Semi-weekly interior journal. [volume] (Stanford, Ky.) 1881-1905, 1882-06-13
Phil Thompsoa's Protest against Useless

after its passage, approve the same.
Phil Thompsos's Protest against Useless
Custom houses
In Fridays Issue we referred TO the
protest of Hon. Z. b. Thompson, Jr.,
on the raid being made on the Treas
ury to build useless Custom Houses.
We now give the principal part of his
argument against it:
81 understand Maine is dotted all
over with them. | could point you n
half dozen places in that State where
they maintain a custom.house and Off.
cials where no revenue is collected.
And every State of the Union has
had a dip into this thing Now is the
time to make a stop, especially when
we have passed fifteen bills of this
kind during this session, three times
as many as have been passed during
any session in the last ten years.
protest against this system in the
name of the people, the taxpayers Of
this country. Somebody has to pay
this money and be responsible for it.
Some say we ought to build these stu.
pendous public buildings as marks of
our progress. They say that the coun-
try is to live in history by means of
its public buildings. That, Mr.. Speak
err, is fallacious idea. Our Govern
ment is not intended TO live in that
way. 1t must live by having just
laws on its statute books extending
Just aud fair treatment to the poor
and laboring people all over this land
who have to pay the taxes. These
buildings will not be monuments of
our civilization, but everlasting me
MORALS of bad government, the sure
signs of decaying empire, the mile
stones which mark our progress on
the road to vice and corruption.
When we look back to the igno.
rance which built Babel, laying
broad and deep its foundations
in the earth, stretching its tower
heavenward to the sky, to defy the ell
ements of destruction, we laugh at
their folly, but 60 on building as
they built, enormous public works to
live in history as monuments ct our
civilization. Who can tell the site of
that stupendous work The antigua.
ry gropes in darkness, for not even a
stone stands TO mark its last resting
place.
Solomon, the wisest man the world
ever saw, builded temple in which
to worship the immortal God. He
exhausted architecture in its construc.
ton and art in its ornament and dec.
Grafton. All that unlimited money
aud Oriental grandeur could suggest
was lavishly expended upon it. Yet
where is Solomon's temple? Time
and war have vanquished it long ago,
even before antiquity commenced. We
read of it.
The faint line traced upon parch-
ment hid away in some obscure tomb
and resurrected in after years pre-.
serves the memory Of it when stone
and brass have yielded to the re-
morseless demand of time and are no
more. Solomons temple was Solo
nous folly. With all his wisdom, to
build his temple he taxed his people
until oppression bore its Legitimate
fruits. Though it was Gods own
house, builded at his own command by
his own chosen people, yet scarcely
had Solomon the ruler been numbered
with the past before the people rose in
arms, the ten tribes seeded, and Ado
ram, who was over the hibute, wa;
stoned to death. These are what We
can expect if we continue 10 plumber
the people with the most enormous
taxes any country ever endured, to be
spent in wasteful extravaganza in pub
lie buildings.
Solomon's memory lives in his re
corded wisdom, not in the ruins Of his
famous temple. The world remem
bers and every day applies thos'
words of wisdom in which his prov
erbs abound. His writings and his
laws mark the civilization Of hi
times, but for them the glory OF hi
temple, its stone and brass, would
have persisted together and forever.
We are told, Mr.. Speaker, that thu
fifteen bills already passed aud becom'
laws only involve about three mil
lions; that they limit the expenditur'
TO that. If that were true, Mr.. Speak
err, the outrage would be sufficiently
glaring, but the history of other sucl
bills shows sueh ia NOT the case; tina