Year: 1875

= rom the NdtiOn.


The defense of the national credi,
cannot be conducted successfully by
men who have no thorough acquaint
ance with the conditions on which il
depends, whose history and training
have attached them to different class
of subjects, and who, therefore, in a
conflict like that now impending over
the country, neither, as Cromwell said,
know what they are fighting for, or
love what they know" We have in a
recent number of the Nation $50 en-
deavored to describe the way in which
the party tried to shirk the currency
question. and discourage its discussion.
from General Grants election in 1863
down to the panic of 1873. We need


hardly to remind our readers OF tho
scenes in Washington which followed
the panic. The President, after refus-
ing to allow the reserve to be issued at
the moment of panic, when it might
have been of some use, issued it after


the panic was over, thus giving direct
and practical countenancc to the inha-
zionist theory that the remedy for our
depression was an increase in the vol
ume of the currency. when the sub
ject, somewhat later, came up in Con-
gress, the Republican party, far from





and producing body of financial doc
trine which might have been expounded
to the country, and to which honest and
intelligent men might have given in
their adhesion, and through which the
education OF the popular mind might
have been carried on, treated the cur
rency as an open question, on which diff
ference of opinion was allowable. Ac-
cordingly, we witnessed the extraordi-
nary spectacle Of the defense of infla-
ton in its crudest shape by leading
friends of the administration and pro-
minent managers of the party in both
the House and Senate, to the great de-
moralization of public sentiment. Nor


must it be forgotten that the gerua Of


the intiationist theory and particularly
of kelley's 1865 scheme is to be found in
Mr.. Boutwelrs bold assertion, while in
charge of the Treasury; that the Secre-
tary ought to have the power of infAt-
ing or contracting the currr ncy whenev-
er, in his opinion, the needs OF business
require a change in its volume in or
der. for example, to move the crops"
or lease the market" This eXtraordi-
nary doctrine, which this most promi-
nent Republican tinancier did really put
into practice, was never rebuked or dis
countenanced by the majority in Con-
gress. 1t has proved in the hands of
the Democrats most fruitful sugges-
ton, and the appearance of its worthy
author in Ohio, to combat it on the
stump, reminds one of some incidents
in the political history of the Grand
Duchy of Gerolstein.


There is, however, another and even
stronger reason for letting the Repub-
lican party use the honors and rewards
of any recent or prospective triumphs
of honest finance as means of giving
it the position of a reform party, and
that is the absence among its leading
politicians of any positive ideas or
convictions on theprOblems now press.
ing for solution. They are incapable
for want of any interest or faith in the
objects of reform. They are mostly
what, for want of better name. we
shall call "horse politicians"-that is,
they are in their relations to the people
on almost exactly the same moral
plane as the horse in relations to his
owner. To the horse when put into
the wagon, it is a matter of complete
ethical indifference whether he car.
ries his master to gambling house or
to church. To him one place of re-
sort is just as desirable as the other.
and he is equally willing to 60 to
either. So, also, Republican states
man in our time is very apt to confine


his craftsmanship to finding out what
tpe people want" and, whateyer it be,


he is ready to go in for it. If they
want or he thinks they want, the South
governed by martial law, he supports
martial law; if they want, or he thinks
they want, the South let alone, he
breaches State rights; if they want,
or he thinks they want imitation, he
roars for fresh issues OF paper money
if they want, or lie thinks they want
specie payments, he denounces infia
tion as sinful and idiotic-with nc
mora shame than horse woul dfeel in
waiting for his master in front of 9
faro bank. Upon none Of these has he
any opinion of his own to which he
attaches the least value. If, on the
other hand, he should find himself
mistaken as to what the people went
he will face right about within a week
with as much nonchalance as the horse
would SHOW in trotting towards the
gambling house if his master turned


him sharply off from the road to the
| church.


We might fill pamphlet with illus
trations of what We mean from recent
political history, without using such
gross cases as Senator Morton's tergiv.
| ersations about the currency. We
will, for want of space, content our


selves with one only, that of MIR.
Dawes, who is now one of the leading
party chiefs, and Senator from the
eminently Republican State of Massa.
chusetts. There was, perhaps, nc
more fragrant departure from the spirit
of civil service reform than General
Grants handing the party patronage
| In that State over to Butler in the
Simmons affair last year. There l:
perhaps no more notoriously corrupt
and corrupting politician than Butler.
Well, when a determined effort effort
was made by respectable Massachu-
sets citizens to oppose the Simmer:
appointmen MT and protest against But
ler's influence at the White House, Mr.
Dawes carefully withdrew froi
Washington and declined to meddlI