The National tribune. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1877-1917, 1888-12-20

have at any time since the war.
Lastly, we have demonstrated our power
and oyerthrown our principal opponents.
Reflections like these, we trust, viii form
a pleasant sauce to every veterans Christ
mas dinner, and bring with them peace of
mind and good digestion.
WHO PAID OFF THE HoNDHOLDERs?
1t is easy to demonstrate to the satislac
ton of any reasonable, thinking man that
the veterans, after giving the Government
years of hard, hazardous service at ridicu-
lousy meager pay, were the ones that paid
offthe bulk of the public debt that has been
discharged up to this time.
The billions of money necessary for this
purpose were raised in the years succeeding
the war by the imposition of the most
Onerous and searching taxation, which fell
directly upon the producing classes. Almost
the whole Of this rested upon the producing
classes Of the loyal States, for it was levied
upon articles which they bought, wore, ate,
or used in some way. The people of the
rebellious portion of the country paid but
an insignificant part of it, for they consumed
but q relatively trifing proportion of the
taxed articles.
According to the census of 1870 the entire
population of the United States engaged in
"gainful occupations" was 12,5o5,923 We
viii begin, for the purposes of this article,
by subslracting from this 100000 South
erners, for the reason, as we have repeatedly
shown By figures, that they paid very
small fraction of the National taxes. From
the remaining 7.505,OOO we may deduct
nearly 100000 women, mainly engaged
in household service, and 10000 children
between the ages of 10 and Is, who earned
petty stipends in various ways. This leaves
less than 100000 adult male wage-earners,
of all classes, ages, occupation and degrees
OF ability.
Reduced TO a three years standard there
were 2,32O22O men in the army. About
100000 Of these came home Is it not
very clear that if altogether there were
100000 adult male producers in the North,
these {, 00O. 600 enterprising, energetic, young
men must have been the heart soul and
sinews of the whole mass? They were the
select men Of the country, in the prime OF
life, superior to all other classes in vigor OF
mind and body, and consequently they pro-
duced the bulk of all that was produced in
the decade after the war, and they paid the
great bulk of the taxation. These conclu-
sions challenge denial or refutation.
They endured these burdens cheerfuIIy
heroicalIy, that they might be lifted off the
shoulders Of those who came after them. So
well they labored that in 10 years after the
war closed the annual expenditures of the
/ Government were reduced from S519, O22, 35f
| in 1866 10 1895, I01O84 in 1876, or almost
one half
The more this is considered the grander il
appears, What more natural and justifablt
than for the veterans to have said wher
they returned home:
Now, we have done enough for the coun
try and for posterity. We have fough
through the most terrible war in history. al
awful cost to ourselves in dangers, hard
ships, bodily harms and loss of valuabl,
years at the outset of life. We did this no
for ourselves alone, but for the generation
which come after US. They will receive IN
numbered blessings from it. Let the pay
ment of the debt be their share of the grea
work"
Instead Of this, they paid off $685., 841, so
Of the public debt in gold, with high inter
est, within 10 years after the close of tn
war, and so reduced the taxation that th
people Of to-day are hardly aware that the
are contributing anything to the Nationa
revenues.