The Ottawa free trader. [volume] (Ottawa, Ill.) 1843-1916, 1878-07-13
ALEXANDER CAMPBELL.

The nomination of Alexander Campbell fol
Congress by the National Greenback party, al
their convention last week, was of course 6
foregone conclusion. That it was done, how
ever in acknowledgment of his wei
known views on the finance question, rs u
greenback organ has it, is not so clear. Fol
many years past Mr.. Campbclls great hobby
was the issue of paper money made inercon
yertibie with low interest bearing government
bonds. The amount of paper money as vel
as of bonds to be issued was to be unlimited
that is, persons presenting bonds to the L. )
Treasury were TO have legal tender paper mon
ey for them equal to any amount of bonds they
Knight present, and on the other hand, par
ties offering government paper for bonds were
| to have them to the full amount of all the pa
| per they might present. Neither paper noI
bonds were ever to be redeemed in anything
else but paper money or bonds. This was the
great Campbell hobby from about 1860 up
But at the National Grecnback Convention in
this city, when delegates to the Morris conven-
ton were appointed, a friend Of Mr.. Campbell
said he was authorized to say that Mr.. G. had
wholly abandoned his interConvertiblc bond
and greenback scheme, but failed to state
what other scheme, if any, he had substi-
tuted for the old. Instead of Mr.. Campbell's
financial views being "well known" therefore,
we are really left in the dark as to his present
views.
While Mr.. c. is very amable and pleas
ant gentleman, and will therefore get many
votes out of personal regard and friendship, he
is really not at all the man we ought just now
to send to congress. The question of curren-
CIV. as dreamer and agtator IN regard to
which Mr.. Campbell alone has any reputation,
is really settled We are in few months to
have specie payment, and that once more real
lied, the county will never again, except I'M
der the stress of war or some other overwhclm-
ing necessity, consent to have any circulation
that shall not he equivalent to and convertible
into coin, and the amount Of such paper capa-
bic of being issued is always governed by
laws over which congress can exercise very
little control,
There being no need of plaguing the coun-
try further by sending professional financial
agitators to congress, the men this and all the
Illinois districts ought now to send are men
whocan forget they are finance philosophers
and great politicians and statesmen and can
come down to such common things as our To-
cal material interests For instance there
were by the last congress some eight millions
of dollars voted for the improvement of rivers
and harbors Every little creek and inlet in
New England got big slice of that sum. In
the west Wisconsin got $2500O for the Fox
and Wisconsin river improvement, work on
which the government has already spent sew
eral millions, and which is about as impracti-
cable as it would be to make our own Fox
river naygable for steamboats, from Ottawa to
Elgin. At the same time, here are the Illinois
canal and river, really commercial highways
of as much national importance as the Lakes
and Erie canal, that get a little annual driblet
of few thousands to be wasted by govern.
ment surveyors and engineers. We want to
send members to congress from Illinois that
can come down to practical things of this sort.
Our present delegation from Illinois have
shown themselves of no account whatever IN
looking after home interests. Let us for once
have few practical men. Would the Illinois
canal and river, does any one imagine, have
been passed over with little appropriation of
$4,000 for "dredging'-an utterly useless ex-
penditurc, by the way,-it we had had men
like Mr.. Reddick, Mr.. Steele, John Went
worth, b. c. Cook, or that class in congress
Why not once more send men of practical COM
mon sense? Who ever heard of Mr.. Campbell
bothering himself about such things while in
congress?