Belmont chronicle. [volume] (St. Clairsville, Ohio) 1855-1973, 1879-07-10
a CONTRAST.

The Democrats in Congress have load
ed the Record with whole volumes of
turgid rhetoric charging upon the policy
of the Republican party corruption and
ruin, and consigning it with savage in
vective TO the consuming wrath of a
virtuous and enlightened people. But
what is shown by comparison with the
financial policy offered to the country by
the Democracy in 1S60-61 and that of
our own presented to-day, in 1879? Up
to 1860 the Democrats had retained con-
troll of the Government for long series
of years, doing very much as they pleas
ed. The succeeded in bringing the coun-
try into such financial discredit that the
Government was unable to borrow the
funds needed for current expenditures at
even II per cent. interest, and as Sena-
tor Window truthfully said, six per
cent bond running for twenty yeaIs was
selling at S9.1 cents on the dollar, with
bidding even at that ruinous discount
weak and slow. What spectacle-the
great Republic seeking an indOrser for
its dishonored paper! Then we turn
from these shameful records of Demo
cratic misrule and disloyalty as shown
in 1S6O-61 to the magnificent triumphant
march of the Republican policy to the
highest credit and the greatest self-reli'
ance. Mark the contrast, continued
Window, as he fiayed the BOufbOns; in
1860 this nation, under Democratic rule,
sold its six per cent. bonds at S9.1 cents
on the dollar. In 1879, we the Republi-
cans sell the Nations four per cent.
bonds at 1O3! In 1860 this country had
to beg for an indorser to its paper. What
is it now under Republican manage
ment? Why, the financial world is ac-
tually begging for chance to buy its
four per cent. bondSi
What will Ewing's rant weigh against
these facts when they raise up with
startling clearneess and perfect honesty
before every man in this State who has
a tithe of landed or vested interest in its
welfare and strength? What signifies
this grotesque fostering of Union soldi-
ers who were shot at and through by
the bullets of the party whose ticket
they head in the coming State campaign,
when the record of that party is the
record of venal imbecility and dishon-
esty in the management of public af-
fairs which it absolutely controlled for
thirty years prior to its surrender, March
4, 1861? What did the Democratic par
ty, now posturing before the country in
Ohio as the savior of the Union, do dur
ing that awful season of rebellion when
the clangor of civil war tried mems
did it do? What word of
hope or courage did it offer? For the |
friends of secession, when did it utter
single word of condemnation? 1t sulk-
ed here at home in our midst, and sullen-
ly voted in October, 1864, as it voted in
every previous year of the rebellion. thai
the war was failure, and that we
ought to strike our colOrs. That was
Democracy in 1861, and it was DemOc-
racy in 1864, and now it seems that these
same Democrats have brought forward
two EX-Union Generals to swear that
they saved the Union. Of course we
know that Democrats volunteered in
Ohio and fought with the bravest of the
of them, and they de-
serve credit and honor for it-but these
did not then,nor do they now,
claim that the great majority of their
party ever believed in the truth or JUS
tice of our cause. The great vote which
the Bourbons cast for McClellen with
his platform of cowardly surrender will
ever live in the Record to the shame and
misery of the Democratic party.
The world has never witnessed any
greater triumph in arms or in finance
than those achieved by the Republican
party. Keep it before the people; hold
up high and plain to sight the
record of thirty years of Democratic rule
closing March 4. 1861, and the record
since under Republican rule as it staLds
,o-day, so that the people may see for
themselves the startling contrast -Cleve-
and Herald.