The weekly herald. [volume] (Cleveland, Tenn.) 1876-1888, 1880-09-16
The bonds.

Major Sykes, one of the Tennessee
! Democrats who has for years been
denouncing the Republican party OF
the State, has changed his tune and
is now doing them justice. In his
Chattanooga speech he said:
"Of all the Brownlow bonds issued
for railroad purposes only S2,G3S,OOO
are now outstanding. Who issued
them? Who got them: The people of
Tennessee demanded of the Brown
low Legislature that these bonds be
issued. Warren county, the home OF
Savage, sent a delegation OF white
democrats TO Nashville to induce the
Brownlow Legislature to let them
have 100000 in bonds. When l
spoke at cMinnville a few days ago;
| asked if any man in Warren coun-
ty or any newspaper had objected TO
the issuance of those bonds, let them
speak or forever hold their peace; not
one answered. Bonds were issued By
the Brownlow Legislature to refit the
E. T., Va. & Ga. Il. Il. from Chatta-
rooga to Bristol. Now tell Inc if any
man or any newspaper in Hamilton
county ever objected to receiving
these bonds? (NO answer Did any
one object? Your silence is IL sutfi-
cient answer. If these bonds were
fraudulent, why didn't some one say
so at the time? Delegations were sent
from nearly all counties in the State
to request the issuance of bonds bv
the Brownlow Legislature, but net a
single, solitary individual objected to
receiving them. The men who are
now begging the people to not pay
the debt, stood by and saw these
bonds issued without a syllable. Now
when pay day comes, they say 1t was
all wrong"
''In 1869 the democrats got control
of the State Government. A bill was
passed when Dorsey B. Thomas was
Speaker (he is now IL Wilson man
to allow the railroads to buy up bonds
of any series. The law was unwiSe,
as it enables the railroads to pay up
with any nature of bonds. Mr.. Will
son was a member of the Legislature
for two terms, hut he has never vo.
ted to repeal this damaging law. He
knew the railroads were paving un,
der IT. But vet neither be nor Say.
age offer, d a resolution to repeal it,
and it vet remains a statute of the
State"
WILSON'S INCONSISTENCY.
Savage and Wilson under their
oaths acknowledged that some of the
Brownlow bonds were valid by voting
to pay six per cent. interest on $780,
900 of them issued to Mrs. Polk,
1852, 600 issued to the East Tenncs-
SEES University, $4,000 Of which were
war interest bonds. Yet in their
speeches they d%enounce them as
fraudulent, as glaring impositions on
the people of the State. Wilson says
be is the friend of the poor. Judge
Goodpasture at n session Of the
Legislature offered a resolution to
pay SIX per cent. interest on bonds
held by widows and orphans. Wilson
voted against this resolution"
"Not all the bondholders are rich.
Many bonds ale held by poor widows
and orphans in this State whose sus.
tenance depends on their interest,
but Of which not a cent do they re-
Th" argument that the loor
man PAYS the taxes, is fallacious. a
man must own $1,000 in property to
pay taxes. The claim that rents in
as taxes increase, is false, for
we all know that landlords will exact
the greatest possible amount from
their tenants whether taxes are high
Or low. Taxes which were formerly
40 cents on the 500, were reduced to
10 cents, but yet land rents as high,
if not higher, than it did before the
Tennessee, with as great
a population as Massachusetts,, pays
three million dollars, while that state
paws "a millions. We are paving
comparatively less taxes, than many