Year: 1875

From the New York Tribune, September 81.


There is nothing novel about imitation and
reputation They are two of the commonest
follies of history, always advocated by short
sighted knives when the path of honesty is diff
icult, and readily accepted by ignorance,w which
they do not often have an opportunity of heing
put in practice, as il is ex remely rare that the
ignorance and the raScality necessary for the
propagation of such schemes get admitted to
the high places of government, where govern
poison majority of the community in com
monwealths ruled by popular suffrage. But
once in while in the course of ages by fatal
concurrence of circumstances, the experiment
has been made possible, and tlie result has al
ways been the same: 1t was tried by two sue
cessive kings of Spain when the days when the
King of Spain was the greatest of mortal men,
and when his edicts ranked next in authority
to tho utterances of omnipotence Phillip II.
considered himself as much beyond the opera
t1ons of natural laws and scientific truths as
any statesman of our day considers his country
or his party. He was dull and ignorant big
OF, who thought, just as the repudiationists Of
to-day think, that he could afford to treat Bith
contempt al the traditions of trade all the
OF public morals He had wasted money law.
ishly and borrowed IT at high rates of interest.
pay, and so the anointed monarch, very mu ch
as if he had got his ideas from Democratic mass
meetings in Ohio, came to the conclusion that
creditors were malefactors, and that the lend
ing of none was crime deserving exemplary
punishment. On the 10th of November, 1896,
ing in substance that he had been to great ex-
pense in butchering Protestants, and that he
found it hard 10 pay 'the grieVouS damages
discounts, and interest which had been forced
upon him" (making it seem, just as his imita-
tors do to-day; that the loan was put upon him
originally in an outrageous manner); that his
creditors would not advance him any more
much in debt that this was embarrassing; that
he-therefore cancelled all such obligations, re-
hereafter pay any of them, and took again into
his possession all mortgaged property


We do not know but that we shall be encour-
aging the bedlamitea of Ohio by relating the
consequences of this infamous act. They do
not appear to object to ruin and di>aster pro-
Vided it makes things lively in the Hooking
Valley and on the James River. But we will
at AL events quote few lines from Mr.. Motley
the PRONUNCIATION of this measure was instanta-
neous. Two millions and a half of bills of ex-
one day protested. The chief merchants and
bankers of Europe suspended payment. Their
creditors became bankrupt. AT the Frankfort
Fair their were more failures in one day than
there had ever been in all the years sigce Frank
fort existed There was general howl of in
dignation and despair upon every exchange, in
every counting room, in every palace, in every
crime as this had never been conceived by hu-
man neart before Al this would perhaps
not not warn warn 9pr @ 6edlamites' @ They would only
moneyed class in this fashion. But they may
possibly think 1t worth while to consider that
ter Philip found that housekeeping was impos-
sible under this load, and he was obliged to
woke his proclamation and pay his debts, to
evade which he had incurred such infamy.


There is no room for satire or for argument in



lists who have in these days, three hundred
years after Shakespeare and Philip, gained a
majority of two large conventions and COM
PEELED the leading men of two great States to
go down into the dust before them. They reject
argument, facts, common sense, beforehand,
and they are too dull and coarse to be pervious
TO ridicule. We still hope and expect TO defeat
their worst purposes at the polls and in Con-
grcss, but in the mean time they are intiicting
Il stain and damage upon the national char
acter which cannot be effaced in our lifetime.
1t is something too monstrous to admit the
possibility of such wild folly attaining to the
government of the country