River Falls journal. [volume] (River Falls, Pierce County, Wis.) 1872-2019, 1892-10-13

sustained the loss OF single dollar
Every laborer knows that the green
back in his purse has the United States,
with all its resources, as a guarantee
/ behind Il.
| The opposition of the democracy,
howevlc, to the national currency sys-
tenn is ii harmony with its hostility TO
/ al! those great financial measures by
w1;dh the national credit has been
ma : aimed and the national prosperity
preserved. From 1861 down to the
present hour it has antagonized every
measure looking to these results. We
came out of the civil war with an enor-
nous public debt. Foreign nations de-
clared that this debt could never be
paid, and that the currency could never
be made equal TO coin. The democracy
echoed this declaration with vehement
alacrity. When the republican party
declared that ii would pay every dollar
| of the debt, establish the national
credit on hard-granite foundations, and
make every dollar of United States
money equal in purchasing power with
gold. the democratic party greeted the
declaration with jeers and con-
tempt At every step " the great
undertaking to which y thus CON-
mittcd itself the republican party
encountered the opposition OF the
democracy. They resisted the act
to strengthen the public credit in 1869,
every democratic member of the house,
with one exception, and every demo
cratic member of the senate voting
against it. They resisted the act for
refunding the public debt in 1870
They resisted the act fer the resump-
ton of specie payments passed in
1875. The funding act, which has af-
fOrded such enormous relief 10 tax
payers, was fought step by step by
such men as Senator Bayard and Thur
man, backed 10y all the smaller party
representatives. When that act was
passed, saveu-eighths of the public
debt was bearing q per cent. interest
To-day not fraction of that debt
bears that rate. AS To the act for the
resumption of specie payments, not
single democratic congressman voted
i'm its favor, and year and half after
its passage the democratic national
convention. by unanimous vote, de-
nounced that act as a "hindrance,
and demanded its repeal.
At the close of the war the public
debt amounted to 81, 756, 43l,5 As a
result of republican policies this debt
has been reduced so that to-day it
amounts less the surplus cash in the
treasury, TO Ss5s, OF 015, of which
amount only S5s5. 0S1,0 ESQ is interest
bearing debt, made up I 1858, 800, 5s4
four percent. and SIS, "a, 800 two-per-
cent. bonds.
1t is not too much to say, in the light
of experience. that If the policy sup
ported by the democracy during and
subsequent to the war period had been
adopted, the business of the country
would still be in confusion, the ma
tional credit would have received
fatal blow, and all efforo at steady prog
ress and orderly development of the
great business and commercial inter
ests of the country would have been
vain and fruitless Committed, as it
has been, to unsafe policies in the past,
il is not surprising that to-day it an
tagonizes that system of national cur
rency which gives security aud pros
perity, and demands. in harmony with
its destructive purposes, return to the
old methods which uniformly proved so
disastrous to the best interests of the
epuntry.-Franl1 Leslie's Weekly.