Belmont chronicle. [volume] (St. Clairsville, Ohio) 1855-1973, 1879-04-03

Here are serious questions of the rela-
tions between capital and labor: what
special fitness have they shown for leg
islatiOn upon that subject Only this
that eighteen years ago they struck out
for themselves in a new Government
whose cornerstone was the system of
slave labor. There is to-day no such
system in existence, and their acquaint-
ance with that of free labor and its rela-
tions with capital dates only from the
fall of their abortive Confederacy. Here
iS the system of internal revenue which
seems to have aroused the interest of the
late Confederate Vice-President, Mr.
Stephens, who says it should be thor
oughly- overhauled and changed: what
constitutes their fitness for this work !?
Only this: that their rebellion made the
system necessary, and that its collection
in the Southern States is attended with
more trouble and expense than any
where else because resistance to the law
is more general there. There are laws
to be passed and appropriations to be
made for the postal service: what con-
stitutes the qualifications of these gen.
tlemen for this duty? Nothing that we
know of, except that they come from a
section which has never paid for its own
postal facilities, but has always exhaust
ed the surplus derived from the profits
of. the service in the Northern States,
and required additional appropriations
from the Treasury to furnish its mail
accommodations. Did Mr.. Reagan, the
x-POstmaster-Gener of the COnfeder-
acy, show special fitness for legislating
upon this subject when he recommended
the payment of mail contractor who
was shown by the records of his own de-
partment to have been paid once al
ready2 Mr.. Stephens expresses a pur-
pose to repeal the law taxing State
banks, so that the several States may
charter banks of issue, as of old. No
one who is old enough to remember the
convenience and the beauties of the
State bank currency We enjoyed before
the war will after this question Mr.. Ste
phenss wisdom as legislator upon that
subject. States which repudiate their
bonds might perhaps charter banks
whose notes would circulate with those
of the National banks or with green
backs. 1t does not now seem probable
though.
But the great thing which all Demo-
Gratis unite in saying that the party was
brought back to power for is to repeal
the infamous election laws. And what
is their special fitness for this sort of
legislation? Well, only this: that among
the first offences for which this party
was repudiated by the people twenty
years ago, was its outrageous frauds
upon the ballot-box in Kansas, in the at
tempt of these gentlemen who have come
back to govern us to steal that State;
that, from that time on, they have nOtO-
riously defrauded the ballOt-bOx when
ever and wherever their needs required,
and opportunity offered, notably so in
this city, and that they have regained
their ascendancy in the National Legis-
lature by means of the most unblushing
frauds at the polls in the Southern States
that were ever known even in that par
ty's history. That qualities them to be
the protectors of the ballot and to legis-
late wisely for the freedom of elections.
These are the men and this the party
the Government and sweep away the
legislation of eighteen years of Rad
ical misrule." They make no bones of
saying so. They are not slow to an
nounce their mission, nor are they mod
est in picking up the incidental official
spOils. As for us, we make no COM
plant; we have no disposition to say a
word to revive the animosities of the
war. But the calmness with which
these people come forward to make our
laws upon all these varied questions,
and the assurance with which they as
sumo. that they have been called in to
overturn existing things and build anew,
must naturally challenge inquiry as to
their qualifications for so large task,
and the preparatory school in which
they were fitted for it. n. Y. Tribune.