Daily Los Angeles herald., 1884-04-25

Yesterday we dwelt upon those as
paots Of our national life which seem to
es 10 be above politics. We alludo to
ths necessity which is incumbent upon
I'll parties to develop the essential inter
~sts Of our country, chief amongstwhich
4 silver. With scarcely an exception,
Ne whole energies Of the Republican
peess Of the country is devoted to the
shaInpioning Of the British idea Of max
tng gold the only standard Of money
values, Notwithstanding the fact that
nine -tenths OF the human race regulate
Z their commercial concerns ON tho double
standard Of gold and silver, while the
Oriental nations almost exclusively rely
epon silver.
The most notable features Of tho
4 irswspapcrs Of the cities Of New York,
Philadelphia and Boston is their servile
[ dovotion to British standards in all
thlngs. The emasculated youths Of
Nose cities are to-day patterning, In
The cut Of their clothes and
the thickness and confusion Of
thsir speech, upon the most offensive
cad" manifestations Of British life,
which Il, after all, sort Of reproduction
Of tho "High Life Below Stairs" Of u
popular English caricature Of the days
b which wit was an incident of the daily
English life. II this lamentable devel.
cpment merely related to the habltudes
of tho so-called gilded youths of those
oities employment would merely be
ollcrded to tho satirists Of the day. But
thsse pitiablc puppies are really an
ollloresoence of their moneyed fathers,
Who would gladly surrender all essen
tlal American interests to single stand
ard of gold. which would play thorough
" into the hands Of the Shylocks OF
Change. In London.
II IL an anomaly, and yet it is true.
that every daily newspaper which is
published In the city OF New York is
obliged to pipe in the key of dlscrodit-
ing silver. The word has gone forth that
peculiar sanctity must be attached to
every dsbenture of any kind, VIII ether 1t
bs q national bond or no, which is owned
by rich Easterner, or upon which tho
rich mans comfort is dependent. Drilled
In this monotone, and all shrieking to-
nethcr, certain sort of impressiveness
= given 10 the demand which aims to re-
Tire silver. and which shall slowly but
surely 10 curiail the volume of all kinds
Of tho national currency rs to make the
masses realize that they are trying TO
live in o sort Of financial straight jacket
"a tendency which would, If tolerated,
convert the masses, in short time, into
hewers Of wood and drawers of water to
the capitalist classes. The word has
gone out, for instance, that moth
Ing 10 80 sacred rs q national bond, no
matter how hard may have been the
conditions under which the original bar
gain may have been driven with the peo.
pie.
To q certain extent we aeceps the
aAnctity Of national obligations. The
HERALD is no financial iconoclast, and
yet we will venture TO puncture some of
these absurd pretensions.
Nations, long before the embroglio of
1850, in the United States, have plunged
into war, internecine and other For
instance, tho credit of no country in
the world stands higher to-day than that
OF France, both amongst her own people
and abroad. And yet all readers of his
tory remember tho fact that the French
assignat once ranked as but one degree
removed from the ordinary issues of
certain medicated paper. France has
survived number of very marked re-
pudiations of her national debt.
Our own history is pregnant with
striking example in point. Everyone
remembers the Continental currency.
The classic expression, ''Not worth
continental d-n," clusters around it. 1t
was finally settled up, by Congressional
: enactment, on the basis of one silver dol
lar to every forty of the Continental
issue. Precisely on that plane was our
whole Revolutionary debt adjusted.
There was one remarkable episode
in this settlement. 1t laid in tho fact
that the people OF the United States
were really indebted for their freedom
to France. France supplied, at critical
stages, the munitions, the money and to
certain extent the men who made
American independence possible. There
were half II dozen eras in our epic struggle
in which, but for the men and money
and influence of France, We should have
passed again under the British yoke; or,
rather, we would never have been
emancipated from it, When the Con
gress OF the United States decided to ad.
Just the most sacred national debt
known in history on the basis of one sil.
yer dollar to every forty dollars of the
continental currency, the French Am
bassador to this country protested. lie
represented that while the American
Congress, as between the people Of the
United States, had perfect right to
suggest any standard of settlement it
pleased, as respected the French credi.
tors, who so largely made American In.
Hependence possible, there ought to be
Apme distinction.
\As matter OF history the American
Congress paid it, French creditors ex.
actly on the same basis as that on which
it had settled with it4 own citizens, viz,
in the proportion Of one dollar to forty.
Here we have a standard by which we
may gauge the profound hypocrisy OF
the present day.
Admitting that every dollar Of our ma.
tional debt ought to be paid to the last
farthipg, there is no reason why we
should accept the snug hypocrisy Of the
monocrats who now and who for years
past have ruled the United States.
More particularly is there no reason why
we should allow the hypocrites of Wall
street To extiuguish the silver interest,
to curtail the volume Of the currency
and to weave sort of Nessus shirt
around the suffering and patient masses.
AMONGST our Republican brethren Of
the press who were go fond of denounc.