. Pendleton then reviewed at length the
action and platform of the Republican State
Convention, and continued: But when the
government assumes to take laborers under its
especial and parental care to make them the
wards of the nation. it belittles and Injuries
them. Labor should be free, untrammeled,
left to itself. Its contracts should be speedily en-
forced; its injuries should be speedily redressed
the burdens imposed upon it should be made as
ton furnished by the state should
If the government shall undertake to establish
partnership between capital and labor, and to
distribute profits according to law, or to estab-
lish special boards of arbitration to which labor
must submit its demands for the future as we'll
as its complaints for the past, it requires no
prophet to foresee that labor will be enveloped
in meshes through which capital will easily
escape. Capital will control the government.
and make laws and interpret them, and select
arbitrator to enforce their award. If any in
any interest should dread "entangling alliances
and demand fair field, it is labor; and say
this with an anxiety greater than care to ex-
press tonight. that labor should be relieved of
care and suffering. If every human being
could be elevated and made to take their proper
station as men, above forms, above property,
and above capital, would welcome the means,
whatever they might be.
The following is Gen. Ewing's speech:
Fellow Offensive are met after one of the
ffr,l snArr
lean people. A long political strife has happily
ended in the triumph of the Democratic prin-
cple, of local self-government, and another
equally protracted and momentous struggle is
now nearing its decisive day. For ten years
past, in violation of the constitution and of the
pledges on which the war was fought, the Re-
publican party held seven great states in mill
tary subsection, fastened on them the rule of
ignorance and vice, robbed them by intolerable
debt and taxation, fomented race and section
al hatred and prevented the restoration of that
free government and fraternal feeling, without
which war were vain and its fruits but ashes,
and for ten years past, in violation of its
duty to the great people who bore the heat and
burden OF the war, instead OF keeping our
vast debt at home as currency debt and leav-
ing our prosperous industries undisturbed by
contraction and forced resumption,i it has doub-
led the public burden by fraudulenty making
the greenoack debt coin debt, sold the bonds
abroad and made America the borrower, 1.-THE
servant of Europe the lender, demoralized the
silver at the demand of foreign shylocks and to
crown its blunders and crimes, paralyzed the
Astounding energies of our people by a scheme
of gold resumption which is filling the land
with bankruptcy and the hearts of the laboring
masses with despair.
Ewing then alluded to the result of the pres
idential election, claiming that Tilden was
elected and the people were bullied out of tn cir
choice for President. He then continued The
gold resumption law towers above all others as
the issue of this canvass The Republican par
ty is solely responsible for it and irrevocably
committed to its enforcement. 1t enacted that
law by strict party vote, stood by it through
out the last Congress in a solid phalanx. Its
President declared against any repeal or
amendment, and put its author in the treasury
to execute it, and now sends him to Ohio to
hide the hideous features of the law from the
people whose happiness and industries its has
destroyed. Mr.. Sherman boldly says at Mans
field that the law can, should and will be exc
cuted, while the silence of the Cleveland plat
form on this Republican measure only adds
the face of cowardce to the crime of its enact
ment and execution. On the other hand the
Democratic party is clearly and fully commit
ted against the law. Repeatedly in the last
Congress it voted for its unconditional repeal
1t passed through the house bill striking out
the most perniclous section.
The section of the bill which Mr..
Sherman smothered in the Senate and our Ohio
pIdtiOrm ILLS year, as ldSU u6CldT6u IOF Inc re-
peal of the whole law. The law involving as
it does the early and total destruction of the
greenback currency, and the larger part of the
national bank CURRENCY, is the sole cause of the
unparalleled distress which aff1icts all employ
ers and employed alike who are engaged in in
dustrial pursuits. We are told that the panic
of 1873 is partly the cause of our troubles. L
answer that it has long since ceased to trouble
ms. 1t was unlike all other revulsions, it has
no origin in the character ST the currency which
was increased in value in the public estimation
by the panic instead of being impaired
or destroyed by it. The country was rapidly
and obviously recovering from the panic Of
1873, when on the 14th of January, 1876 the
resumption law was enacted. If the panic
were the cause of Ithe present industrial dis
tress. the year 1874 would have shown more
business facilities than the years following.
The resumption law has already caused actual
and permanent contraction, first by the de-
structlon of greeDbacks from January IL, 1875,
to August IA, 1877, $22, 81 1882; second, by the
cancellation of bank notes from January IA,
1870 to August Il, 1877, .$36624,612; third,
cancel bank notes not yet actually cancelled,
$14, 425,026 Total, $73,S4O, 800. These figures
are those of Mr. Sherman's Mansfield
speech, except the last item, which he omits,
doubtless because this cancellation was not yet
actually accomplished. To this may be added
SCI. 900 help as private deposits, almost all
of which will probably be kept boarded in the
treasury, awaiting payment and cancellation;
and thus we have an effectual contraction, as
thown by the books of the treasury, of $13l,-
03O 800. This is exclusive of any part of the
$44, 100000 of coin and currency which Sher-
man intmates that he has accumulated in the
execution of the resumption law.
He does not tell what part of it is legal ten
ders nor explain by what authority of law he is
boarding paper currency for resumption. Add
to this large sum 500, 100000 estimated to be
elsewhere boarded solely because business is
paralyzed and credit stopped, and the enter
prise has become pernicious under the accumu-
iatlng disasters threatened and accomplished by
forced contraction, and we have as the work of
the first nineteen months of preparation for re-
sumption an actual destruction of one-tenth of
the currency and withdrawal from business
of nearly one-third of it, An equal destruc-
ton and boarding will by resumption day leave
in actual circulation but little over one-third
of the currency that we had at1oat when the
contraction fcrew was put in operation, but we
shall then have a gold currency instead of
greenbacks, say the resumptionists. Not at
all. None of the gold will be in circulation.
The banks must have it to redeem their notes,
even if they buy it at premium.
do not understand how any sensible man