New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1879-07-26
GENERAL EWINGS "KET:NO1E.o


some disagreeable facts in his Ohio canvass.
If he could only say resumption was failure,
or that there was q chance for it 10 break
down, or if he could point to the
continuance of hard times, depressed in
dustries, financial distress, high rates
of interest and on, as showing the
bad effects of the Republican financial policy,
and could hold out the glittering promises
with which he and his Greenback cOadjutors
fooled so many voters before resumption had
been reached, he would find his task compar-
| atively easy. So long as the country was SUI
| feIing from the commercial depression and
! economical disturbances of these past six
wears. the raging financial quacks who
placarded the country with their adyer-
| tisements and peddled their cure-alls from
| wagon tails at county fairs and cross roads,
| had pretty free swing, easy time, and a
| good market. They had only to use the
methods and issue the promises and guaran-
tees of the quack, and make the most
of their harvest time. Like a sick man
who after excessive drains upon his con-
stitution has suddenly broken down and
begun all at once to experience the effects
of a wild life and disslpated career, the cOun-
try found itself in 1878, after a long course
of initiation, extravaganza, OveT-pr0ductlOn,
and speculation, in a state of collapse, As
naturally as the quacks in medicine flock to
the bedside of the sick man with their pills
and potions, the quacks in finance gathered
with their roots and herbs and mild decOctiOns,
their sovereign remedies and sure cures,
to the side of the body polite. While
science traced intelligently the causes of
=, Iha1 arAfu MI
treatment, low diet, abstinence, patience and
slow but sure recuperatlon, quackery dis
puted the necessity for any change i'll habits
or cessation Of self-indulgence, and promised
effusivelv to reGstabish the patients health
with the old stimulant of imitation, doctored
up little and newly labelled.
G aneral Ewing and his kind had a compare
lively easy time at the first. There were large
numbers of people all over the country who
preferred to continue the stimulant rather
than come down to the practice of abstinence
and sef-denial, and submit TO the heroic treat
ment. They were anxious to believe the assur-
ances of the pert doctors and quacks, and to
try the experiment, at any rate, so familiar
to old topers, Of tapering OF. With those
people the new party made swift Roadway.
General Ewing and General Sam Cary and
the rest of the doctors of the new school had
only to say to them: 4" The only money we
"have had in use for more than 80 years is
" that issued by the Government. AL our
80 financial troubles are due to the lack of
"mOney. That is what makes an in
"diyidual poor, and logically what con-
"sttutes the poverty and distress of a
"natiOn. The remedy for it is as plain
"as a multitude of pikestatfs. Let the Gov
"ernment make and issue more money! And
it ras very simple. To persons whose think
ing is confined to single process, and who
get tired with more than one jump from prem
Use to conclusion. it was plausible and pleas
ing. Natural finance commended itself
at once to the natural instinct 1t was
much easier for the balf-thinkeTs to ac-
company the quack in his short pro-
cess and accept his quick conclusion, than
TO go OIL with the intricate and tlresome rea-
soning of the men who disputed their posi-
ton. Many went into the Greenback move
ment from purely selfish and dishonest mo-