The Republican. [volume] (Oakland, Md.) 1877-current, 1878-09-14
President HAYES at St. Pail.

full of suggestions OF hope ana en-
for the future. Mr..
Hayes is obviously man of natur-
ally cheerful and sanguine Iempera-
ment. His whole administration
has given evidence of this fact, and
no doubt to this circumstance some
what of the tone of this speech is due.
The President is seldom disposed to
dwell long upon the dark side of
things, and certain degree of politi-
cal optimism seems to characterize
most of his views both of men and
events. Making all due allowance,
however, for this natural inclination
of the Presidents mind, nothing can
take away from or lessen the force
and effect of many of the facts and
figures which he presents. He re-
views the material progress Of the
country for the past ten years for the
purpose of showing that during that
period there has been steady and
marked improvement in our finan-
cial condition; that we have been
gradually reducing our Indebtedness
that while we pay a smaller amount
of interest upon the public debt a
larger proportion of that interest is
payable at home that there has been
a considerable reduction in the ex-
penditures of the general govern
ment, and consequently in the burden
of taxation that our paper currency
has greatly improved in value and
stability, and that the condition of
our foreign trade is also highly
favorable. All this, it must be adj
mitted, the President shows to dem
onstration, and he does it in no
apparent spirit Of partisanship. 1t
is unfair to call his speech stump
speech, or to regard it in the light Of
a contribution on the part of the
Chief Magistrate to the republican
canvass in the Northwest, though it
is very capable of being perverted to
such a purpose. Democrats may
claim as much credit as they please
for the economies which they have
forced upon a republican administra-
ton. The facts which the President
adduces are full of comfort for men
of all parties and of every section Of
the country. The speech was a par
ticularly happy one to he addressed
to an agricultural community. The
only differences which the President
assumes to draw from the facts and
figures which he cites upon the sub
iect Of the reduction of the interest
bearing debt, Of expenditures, and OF
taxes, and the improvement of the
currency and of trade, are the impor-
lance and necessity of preserving an
unstained national honor and sound
constitutional currency. 1t Is i'm
possible, however, for the intelligent
reader, be he Western farmer or
Eastern mechanic, who considers
and ponders the facts presented by
the President, to resist the further
conclusion that the country is surely
and steadily on the road to returning
prosperity-On the ascending grade,
as the President puts it-and that
there is no need of resorting to new
tangled theories and notions OF GOV
eminent or finance to hasten that
progress, and that the best govern
mental policy is to let well enough
alone. The Presidents speech is a
complete cOnfutatiOn of those melan-
choly prophets who insist that the
worst has not come yet, and that
unless their warnings are needed and
their remedies adopted the country
will be plunged into bankruptcy and
ruin. at the same time Mr.. Hayes
is wise enough to indulge in no prop
hesies himself. Indeed there is no
need to prophesy. The simple his
tory of the past ten years-the COM
parison between the amount of the
debt, of federal expenditures and
taxation, and the state of the curren-
cy and of trade then and now, carry
their own argument with them. The
moral which they point is too plain
to be missed. Let us hope that the
Presidents agricultural hearers IN
the great farming State of Minnesota
and his readers everywhere, will
seize that moral and apply it fol
themselves. Properly applied II
will be found the antidote to many
of the worst and most dangerous
financial heresies of the day. Hy-
pochondria is itself a disease, and
there are few worse conditions than
/ that of perpetual craving for drugs
and medicines. It were sincerely to
be wished not only that the Presl'