Birmingham age-herald., 1894-08-07
THE GROWTH OF PUBLIC ExPENDI- TURES.

gether by Representative Joseph Wheeler of Alabama in his recent speech. They show progressive tendency toward larger public expenditures out of all proportion to the growth of population.
 During the period of seventy-one years,
 from the beginningof the federal govern
 ment to 1861, the average national yearly expenditures amop Qted to S3S 1925 1851. That long period was tBminated by the demo-
 cratic party, and even in the brief intervals
 of federal and later of whig ascendency the democratic tradition of economy m lin- l tained it's hold. To limit appropriations to-
 actual necessities, keep out of debt and pay
 off debt as quickly'as possible apd raise no
 more revenues than,were clearly called fors
 were tie guiding principles of all parties, but especially so 0 the democratic party. It makes droll.reading now to turn to the; | platform the conEe ntion that nominated | Abraham Lincoln, aud recall this declara- tion: .'That the people justly view with l alarm the reckless extravagance which per- | vades every department of the Federal govs l ernment; that return to rigid economy l and accountability is indispensable to ar
 rest rest l1,o the systematic Plunder trv0,sd ot
 the pubic rt treasury by fayored | of the government under President Buch- 1 anan for the year precedingthe adoption of | that high flown protest against extrava- 1 gance amounted to little over S63, GOO, GOO. | For the last year of President Harrison's | term they amounted to $3S3 AT 954, or | more than six times as much. They were l never higher, except for the first year of the civil war period, when they amounted to | $520, 809 ,416.
 From 1789 to 1861 the national expendi- | lures aggregated $2, 793, 300, 432, From | 1861 to 1894, period almost entirely domi- l naled by the republican party, whose 1 policies committed the nation to ex- | penditures from which it is impossi-
 ment, the national expenditures aggre- gated over $12 ,000, ,000, GOO. Stated compara- lively, thirty three years of republican government has cost the nation more than four times as much as the previous seventy.one years of democratic govern
 ment. The cost of the four years' civil war accounts legitimately, no doubt, for considerable part of this vast increase of | expenditure, but by no means for all of it. The war was ended nearly thirty years ago, and yet the expenditures of every war year save the first were equaed or exceeded during every year of President Harrison's administration.
 The impetus to extravaganza which the war gave to the general government has
 been communicated to state, county and city govern ments. The census of 1890 shows
 a startling burden of local expenditure and taxation. The state and territorial govern
 ments and the county, city and town gov ernments spent altogether in that year S569, 252, 634. So that the total cost of their governments, national and local, to the American people for the year 1890 was almost a round, billion tof dollars. And this was the. crowning 3recort of thirty years of. almost uneheek ked 4control by "a party which commenced itss career in 1660si by denouncing sthe reckless extrava- ganceo of a party whose ionalexpandi-
 lures touched high water mark at S63, 0G0,-
 GOO year. .
 There can be no doubt that one of the great contributing causes to the distresstul condition of the country for several years past, as manifested by pau1cs, business de- foi1 INA 0l1t afn breaks of dscontented labor, has been that all our governments have been costing too much. The people have been educated un der republican rule to forget the old-fash- toned precepts of frugality and thrift which their fathers followed so rigidly and with
 such thrifty results. They have come to look upon their governments us if they were somehow endowed with miraculous
 faculty of spending money without, either at first or at last, drawing every dollar of it, with interest, out of their own pockets.
 The maxim, ''Pay as you go,' which was
 held in the highest respect from the days
 of Washington to those of Buchanan, has
 been treated as obsolete. Cities have not
 stopped to count the cost, but have plunged into all kinds of expensive enterprises on the thirty-year bonded loan basis.
 Especially Is this true of northern mu- nicipalities, whose annual expenditures, largely to meet interest payments on large
 loans lightly contracted to construct costly parks and other public works, are crush ingly heavy. l he cities of New York state
 of over 50, coo inhao4'ants spend $50 ,000 900
 a year. The state, county and city expen-
 dilures of New York aggregated over
 $91 GOO ,000 in 1S90-nearly f3O, GOO, GOO more
 than the total national expenditures in
 1860. The half dozen cities of Masea3hu
 sets with over 50, ,00O population apiece are spending every year aboutgo s17 ,o00. GOO
 among them. It requires a tax levy of
 about S47 coo, GOO q year to pay for the
 state, county aud municipal governments of the Lay state.
 The ''fush times" of the war left their indelibe imprint in every northern state
 in an impulse 10 large public 1ex penditure that remains to this day. In the southern states, and in all the states where the den1- ocratic traditions of economy have be 'u
 more modest. Maryland's s:ate, cour- ty, city and town expenditures
 for 1890 were little over
 slo, ,0oOtooO. Massachusetts spent nearly i've times as much and so did PsnnsyI-
 vania. Ohio's state and local expenditures
 are over $40 ,0oO, ,0o0 year. Democratic h.
 diana spends only SIS. .000, 0G0 a year and
 democratic Tex IS only S12, ,500, ,000. Vir-
 ginia spends for state and municipa! pur-
 poses less than S5,00o,000 a year, while
 Michigan spends twice as much, and so
 does New Jersey.
 As nation, as states and as cities and towns, we have been living beyond our
 means. The war pace was fast and we
 have kept it up too long. There has been, moreover, distinct tendency toward great CT costliness of living, more expensive es- tablishments and "more style' generally throughout the community, and especially so in the large cities of the north and west. There mnst be general toning dowu aii round. A return must be made to some extent at least to the simpler habits Of liv- ing and the more careful balancing of in- come against outlay that distingui lhed the | generations that founded the government |