The Colfax chronicle. [volume] (Colfax, Grant Parish, La.) 1877-1981, 1882-08-19
The Republican Leaders Madi

The gods seem to have determined to
destroy the Republican party. They
have certainly made its leaders mad.
The most extraordinary act of public
profigacy ever heard of in the United
States, or in any other country in the
world, was Monday perpetrated by the
Republican majority in the House of
Representatives, when bill appropri-
ating one hundred millions of dollars
was passed without q word of debate,
with only a word of protest and under q
suspension of the rules.
The country will now begin to see
what Robson and Keifer were after in
what they impudently described as "the
struggle for honest elections" Their
anxiety was not that Republicans should
be voted into the House whether they had
been elected or not. 1t was simply that
the rules might be suspended when the
jobs in which they were interested came
up for action. The country cannot
know as vet what thefts the Pension bill
may cover. 1t knows that Dudley may
be trusted to get rid of every dollar that
is appropriated to his Department, and
that Keller made up the committee in
the interest of expenditure. Everybody
knows that two-thirds of the pensions
that will be paid under this bill are SIM
ply robberies of the Treasury, aided and
abetted by the Republican guardians of
the Treasury.
One hundred million dollars! Does
the reader take in the appalling signifi-
canoe of these figures? 1t is the labor
for year of two hundred thousand la
borers that was yesterday voted without
debate! 1t is the full pay for q year of
an army of five hundred and fifty thou
sand private soldiers that the rules of
the House were suspended to distribute
among claimants for pensions!
The total pension list of Great Britain.
loaded down, as Keller and Robson
and Hiscock and Dudley would declare
it to be with abuses, amounts to--how
much thinks the readerp To $15,000,-
600. less than one sixth of the amount
which the majority of the House yester-
day voted was not of importance enough
to occupy the time of the House with a
discussion!
The total payroll of the British army.
with 10000 on the active list. was in
1S80-81 $22, 500, 900. The whole war
budget of the German Empire, the mill
itary model of the world. with 1904
men and officers under arms, for the
current year is $79, 278, 552-less than
four-fifths of the pension list of coun-
try whose happiness it is to be relieved
of the necessity of supporting an enor-
nous army; and the general pension list
and invalid fund of the German Empire
together amount to less than $40. OOO,-
000- The whole army budget of France,
with an army in active service of 502, 600
men, was last year but $14 600, 600 more
than the sum yesterday tossed away as
bagatelle without division" in the
American House of Representatives.
Besides this vast and corrupt waste,
of which less than one-quarter repre-
sents all that the country honestly owes
to its pensioners, and all that its honest
pensioners will get, the colossal job of
the River and Harbor bill, by which
$1,000. 600 were flung away the other
day, becomes mere piece of pilfering.
And let not the people forget that all
this waste and all this theft are q pre-
meditated and systematic attack upon a
surplus collected by methods of taxa
ton the productiveness of which Re-
publican Congress has secuted the idea
Of diminishing system of taxation
which a Republican President has
packed Tariff Commission to keep in
full force. The Republican majority Of
Congress is voting away hundreds of
millions at a time, money which. ought
to be in the pockets of the taxpayers.
for fear the taxpayers should ask them
how they came by it.
The day of reckoning for these
things cannot be far OH. Y. World.