Morning journal and courier., 1880-10-04
THE BUSINESS MANS FIGHT.


 The Republican party is in this campaign fighting for the interests of the business men, and it is encouraging that so many bus mess fully alive to the situation and doing what they can to secure a continuance of the policy of the present administration. But it is surprising that there is not greater political awakening among that part of the people How any business at all famil- far with the record and ideas of the Demo cratic party can contemplate it's accession to power without fear and trembling we cannot understand.
 A writer in the Mutton who does not share what he calls "the popular Republican mo- ton that the Democrats are a band of evil disposed persons bent on the ruin of the government, has something to say concern ing the evils which would probably result from Democratic success which business men can read with profit The three things which most concern business men, he says, are the national banks the greenback and silver portion of the currency and the tariff. If the Republican party remains in power, the banks will not be molested, and if the greenbacks are not withdrawn, their issue VIII not De 1nlaC0O, ana III Ill we shall not be allowed to descend to a silver standard without some effort to prevent it." The Republicans pledged to conservative action by their traditions. 'sThey estab lished the national banks, and therefore are compelled for their own justification to uphold them. They issued the greenbacks as substitutes for gold, and were driven by the mere force of their own proclamations into making them as good as gold, and will probably be compelled by the same force to prevent their again becoming worth less than gold They have caused by the tariff inn mense investments in manufactures which they dare not suddenly disturb. In other words, their history gives a certain fixity to their policy.'' On all these points, says the writer, 'it is impossible for any candid man to ascertain the position of the Democrats, or to describe it beforehand" The hostility of the Democratic party to the national banks and the probability that the abolition of the banks would be accompanied by the issue of legal tender notes, or, in other words, by the conversion of the treasury in- to vast bank of issue by party con trolled by those who do not believe that gov ernment paper need be redeemable in coin or that if it be made redeemable in coin, any coin need be kept on hand for that purpose, are not calculated to give thinking business men confidence in that party. This says the Nation, "opens up distinctly to business men the possibility of an enormous imitation of the currency, the expulsion of coin from the country, and another commercial crash which would make that of 1873 seem trihe." It also says:
 We believe we have read with more or less care every utterance of prominent Democrats on these grave subjects during the past four years, and we have not found in any of them any assurance on which business man would be justified in relying that the position of the party on them was such that nc. great finan- cial disturbance need be feared from it's ac- cession to power In fact, most of the speak CTS take care to be sufficiently vague in their utterances to avoid committing themselves or anybody else any important point But in counting houses nobody is satisfied with vague utterances. Nothing makes business men comfortable but full particulars and carefully prepared estimates, showing the | dark as well as the bright side of every proposed venture or operation. The Re- pubEcans, we grant, are not much l more explicit in their financial utter | ances than the Democrats The evasions of their leading men about the silver question, for instance, are very discreditable but their past history and their own legislation fur nish, as we have said, fairly trustworthy grounds for anticipation as to what they will do and refrain from doing in the future. The Democrats have nothing of the kind to produce, and their platform ought therefore, on the currency question and the tariff, to have bristled with specifications which would l bind the party. We believe 1t is something l new in the history of constitutional govern | ment for party in opposition to seek power | on financial issues without producing a inan- | cial programme, and this the Democrats are | doing.
 This is sober, sensible and non-partisan statement of the case The Democratic party has no claim upon the support of business men, and business men have everything to fear from the success of that party