New-York tribune., 1878-10-03
OLD TRUTHG


Certain amiable critics refuse to be pleased
with that part of Mr.. Conkling's speech which
related to the finances, because it contained
nothing new. The same objection lies against
the effective arguments of Grow and Blaine
and Garfield and Schurz and the recent con-
vincing talk of President Hayes. 1t ought
to occur to these dissenters, before their
unhappiness becomes chronic, that the
basement principles upon which every system
of rational finance rests, were none OF them
bedded down yesterday nor the day before.
They are about as old as human experience.
They have been tried and established, and
will remain the sure foundations, and the only
sure foundations, upon which can be con-
Quoted successful schemes of production
and barter, until civilization, as we know
it, gives place to some reconstructed form of
society of which we know nothing. We have
already had surfeit of novelties in the way
of financial theories and financial arguments,
and the whole question has been befOgged and
mystifed by clouds OF veIbiage until the
safest antidOte to the ruling heresies is
the simplest statement of elementary truth.
All these new theories which are capable of
any formulation, or which can be reduced to
Ineligible terms, need only to be translated
into plain language to stand as their own ref
utatiOn. How long would one be compelled
TO listen TO the campaign oratory of some
select statesman who wants to set the
country ballooning again on fictitious
credit before he heard it asserted, in
effect, that there is no such thing
as national sense of honor or of justice
tb,f hos n V1Uhf m rapu1iofp
its obligations because it has the power to do
so, and because it is uncomfortable to meet
them that the worst way to get rid of a debt
is to pay it that one promise can be kept by
making another; that mortgage can be
paid off with note; that Congress can
repeal the laws of the universe by
a joint resolution that government can create
something out of nothing that fuctuating
standard is better than a stable measure OF
value; that an evidence of debt is wealth !;
that it is The interest OF the labOring man TO
be paid for his work IN currency of most
uncertain purchasing power; that there is a
class of men who have rights, but no duties !;
that knavery is the best policy
1t certainly is not new argument which is
needed to oppose to statements like these,
which, under various DISCUSSES, are woven TO-
gether in tangle Of rhetoric and passion to
catch the unwary. The first necessity is to get
down out of the Clouds and the next is to take
II firm stand on first principles. 1t is not
an attractive task to keep repeating the
very elements Of moral and financial science,
and people who have a familiar mastery Of
these subjects are very apt to imagine that
nobody needs rudimentary instruction. The
rapid spread of the Greenback craze proves that
this is a fatal error. And those orators and
editors are doing the State best service who
insist most strenuously and most persistently
on those foundation truths which the accom-
phshed critics consider stale and Improbable,
and for which they would substitute discus
sions about something new" Nor should it
be quite forgotten that the proper enforce
ment and application of elementary principles
is always worthy of the best efforts of the
best minds,