National Republican., 1882-10-03
Tho Lobby Is Coming.

The hotels, restaurants, and sample
rooms will do good business the coming
winter. This is always sure to be the case
when a great steal in Congress is pro-
posed. The most audacious robbery of
the public treasury ever proposed in this
country is now being organized. 1t con-
templates coarse and common grab.
There is to be no consideration for the
government. 1t is to be urged upon the
ground that it is no more than fair to
pay a gang Of adventurers false claim
of twenty-three millions of dollars
because the State from which they have
been trying to steal it has refused to
recognize it. OF course the brokers' ring
which is working up this precious
scheme do not claim that the United
States owes them dollar. They say it
is part of the debt of Virginia. The
honest Bourbon debt-payers of that
State, who never paid anything, told the
bondholders to go to West Virginia for
ten millions, that being one-thrd of old
Virginia's debt, for they would never
pay 1t. This the United States Supreme
Court says was agreed to by the creditors.
The honest Bourbons of West Vir-
ginia say they will see the creditors
blanked before they will vote a penny
of this ten millions. Then, in 1873,
great flock of buzzards swooped
down upon the Virginia legislature, and
induced the majority to vote that
$13,000,000 be added to the remaining
two-thirds of the debt as compound in
tereSt. This steal the people of the State
refused to ratify, and have rejected its
authors at the polls at every State cleo
ton since held. The legislature of 1880
voted to repeal it, and to pay only the
actual debt. This was vetoed by a
Bourbon governor. The legislature of
1881, by an act approved by the gov
ernor, provided for three per cent. bonds
for every dollar of Virginia's two-thirds
of the debt, with all accrued interest.
The wreckers and lobbyists who were
thus defeated in the $l3,000,000 steal in
Virginia have been re-enforccd by gang
of desperate legislative cracksmen, who
propose to pool issues with them, and to
make raid on Uncle Sans strong-box
for the ten millions which West Virginia
refuses to pay, as well as for the thirteen
millions which neither State ever owed.
Here is a job Of some size. 1t is pro-
posed that Congress shall appro-
pirate $23,000,000, under pretense
of generously paying debts for Vir-
ginia and West Virginia which those
States declare they do not pay simply be-
cause they do not owe it. The holders of
Virginia's dishonored drafts on West
Virginia could be found, but Congress
would have hard time finding who was
entitled to the $l3,00O,00O in Virginia.
The refunding of the debt is now going
on, and some of this bogus claim is ex-
tinguished with every bond that is is
sued. How can its holders acknowledge
its settlement by Virginia, us they are
doing, and then come and ask Congress
to pay it on Nirginia's account.
1t is the boldest steal ever projected
against a government. The harpies who
teasted on the vitals of the last empire
yards, new-lighted on a decomposing
mule in the hot desert three days after
he had perished, would be models of
shyness and abstemiousnesS when COM
pared with men who would dare to ask
of Congress to aid States, North or South,
to pay even their honest debts What
language, then, shall characterize the
hardened impudence which proposes
that Congress shall vote to the vultures
of the lobby over twenty millions of
dollars as q free gift in payment of al
legged debts of two States which indig-
nantly declare they do not owe dollar
of it? Is there name in this country
which could deodorize such rottenness?