Daily globe. [volume] (St. Paul, Minn.) 1878-1884, 1880-09-11
WHERE'S WINDOW?
He Is Wanted In Ne.U York to ErpIGi,
Why Minnesota Doesn't Pay Her Debts.
New York World.

Why Minnesota Doesn't Pay Her Debts
New York World.
Senator Window, of Minnesota, has not
been heard from recently at the East in this
campaign. He should be invited to speak on
reputation at the proposed meeting of bust
ness men in Wall street to indorse hostility
to the lobby in the person of General Gar
field and devotion to civil service reform in
the person of General Arthur. No State in
the Union has struck such deadly and de-
iberate blow at the public faith as Mime
sofa, and it would greatly tend to fortifY the
cause of public honesty were Senator Win
dom to denounce in fitting terms the dishon-
orable conduct of Minnesota before mass
meeting of bloated Republican bondholders
in Wall street. Other States and king
doms on both sides of the Atlantic have de-
faulted on their interest under
the pressure of great calamities
or of sharp financial crisis, and other
States have sought to compound with their
creditors. But Minnesota stands alone as
an example of a rich and prosperous COM
monwealth which has deliberately defaulted
on the principal as well as the interest of
bonds which it admits that it guaranteed.
Minnesota stands alone too as an example of
an American State which has shirked its
own solemn obligations under cover of the
proposition that States cannot be made de
PENDANTS in suit by private plaintiffs. The
secretary of state, Mr.. Evarts, as counsel
for the creditors of this dishonored State,
summed up the situation in July, 1871, in
these emphatic and crushing words:
ono man acquainted with legal principles
or susceptible to moral impression can
dwell upon the features of this scandalous
history of debt repudiated and trusts betray-
ed by the State of Minnesota without indig
nation. The maxim that State will do
justice to its own obligations and will sub
NIT to no coercion of courts and process as a
reflection upon its honor seems to be put to
an open shame by this great and prosperous
State. Confessedly, the only obstacle to the
collection of these bonds from the State of
Minnesota, whose direct obligations they
are, is the privilege of sovereignty which it
enjoys not to be iusticiable in any court. To
the additional responsibility for the applica-
ton on these obligation of the trust securities
lodged with it, in that consideration and for
that purpose, the State makes the same de-
Tense that it is not justiciable for trust any
more than for debt. And yet the disappoint-
ed and insulted creditors and cestuS que trust
see the State in its sovereign capacity and
its people in their public interests reaping
the results to which the pledge of its public
faith and the assumption of its public trust
induced the contribution of the money of
these creditors
In 1868 the legislature of Minnesota passed
an act to provide sinking fund for the adj
iustment of the Minnesota State railway
bonds. This act was submitted to the peo-
pie, and it was rejected by them at the same
election at which they gave Grant Repub
lican majority of $4,000 votes, and adopted
an amendment to the State constitution in
PRODUCING negro suffrage by majority of
5000 votes Three years afterwards, in
1871, this same s'solid" Republican State de-
liberately and by an overwhelming majority
refused even to authorize the appointment
of commission to decide whether the State
railway bonds were or were not legal obliga-
tions of the State Senator Window, of
Minnesota, figured at Chicago as "dark
horse' of great promise. It is rumored
now that he has been offered seat in the
cabinet in the event of General Gar6eld's
election. By all means let Senator Window
be brought to New York, here to define in
Wall street the relations of the Republican
party and of its Presidential candidate to
the dishonored and repudiating common
wealth of Minnesota.