New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1891-08-01
TIE MARYLAND PLATFORM.

here exactly as they were put IN inc MafJ lanu
platform: ,..,nd
president Harrison and Republican Congress found
in 1880 a large surplus In the Treasury, Ni' W @
economical Democratic Administration That surplus
told plain tale to the people Of the United states ~
demonstrated that the taxes which had been inpoSeu
M penubcan legislation were IN excess OF the actuai
needs Of Government economically administeeu' au
we're therefore unnecessary and un1ust' INC Peopio
supposed that tho evil would be remeded by suhOle'
snd we'll considered reduction OF these tiAeS Az"
NV tho strict application of the surplus to the pay
~ the public debt. They were Disappointed. ino
snances of the country were mismanaeed ana wiz
cancellations and commercial disasters followed III c
train Of such mlsmarazement The surplus was WaSI-u
by extIavagant expenditures. The unjust anu VII
necessary taxation Of the people cohlihueu' ny
List Congress appropriated In the money anu 'oui,
OF the people more than billion OF COLLARS ~ "o
seem TO have been the deliberate purpose OF TIE man
Gers ~ the Republican party 20 maintain and create an
amount of public indebtedness which w0uld consume
anv surplus which might accumulate under the eAsus
tariff and make further increase in the tiAa'on Vi
imports necessary for the support OF inc "o'ernNio
Now. what are the honest facts as to THIS
business? The Rebellion left the United states
with burden of debt amounting IN 1851 10
S2.67S.1261O3 81. From that time until TO-
day it has been the policy of the Government
70 collect more revenues than were required 1Or
the actual expenses of administration, applying
tho surnIus revenues TO the reduction OF this
debit On March 4. 1885, when Grover Cleve-
land entered the White House, he found an
available surplus Of exactly S21 ,63l, 3Sl %.
He found that during the eighteen years Oh
Republican Administration from 1861 10 1000
the outstanding principal of the pubic deot
had been reduced from S2,67S, 126, 1O3 81 TO
S1.S63 .964, 1913 Ia. The annual interest charge
had fallen from S13S, 500, 451 80 in 1867 to
S47.O14.133 in 1885, and the per capita debt
from 500 20 to S24 so. In the four years pre-
cedinc Grover CIeveland'S term OF Office, that
is from March A, 1881 to March 4, 1888, the
face of the bonded debt had been reduced III the
sum of S479.9S3, 2S0 an average annual re-
duction of S12O,OOO,O OO This was done, as
any Democrat may see, by collecting )uSt tha'
much more money than was needed for the cur
rent operations of the Government, on the inc
ory nat an honest people wished to pay their
honest debts as rapidly as they could.
But Mr. Cleveland and his party had tarlii
nlan that was not in harmony with this theory.
They were deadset for Free Trade, and, rs a
means Of working up public sentiment in support
of their scheme, they stopped paying the public
debt except as they were absolutely compelled
to. They boarded these surplus revenues, ana
summoned the country to witness how gnevous-
Iy II was being taxed by the Republican tanh'
urging as the remedy for that Ubiquitous state
If things their plan of Free Trade. But even
in their statement of the size of the So-cailed
surplus they were dishonest. by juggling with
the debt statement they were able to make the
,,,ilif a
hundred They even got 1t up as lar as
hundred and twenty. But, although the re-
CENTS of the Government during Cleveland
term grew larger each year, and although he
reduced the bonded debt only S341 ,396,9SO,
or exactly S13S,5S6,300 less than it had been
reduced by Arthur with smaller revenues at his
command, yet 50 extravagant were the appro-
priatons of ClevelandS two Democratic Con-
crosses that his surplus on March 4, 1889 when
he gave way to HARRISON was only S4S,O96,-
1873 80. or only S26,4G4, $40 S3 more than
the sum left him by President Arthur In
other words. if he had paid as much of the debt
as Arthur did he would not have had surplus
at all. but a deficit of S90,O0O,OOO.
This. then-S4S ,096, 1873 50-iS the boosted
Cleveland surplus, LETT in the Treasury, accord
ing to the Maryland Convention, "by an eco
nomical Democratic Administration telling a
plain tale of over-taxation, etc. Now, say the
Maryland Democrats, the people supposed that
this shocking condition would be remeded by
Mr.. Harrison and his Republican Congress; but
the people were Disappointed; the surplus was
not spent in reducing the public debt as II
should have been, but was wasted in The ex-
travagant expenditures Of Il Congress which APP
! propriated more than billion Of dollars; the
revenues were not reduced, but unjust over
taxation was continued. These charges are the
current Democratic allegation and they con-
stitute the capital on which the Democracy pro
poses to contest the next National election. And
every one of them is a falSehOOd The surplu,
and six times the surplus has been paid under
Harrison in the liquidation Of the public debt
The surplus, as Cleveland left it, was S4S,-
| O96,15S so. The amount of the bonded debt
| discharged under Harrison up to June 80, 1891
was 1924, COS, $40. In two years and fOm
months he has reduced the per capita deb
from $24 so, where Cleveland left it, tC
S12 81, where it is to-day This is the finalcil
management which the Democrats claim ha'
caused commercial panicS and disasters. As
every schoolboy knows, the distress of last yea
was mainly caused by failure Of crops and the
Barring failure in London, and was relieved anC
diSSipated here by just the policy that the Mary
land platform attacks. The List Congress die
not appropriate - over a billion of dollars" bu
just exactly exactly S9SS,410,129, or $40,
446, 269 more than the Lth Congress. Of thi
excess S25,321,907 was for pension deficienc!
which the Democrats of that Congress diShon
estly left unpaid; S22 ,667343 SO was for post
office bills, three-fOurths of which will be re
turned to the Treasury; S7,307, lac 70 was TO
the purchase of Indian lands that will sell fo
three times their cost; Sl4,O42, 344 90 was t
meet contracts for naval vessels theretofot
authorized, and S62 ,536 80 to pay new
pensions under the new act authorized by thu
people in 1883. The balance went in census
expenses, harbor defences and Improvement
| H..p