New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1878-01-28
TILE LENSON OF OISHONOR.

The vote in the Senate on the question
whether the United States should keep faith
with its creditors has struck the commercial
world with dismay There Is 10 reason why
it should have caused any surprise. For weeks,
for months our bankers and business men have
been protesting mildly against the silver delu-
son but refusing to believe that anything so
had as the threatened violation of our National
faith could possibly he forced through Con-
gress. Politicians have gently deplored the
evil tendencies of parties; and telling their
friends in private that it was "a great pity"
rcpudation should be popular, have
carefully held their tongues i'll public
and suffered the Government to drift
on toward the abyss. But all this
while we have had multiplied warnings
of the impending disaster The boasts Of the
communistic, rcpudiating and disloyal factions,
and the careful Investigations of the news
paper correspondents, ought to have fully pre-
pared the country Tor the trouble that Is now
upon it. EvcrY man who has taken the trouble
to watch the signs OF the times, and certainly
every man in Congress, has been prepared for
it, If the resistance to the schemes OF the re-
INDICATORS has been feeble, dcsultory, half
hearted, perhaps even inslncere, it cannot he
plcadcd i'm excuse that the defenders of the
countly's honor were taken by surprise. What
ever they have done, whatever they have
failed to do, they have acted with their eyes
wide open.
Look at the course Of the c0nflct--if that
can be called conflict where there was so
much energy and assurance on one side and
so little on the other. There was not crazy
believer in rag money III all the West who
did not throw himself heart and soul into this
movement for driving honest coin out Of the
country There was not an adventurer and
rascally speculatOr who did not stake his for
times upon return to inflated prices and
nuctuating values. There was not bonanza
mine owner who could not well afford to spend
millions, n it ny0uld avail, to get his ores
coined into dollars at the expense Of the pco-
pie. There was not dishonest debtor i'll all
the land who did not hail the promise OF
base coin by which lie believed that
he could cheat his creditors. There was
not Il rampant enemy Of tie Union who
did not labor with all his might to blast IFS
good repntc Every man who opposed the
war fifteen years ago strcnnousiy opposed now
the honest payment Of the war debt. Every
man who kept up "a fire III the rear OF the
Union armies when they were fighting the
rebellion, now transferred his luminosity to the
"bondhodels" who lent the money by which
the armies were sustained Mr. Voorhees,,
with other COppcrheads, denounced the issue
of paper dollars III 1862 because they were
needed for the expenses Of the war, and in
sisted that the Government should use moth
ing but gold because lie believed that il could
not get the gold, and so must stop
the war; and now he turns right
about, demanding a deprecated silver dollar
as a preparation toward aboishng COIN alto
gethcr, and swapping the finances with un-
! limited paper. He and all his fellows and
allies were in dead savage earnest; aud they
carried thousands and thousands of unthink-
ing people with them. as earnest men always
do.
What have the hard money advocates or
those who ought to he hard money advocates,
been doing in Congress during the progress of
this frantic ASSAULT Quarrelng about Gus.
tom Houses and the war of 1912. We recog-
nize, cordially, the isolated efforts of some
three or four sound economists, especially of
those who have had the courage to contradict
fine Drcyaiiing sentiment of their section and