Year: 1874




The journals, both here and in the interior,
are filled with discussions concerning possl-
BILE revival of business. We do not wonder at
! their zeal nor at their hopefulness. The
stagnation Of trade has lasted overlong. II
began months before the failure of jay Cooke,
and it became worse instead Of better during
the whole year following that catastrophe.
1t began when the country was rich in crops
and products, and it continued, in spite Of
large crops, prudent business ventures and
cheap money. In some respects the condition
of trade and enterprise during the last four
teen or fifteen months is unexampled
in our previous experience and, though an
i'll regulated and deprecated currency, q
foolish tariff, the Chicago and Boston fires,
and heavy national, State and local debts had
good deal to do with "poor times" all these
together do not account for 80 prolonged and
hopeless paralysis of enterprise as the coun-
try has suffered from. Nor, were these the
only or even the chief reasons, would there
be the general sense of relief and hopefulness
which has sprung up all over the country in
the last few days-since the elections.


For the elections did not suddenly change
anything. The currency is no better now
than on the LIST of November; the public
debts of various kinds are no less; Boston
and Chicago have not sensibly improved
during week. The sources of the evil lay
deeper. A great and intelligent nation,
occupying vast and fertile territory
and blessed with good crops, does not
sink before mere pecuniary loss like that
inflicted by the two great fires 1t does not
lose its energy or enterprise because OF cur
rency SO little deprecated and so little change
able as ours has been during the last two
years. 1t quickly adapts itself to even the
most injurious and restrictive taxes 1t does
not faint beneath the burden of a debt con-
stantly and satisfactorily decreasing. 1t is
the gross misgovernment of the country,
more than oil the other causes combined
which has brought business to standstill. II
we examine the symptoms Of the disease from
which we have been and still are suffering
they all point to this conclusion, for they all
show that it is not destruction of capital by
fires nor confscation OF capital by taxes, but
the grave alarm of capital, causing its with
drawal from enterprises, which has brought
all business to standstill.


The long continued maladministration of
General Grant, growing worse rather than
better, constantly less regardful of propriety,
of public opinion and Of constitutional limita-
tons, shocking to the peoples sense of justice
and seeming to gather around him more and
more the dangerous class in our politics it
is this which has alarmed capital and caused
all prudent men to husband their resources
and to decline new ventures. The people
bore for four years patiently with his evil
associations and corrupt appointments to
Office; for they laid these to the score of his
ignorance of public business and public men;
but when, year after year, even in his second
term, they saw him call about hum or appoint
to places Of trust and profit men notoriously
and indecently corrupt, and when they
noticed further that he never re-
moved one of these men (; when they
saw him deliberately defying public opinion
and attending only to the batteries of his
chosen associates when they beheld the re-
suits of his misgovernment in the prolonged
and increasing Southern troubles when they
noticed that wherever disorder or corruption
or shameless defiance of public opinion or
injustice appeared, there, as its moving cause,
might be found one of the President s friends
when they remembered Casey, and to Casey
added Kellogg, and to Kellogg Moses, and to
Moses Jayne, and to Jayne Sanborn, and to
Sanborn Shepherd, and to Shepherd Sim
mons when they saw the President frown
down every manifestation Of independent
judgment in Congress and crush out by
the power of his patronage all oppo-
sition to his own wishes when they
saw the revenues farmed out by his Secretary
of the Treasury, his Attorney General COM
manding the armies, and his most devoted
personal adherents crowding through Con-
gress a gag law directed against the press,
oil this persistently continued during six
years. began to inspire the gravest appre-
tensions. Men asked each other, Suppose
this is allowed to go on2 And then came the
question, Who shall stop it? Evidently the
President and his favorites had no notion of
changing. Apparently the people were asleep
or without public spirit They seemed SO in.
capable of alarm that General Grant con-
temptuously refused even to give them the
poor assurance that he did not mean to reign
forever 1t began to be generally thought
that the people had gone out of business.


In all this there was certainly cause for
alarm. 1t is not supposed by any one that
the American people will accept master
without such resistance as would cause serious
and prolonged internal disorders. But the
course of the President and his favorites, their
carelessness or contempt of constitutional
limitations, and their constant treatment of
public interests and business from a purely
personal standpoint all pointed to desire,
l,,,4 eli ie.htls caalad tho part of tho