Year: 1865

when its balconies and windows were thrOnged
with hundreds waiting to see procession, or
even if the fire had occurred on an ordinary
day, at the hour when theatrical performance
was in progress. Every one in the habit of
visiting public places can readily see how the
inevitable panic would have come how the
weaker ones and the little children would have
of the stronger to get out, and how, in the won
derfully rapid progress Of the flames, the walls
would finally have fallen on at least one-third
of all that had been present No one can ques-
ton that in the present case the public have
but barely escaped from calamity like this.


The important question now is, In view of all
this, are there any more establishments in the
city in which this can occur? Are there any
more old tinder boxes which have not origi-
nally been built for theatres, but have been
fixed up to hold five hundred or thousand
people and to serve as horrible death traps
when the occasion comes? Are there any
establishments, now in operation as theatres, in
which half the persons who sit down may be
burned to death in half an hour after they
enter, without chance to get outs Will Fire
Marshal Baker, who ought to know all about
this, enlighten the public in relation to 1T


The National Debt and the Jay Cookc-


Chase Faction-Danger Ahead.


Jay Cooke has proclaimed the beautiful
dogma that national debt is national bless
ing. He has not only proclaimed it, but by
facts and figures he has tried to prove it. He
finds hackers, too, in support of this magnificent
theory. Cookies circular, which we print to-
day, the Tribune has published with an accom-
panying first rate notices" but Cooke is the
financial mouthpiece of Chief Justice Chase,
and the Tribune is the organ of both. 1t advo-
Gates immediate and universal negro suffrage,
hit or miss, and an unlimited increase of
our national debt, upon the notion that it is a
good thing, and that we can't have too much Of
good thing. The lights Of experience and
common sense warn us of disaster, if we follow
too far either the one Jack-o'-lantern or the
other-negro suffrage or national debt; but
what are public disasters to scheming pOliti-
clans?


But what would be the consequences of an
indefinite expansion of our national debt, or, in
other words, the full development of the Jay
Cooke-Chase theory, that the larger our debt
the happier and richer we shall be? A few
thousand financiers and stock -jobbers would be
the ruling aristocracy of the country-imperi-
ous, unscrupulous, despotic and powerful; and
the masses of the people would be reduced to
the condition of serfs. There would be little to
choose between the old system of Southern
black slavery and the white slavery that would
thus be established, North and South. The
industrial classes of the country would become,
under the financial millennium of Jay Cooke, as
impoverished and hopeless in their poverty as
the peasantry of the British islands, who know
something of the grinding tortures Of great
aristocracy and great national debt.


The simple truth is that great national debt
is great national curse, and the sooner 1t is
settled the better. Ninvolves system of taxa
tions, extortions, favoritisms high prices, COM
binations and corruptions which can lead the
nation only ON the road to ruin. The standing
army of internal taxgatherers necessary to
raise the wind to meet even the interest on our
present national debt are more dangerous to





of soldiers; for the taxgatherer is too apt to be
the active agent Of scheming politicians, while
the soldier, in time of peace, Is seldom. at the
worst, anything more than drone in the public
hive. The whole machinery necessary to meet
the current obligations arising from o great
national debt is out of place among this peo-
pc. It is part Of the British machinery Of
government, and the American people chafe
under it; for it is something new to them, and
| they do not like il.


We have now the national blessing, as Jay
| Cooke terms it, Of national debt Of three
thousand millions of dollars We ought, per-
haps, for this great blessing to express our
gladness in national jubilee. But it is proba-
| BILE that when all the war claims against the
government come to be settled we shall have
this debt expanded to the glorious bulk OF four
or five thousand millions of dollars. What
then? Why then Mr.. Chief Justice Chase and his
good man Friday, Jay Cooke & Company, will
find that they have been like fools playing with
edged tools, and damaging the public credit
| and the public confidence in the solvency of
| the government at home and abroad. This
they are doing now, and If the Secretary of
the Treasury desires to keep bis paper still
approaching to the specie basis he will put a
stop to every movement Of his agents based
upon the idea that national debt is national
blessing. But if we are mistaken in the notion
that Mr.. McCulloch il laboring to find out the
way to discharge honestly our national debt
in the shortest possible time, we should like
to know 1t.


We would now admonish him that unless
this aforesaid fallacious idea Of Jay Cooke shall
be officially repudiated, there will soon be ap-
parent the danger that something else, Of vital


moment TO the honor of the country, may be