The National tribune., 1880-03-01
What Justice Demands.

thdh DioOu! is the n0aTded wealth OF the one more
precious in the eye of the law and the opinion of
lawmakers, than the life or limbs of the other We
respectfully submit that these are not impertinent
questions that in view of the acts of Government
Legislative and executive for the last eighteen years
such inquiries absolutely forced on every unpre
JUDGED candid mind
When men were called for to defend the national
life and they didn't step forward in sufficient num-
bers, the Government stretched out its strong arm
and laid its hand on many men as were wanted
In the exercise of an undoubted right-to protect it's
very existence-the central authority tore these men
from home from wives, children, aged parents, from
all that they had ever known, or loved or cared to
live for, and put them into line of battle, to take
their chances of death mutlation or disease We
find no fault with that Hard as it was, the terri
BILE emergency justified It, 1t was a question oflife
death for the Nation, and individual rights had to
be sacrificed to the general good
But how was it when money was needed to buy
food and clothing for the fighting men, to buy arms
and defray all the enormous expenses of war Did
the Government reach out and grasp the rich mans
gold grimly and remorselessy as it had seized the
poor mans person Did it say to the millionaire
our cash is far less sacred than human life We
have taken the hearts blood of your neghbor, we
have put the poor men of your town in range of the
enemy's shot and she'll and we must have money
TO keep human wall between the foe and the ma
tional life, and the rebel armies, and the homes of
the North therefore hand over?n
1t said no such thing With hat in hand, the f.
nancial head of the Republic in the hour of direst
need, drew the temple of capital and humbly
begged loan While the poor fought, suf-
fered died at the front the rich man at the rear de-
spoiled the almost dying Nation by charging ruin
Gus interest on loans While the soldiers were
giving their lives to sustain the honor of the old
flag the capitalists at home said Let the old flag
go down, if we can't get S275 in paper for dollar
Of our gold"
All through the war and ever since the war, the
entire mechanism of government has been run if
the most solemn, sacred, venerated things earth
were the rights and claims of these oney-lenders.
Every other right, every other claim, every other
interest has been subordinated. The man who has
dared question the propriety of putting the bond
holder top and keeping him there, has been
treated with pitiless ridicule or mercless abuse.
We believe in national as well as individual hon
esty We hold that both duty and interest require
US to keep faith with the bondholders. They drove
hard bargain but the faith of the Nation is pledged
and the pledge must be kept This obligation how
ever is not the whole duty of government The
claim of the bondholder is not the highest not the
most sacred demand. The rights of the men whose
patriotism whose sufferngs, whose blood made the
bonds better than waste paper, the men who kept
the enemy from the shops, Offices, homes and throats
of the capitalists while they were grudgngly selling
their gold to the Government-the rights of these
men are on the very apex of the dome Of national
rectitude Theirs is the dominating claim theirs
are the rights that have been sanctfed by the blood
of the patriot martyrs. If any class of creditors is
to have precedence, let the crppes step ten PAGES
to the front while the bondhoders and all other ci-
zens respectfully salute them.