The Portland daily press., 1879-07-25
THE GREENBACKERS.
Scion Chase Attempts to Ans wer Secre-
tary Sherman.

Scion CT ase had fair audience to hear his
answer to Secretary Sherman at City Hall last
evening. The floor was two-thirds FULL with
sprinkling in the galleries. Considering that
Viola Clifton and her blondes were at Music
Hall, the audience was very good one,
Mr.. G. B. Nash called the meeting to order
and announced Mr.. Alden j. Blethen as
chairman This was Mr. Blethen's debut as
Greenback orator. 1t is understood he wants
to-be County Attorney and thinks he stands as
good chance for nomination to that office in
a party of which the leaders are John Nj.
Todd and Moses G. Dow as in any other, an
opinion in which he is undoubtedly correct
the Greenback party has been short of
legal counsel 1t is so no longer Mr.. Blethen
is a lawyer. Mr.. Blethen's speech was
unusually calm and moderate. Young con-
verts are apt to be over Jealous and to denounce
the faith they have renowned, unsparingly.
He described the Republican meeting of the
night before as a magnificent ball, the gentle
men who spoke from this state as great and
eminent and the Secretary's argument as able
and eloquent. All this was true. 1t is also
true, as Mr.. Blethen said that the reason we
export corn and wheat to Europe is because
Europe wants them. 1t is not true that Mr.
Sherman attributed the increase of our ex-
ports to resumption, so that Mr.. Blethen in
pretending to reply to John Sherman by
making his startling assertion, was replying
to nothing that Mr.. Sherman ever said.
Mr.. Young of Ohio then sung two songs,
brothers come, our country calls you" and
"Peter Cooper ticket went trailing in the
DUST" the boys joining in the chorus of the
latter with their feet
''Them Steers" as the bills announced, then
proceeded to s'toss John Sherman on their
horns" "Them Steers, it is well known, on a
lecture platform means Scion Chase and Mr..
Blethen proceeded to introduce the "Father Of
Greenbackism in Maine ''Mr. Chase began by
announcing that he read the PRESS "a good
thing for him to do) and that he saw in it that
he would try to answer Secretary Sherman.
Try was good dog and he would do as well as
he could, which was as we'll as anybody could
do. He proceeded to compliment the intelli-
gence of his audience and Maine audiences in
general, and said if man had any trumps he
had got to play them here. Presumably,
oiiOAOIolO, Ahi. OhdoO pidyCu Ills lTulupS ldSb
night.
Mr.. Sherman Mr.. Chase said, had repre-
sented that resumption came to the country
like rose of summer. The farmer, however,
who sold his butter in 1875 for SO cents pound
and now saw the banker getting eight pounds
for 81 and able to put butter on three sides of
his bread while the farmer could not put it on
one side of his, could not feel the blessings of
resumption. Mr. Chase might have added
that the farmer who could wear three suits of
clothes now at but little more expense than one
during the ''good times" did feel the benefits
of resumption, but he didn't. These Green
back orators know when to stop. Mr.. Chase
did not believe our industries were prospering
because there was strike in Fall River and
and had been one in Pittsburg The sale of
$150,000,000 of per cents. Mr.. Chase thought
was proof of adversely rather than prosperity,
because it indicated that capitalists were I'M
willing to put their money into business which
would give employment to labor. If this is SO
Mr.. Chase and orators of his stamp are largely
responsible for it. They make business of
denouncing all men who own capital and are
continually connecting schemes to compel them
to disgorge. Naturally enough capitalists seek
to protect themselves by putting their money
as far beyond the reach of such demagogues as
possible.
To show how the farmer is impoverished by
resumption, Mr.. Chase related little expe-
rience of his own. When he turned his cattle
out to grass this spring he found that they
would not sell for enough to pay their winters
keeping. He would have been better off if he
had killed them last fall. Our advice to Mr.
Chase is to get out of the cattle business as
soon as possible. If he doesn't he will need a
new issue of greenbacks for his own special
benefit
Mr.. Chase took issue with Mr. Sherman's
assertion that our difficulties were largely the
result of extravaganza. He was very much
shocked because the Secretary said the country
had been on a drunken spree. Mr.. Chase said
he wouldn't use such language except as a
quotation. The audience didn't appear to be
half so much shocked as the speaker "What
was doing in those extravagant times" ex-
claimed Mr.. Chase, and he went on to show
that he was engaged in the respectable and
useful business of draining bog, paying his
ditchers 50 a day, and he said it paid him.
bogs proftably even if he could get laborers at
% cents day. We should very much like to
know how Mr. Chase gets a living Farming
doesn't pay him anything aud Greenback
speeches don't Can it be that he is a bloated
bondholder? -
Mr.. Chase next proceeded to deny the Secre-
tary's assertion that there had been no con-
traction of the currency up to 1873. OF course
he claimed that the 80 bonds and the COM
pound interest notes had been used as currency
and thus was enabled to show contraction
But Mr.. Chase knows that neither those bonds
nor notes were used to any extent as currency
and in asserting that they were he is SHINING
against light. The fact that he snapped a
yoke of oxen for 730 bond is about as con-
elusive proof that those bonds were currency,
as that a hog which he may have exchanged
for sheep was. -na 39".e
He repeated the old charge that the legisla-
ton of the Republican party had been dictated
by the bondholders and that John Sherman
wanted to increase the value of the silver
dollar for the benefit of that class. He did not
inform his audience who would get the benefit
of the bill which the Greenbackers tried to
pass at the last session of Congress allowing a,
man who had So cents worth of silver to carry.
it to the mint and have it made into q dollar.
He didn't dare to. He would have been COM
PEELED to confess that the Greenbackers had
been seeking to enrich the mining kings of
Colorado.
Mr.. Chase complained because Mr. Sherman
did not pay the interest ON the bonds in silver.
Mr. Sherman has been paying it in greenhacks
as the Nationals have been demanding for
several years. 1t was not until the greenbacks
appreciated to gold and there was no chance to
swindlejanybody with them that the Green
hackers conceived their great affections for
silver and demanded that the interest on the
public debt should be paid in it.
On the subject of the coin reserve Mr..
Chase was very explicit eve propose to take
the money now in the Treasury and pay the
notes with it," That is to say the Greenback-
ers propose to return to an irredeemable cur
rency again. They propose to pay out the
reserve which keeps the greenbacks at par and
once more give the country 1uctuating and
irredeemable currency. There were indica-
tiOns SONS time apo that Mr. Cbaca bad