Year: 1879

1t is noteworthy illustration Of
what is sometimes called "poetica.
justice" that the financial heresy Of
which the State of OhioNhas been fol
the last twelve years the hotbed has
been blighted and killed by a severe
autumnal frost in the place where it
germinated. In other words, the rag
baby has been strangled in it's cradle.
The financial policy which, in the po-
litical parlance of the day, has been
called "the Ohio idea," receives its
fatal death wound in the place of its
birth, as the image Of Dagon, the
great god Of the Philistines, fell pros
trate in his own temple.


The State of Ohio has been the pes
tilential breeding ground of financial
heresies ever since questions Of debt
and currency rose into prominence
after the close of the civil war; The
original and foremost apostle of the
greenback heresy was the amiable
Mr.. Pendleton, who sought and barely
missed Presidential nomination in
1868 on this "Ohio idea" From that
day to this 1.-The Ohio idea" has been
protruded in national politics, divid-
ing and demoralizing the democratic
party, carrying it away from it's an
cient landmarks, stultifying its time
honored principles, and making it a
butt Of scoffing derision not merely
to its political opponents but to all
honest men. They who SOW the wind
must expect to reap the whirlwind,
and it satisfies the public sense of re-
tributive justice to see the punishment
fall on the very authors of the fault.
1t is like the hanging of Haman on
the gallows which he had himself
erected. The democratic party of
Ohio is ''hoist by its own petard," and
all citizens who value the reputation
of the country for integrity and honor
will rejoice that the fatal blow is dealt
on the very spot where its effect will
be most instructive and will prove
most valuable as an admonition and a
warning. If the democrats of any
State could have profited by the
greenback heresy it should naturally
have been the democrats of Ohio, the
inventors and Jealous propagandists
of "the Ohio idea" Having been
crushed in the citadel of its strength
it will hereafter disappear from ma
tional politics, in which it has been so
long an element of danger and confu-
sion. This utter defeat verifes the
lines of the poet:


But Error, wounded, writhes in pain,


And dies among his worshippers.


1t is lamentable to behold what
wrecks the "Ohio idea has made.
Poor Senator Thurman! If, in an
evil hour, this truly able man had not
yielded his convictions to notions of
transient expediency and tampered
with an idea of which no statesman
had more clearly demonstrated the
fallacy, how different would be the
politically engulfed Mr.. Thurman
position be at present! Nothing re-
mains for him in politics but to have
his epitaph written. But if he had
possessed the steady courage to assert
his principles without finching he
might have been to-day one of the
first public characters Of the country.
The democratic party as whole has
made mistake not less short-sighted
than the great and fatal mistake of
Senator Thurman. All its history,
all its traditions, all the great princi-
pies for which it contended in the
high and palmy days of its strength,
ali the political battles which it
fought and won during the fifty or
sixty years while it administered the
government and shaped the policy of
the country, gave it advantages for
assuming leadership in the restoration
of specie payments after the close of
the war. Through all its history up
to the passage of the Legal Tender
act it had been the strenuous and ex-
treme champion Of hard money. Its
most popular idol, President Jackson,
won the chief triumph Of his admins
tration by his successful war on the
old United States Bank. Senator
Benton, his great defender in the cur
rency struggles Of that period, was
nicknamed "Old Bullion Van Bu-
ren, Calhoun and Silas Wright were
the authors and advocates of system
for divorcing the government from
paper and forbidding the Treasury to