Mexico weekly ledger., 1878-08-29

enriches dishonest officials and bank
rupts honest merchants. We de
mand that all custom-house taxatiol
shall be only for revenue. Reform
Is necessary in the scale of public ex-
pense, federal, state and municipal.
Our federal taxation has swollenfr from
sixty millions gold lii 1860 to forl
hundred and fifty millions currency
in 1870. Our aggregate taxation
from one hundred and ffty-four mil
lions gold in 1860 to W. hundred
and thirty millions currency in 1870;
Ill in one decade, from less than five
ioIlars per head to more than eigh-
teen dollars per head. Since the
peace the people have paid to their
tax-gatherers more than thrice the
sum of the national debt, and mort
than twice the sum for the federal
government alone. We demand q
rigorous frugality in every depart
ment and from every officer in the
government.
Reform is necessary to put a stop
to the profigate waste of public lands
and their diversion from actual set
tiers by the party in power which has
squandered two hundred millions of
acres upon railroads alone, and dis
posed Of less than a'sixth directly to
the tillers of the soil.
Reform is necessary to correct the
omissions of Republican congress
and the errors Of our treaties, and
our diplomacy, which has stripped
our fellow-citizens of foreign birth
and kindred race, re-erasing the At
lantic from the shield of American
citizenship, and has exposed our
brethren of the Pacific cosst to the
incursions of a ace not sprung fiom
the same great parent stock, and, in
tact, now by law DENIED citizenship
through naturalization ss being an
accustomed to the traditions of q
progressive civilization, n exercis-
ed in liberty under equal laws; and
we denounce the policy which thus
dscards the liberty-loving German
and t~olerates the revival of the Coolie
trade in Monaghan women, imported
for immoral purposes, and Mongo-
liam men held to perform servile labor
contracts.
Reform is necessary and can never
be effected but by making it the con-
trolling issue of the election and lift
ing it above the two false issues with
which the ofice.holding classes and
the party in power seek to smother
it.
First-The false issue with which
they would enkIndle sectarian strife
in respect to the public schools of
which the establishment and support
belong exclusively to the several
states and which the Democratic par
ty has cherished from their founda-
ton and is resolved to maintain with
out Partially or preference for any
class, ssct or creed and without con-
tributions from the treasury to any.
Second-The false issue by which
they seek to light anew the dying
embers of sectional hate between
kindred peoples nee unnaturally
estranged, but nov reunited destiny.
All these abuses, wrongs and
crimes, the product Of sixteen years
ascendency of the Republican party,
create a necessity for reform confess
ed by Republicans themselves; but
their reformers are voted down in
convention and displaced from the
cabinet. The party's of honest
voters is powerless to resist the eigh-
ty thousand ofice-holders, its lead
ers and guides. Reform can only be
had by q peaceful civic revolution.
We demand a change of system, g
change of administration, a change
of party, that we may have a change
| OF measures and of men.