Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1879-07-11

creasng business activity and confidence
To what is this gratifying state of things
due? What influences have tended To-
bring it about? Nine-tenths ofthe intell-
igent business men in the country will
attribute this business revival and its i'm
mediate promise TO specie resumption.
So long as business men and capitalists
were unable to ascertain whether the
country would be permitted to return to
II specie basis or would again embark
upon the shorcless sea of paper money
initiation, there was no ground to hope for
better days. From the date of the meet
ing of the Forty-fifth Congress in the fall
of 1877 until it was proved that that body
could not. by legislation, defeat specie re-
sumption. there was state of anxiety in
business circles which rendered business
improvement impossible. The senseless
discussion OF the heresies proclaimed by
the Greenback leaders, Involving the issue
of millions of paper money, the practical
reputation of the public debt and the fatal
delusions of Communism, frightened cap
ital and paralyzed industrial enterprise
for time. When, however, it was ascer-
tanned that the last House was
unable to perpetrate the financial
folly and mischief which it had
planned, and when the fall elections
,royaI tho xpoalnacs of tho M rtv Of ;nao
ton and reputation in the North the
business and industry of the country be-
gan slowly TO take heart. As it became
more and more evident that the govern
ment would be able to resume specie pay
ments January |, 1879. confidence re-
turned. When at length specie payments
were accomplished without shock, and it
was seen that all the direful predictions of
widespread disaster made by greenback and
democratic leaders in the event of an at
tempt to resume specie payments were
groundless, confidence and courage made
rapid strides, until business improvement
is so general and SO apparent that only
reckless demagogues whose only hope OF
gain is in condition of general gloom
and distress are the ones who deny its ex-
istence.
The resumption act was the work of the
republican party. That it was not re-
pealed prior to the Presidential election of
1876 in compliance with the demands of
the Ewing democracy is due TO the almost
solid opposition of the republican party
in Congress. That it was not repealed in
the fall and winter of 1878 by the demo-
Gratis is because the republican party held
the Senate and republican President was
in the executive chair That the process
of preparation for resumption was not
hindered by the determined hostility of
the democratic majority in the House is
due to the persistence and skill of repub-
lican Secretary of the Treasury These
are facts which none can deny. II the re-
sumption scheme had resulted in the finan-
cial disaster which its opponents predicted
the republicans would have been charged
with the esponsiblity. Now thatthe repub-
lican plan has resulted in II most
gratifying success, because the re-
publican party had the courage to stake its
existence upon the issue, that party is en-
titled to the fullest credit for adhering to
a policy which has already worked won
ders-infusing life and courage into the
industries of the entire country.
Wherever the advocates of imitation her
estes have not learned from the logic of
events OF the past six months that their
cause is dead, and are trying to make
another stand for those ruinous heresies
which would have kept the industries of
the country in a state of hopeless inactivi-
ty, those who doubted last year or voted
the greenback-democratic ticket, hoping
thereby to find remedy, should now see
that prosperity has come through the sue
cess of the republican plan, and should,
as sensible men, caring for their interests,
support that party whose wisdom and
steadfastness made way for confidence and
an era of prosperity.