Year: 1879

Mr.. George III. Pendleton, of Ohio, now on
the stump in that State for the election of
the Greenbacl- Democratic ticket, is the only
orator or leader on that side. Of whom we
have lately heard, who is willing to talk about
what he calls the record Of his party, and
challenge the Republicans TO comparison.
lie is discussing before the voters Of OHIO the
financial question. That has been his best
hold ever since he promulgated the idea that
the National debt should bepaid in greenbacks,
and undertook thereon to be the Presl-
dental candidate OF his party. The chief
feature OF his present policy Is opposition to
the National banks. He admits " that in
"point of stability of value, facility of cir
EQUATION, and safety of the note-holder, the
"National bank currency Is the best bank
"currency we ever had.n But he objects to
its perpetuaton and would gradually abolish it,
because 1t is expensive; because its only
advantage to the people is its use as cur
rency; and because the banks are liable to
become ga great political machine, the ally
land support aud money-lender and master
of the party which sustains it,"


Passing from this point he arraigns the Re
publican party for the financial measures
adopted during and after the war. He says
they unnecessarily abandoned specie pay
"ments and most unwisely degraded the
"greenback currency. They enhanced the
burden of the public indebtedness 10y making
ga home debt foreign debt; by making a
"paper debt a coin debt; by extending the
" time of its payment; by making a coin
"debt a gold debt by contracting and hoard


"ing and selling bonds and all this they did
"without other apparent reason than the de-
"mands and the profit of the holders of
bonds" Since Mr. PendetOn, later on in the
same speech, challenges on behalf of the
Democratic party comparison of records, ii
is well enough, perhaps to remind him that
each party has n record n little further back
than that he cites that the action of the
Democratic party had already degraded the
National credit, and driven the Government to
the adoption of a financial policy which nee
essariy involved the suspension of specie pay
ments that the "making n home debt n for
"eign' debt was equally necessary to raise
the money to put down the Democratic re-
beliOn and that it was only effected by the
wise administration of Republicans, which
raised the credit of the country SO that it
could borrow in foreign markets; that what he
CdllS iudhinB u pupcl utDJ tOlH utDt


was simply what any honest debtor does who
proposes TO pay his outstanding obligations in
cash, and not in lying promises and that all
the subsequent steps for which he arraigns
Republican policy were necessary in order to
fulfil the contracts which the United States
Government had entered into with its credit
ors in order to procure the means to save its
own life and put down the rebellion of Mr.
PendIeton's Democratic associates. If records
are to be compared, let us have them in full.


Mr. Pendleton says, further: The Dem
"ocrats steadily opposed this policy" Indeed
they did. They opposed the financial policy,
and the war policy as well. He says /" they
opposed the suspension of specie payments"
SO they did and the suspension of the writ
of habeas corpus, and of everything else that
their own rebellion made necessary. except the
prosecution OF the war; that they clamored to
have suspended at all times. in season and