Year: 1874

OF the approaching session. His friends may
urge him over the brink of the precipice on
which he stands. The error he will be most
strongly tempted to commit in his Message at
the opening Of the session is the recommended
ton of speclous quack remedy tor the relief
of the country. What he ought to do Is to in
sist on the immediate withdrawal by Congress
of the twenty-six millions of legal tender notes
which the Treasury put out during the panic,
and further law for the cautious funding OF
an additional quantity of greenbacks in
| five per cent bonds, with change
in the banking law making bank
issues free on pledge of government
securities, three per cent of the interest on
the bonds to be withheld while they are so
pledged. When money was in active demand
and the rate of interest high the banks could
make more by loaning their notes than they
would lose by the diminished interest on their
bonds; but as soon as the demand for money
became slack they would have strong mo-
tive for retiring par. of their circulation, IN
order to recover the iull interest on their gov
ernment securities. This, or something like
this, is what the President ought to recommend


But what we fear be will recommend is
gigantic scheme OF internal Improvements at
the expense of the Treasury. The advantages
offered by such scheme are superficial and
deceptive. True. employment would be given
to many laborers, but the public debt would
be increased the burden of taxes en-
HANGED and great amount OF
capital consumed without any return
within the next ten or twenty years. The
completion Of the Northern Pacific and Texas
Pacific railroads by government guarantee
of their bonds and the construction of grand
system Of canals by government aid, would be
as useless, for the next ten years, as would
vast increase Of the regular army, which
would also furnish pay to many men who
now earn nothing and lead to the consulnp-
ton of much food and clothing 1t would be
ridiculous to increase the army for the pur-
pose of giving relief. and the employment of
labor in unproductive enterprises at the pub


lie expense would be hardly less preposterous.
To be sure, the Pacific railroads would be of
some ultimate value; but when they are
wanted they will be built by private capital.
To complete them now at government expense
would be as absurd as for the government to
spend the same amount of money in building
houses which would have to stand unoccupied
ten or fifteen years before finding tenants


1t would be absurd to do this at ALL


and doubly absurd to do it with borrowed
money We warn President Grant against
committing his reputation to SO wild pro-
ject of relief, to which crazy theorists and
interested schemers are urging him.


The second danger and temptation to
which military President like General Grant
| is exposed of still more alarming charac-
ter than the other. He holds constantly in
his hand card which might be played in the
last resort as means Of retrieving the politi-
cal fortunes Of the republican party and his
own. II he should fail to recommend or Con-
gress to adopt wise and sagacious policy,
and if the internal improvement project
should not be adopted or should disappoint
his expectations, there remains the desperate
resource of foreign war, which he could
easily bring about Our relations with Spain
or our relations with Mexico could easily be
so worked as to furnish pretext, and when
he had provoked insults or injustice from
those irascible Powers he might fan the
fame of popular indignation up to the
war pitch. His Spanish and Mexican policy
has heretofore been more than conservative
it has been tame and pusillanimous. One rea-
son is that his frmest supporters have been the
moneyed classes, who are habitually conserva-
tive, as all people are who have great deal to
lose. The same motive operated on his own
mind so long as the republican party seemed
in secure possession of the government But
if the coming session ends without sound
measures of relief the republican party will
have little left to risk or to lose, and Grant 8
motives for conservatism will be as weak as
those of the rabble or of demagogues out OF
power. He has witnessed the potency of the
war feeling in rallying the people to the sup
port of the government. He has seen how
easily and victoriously Mr.. Lincoln's re-
nomination and reelection were secured by
the supposed danger Of changing the President
in the midst of great war. If he were to
plunge the country into foreign war he might
count on putting such strain
upon the sentiment of loyalty as
fortunes of his party, but his own hopes Of a
third term. But the day is past for playing
this game with success. The prosecution OF
war requires not only men but money, and
the conservative classes, who alone can fur
nish the money, would utterly abandon the
President if he should attempt to play this
desperate game. We warn him against medi-
tating it even as project to be taken up in
the last resort II the country had not SO
recently experienced the evils of war-its
appalling destruction of life and property, its
arrangement of the currency, its fearful in
crease Of the public debt, its oppressive addi-