Year: 1870

What it Costs the People.


In his speech here last Monday the no
torious Winfield Jerusalem Smith endeaYor-
ed to convince the people who were kind
enough to listen to him that the public
debt had been reduced, in less than one
year, over one hundred and forty millions
Like all radicals, he lodged the main points
Here Is what the Philadelphia Public Re
cord says about Boutwelrs Bond Paying
Policy


The expenditure of the public money in
premature payment of bonds with n long
time to run, and the paying from the public
treasury from ten to eleven per cent for
the privilege of so doing, seems almost like
moekery. It can have no other object than
to crafty the insane ambition Of the Secre-
tary of the Treasury to obtain the reputation
of paying off at a rapid rate the national
! debt Mr.. Boutwell, may rest assured that
the people understand this question
thoroughly. They know that u pretended
payment is no payment at all, and that the
real debt of the country is not one farthing
less as the result of these operations, they
| being only the transfer Of the obligation into
another form to our foreign creditors He
may be quite certain that such an honor
is but fictitious one, because it is an IN
willing people, and not the Government,
that pays. The American people are groan-
ing under weight of oppressive unjust and
unequal taxation What the mechanic
artisan, or laboring man might save from
the fruits of his labor, to lay by for a rainy
| day, the tax-gatherer claims. If fthe Govern
ment does not do this directly by an income
tax, or internal rvenue tax, it does it in
much more ohjectional form by an external
| tax, which it enormously styles protection
| to American labor, and which so enhances
the price of all that he or his family has
to consume that he has nothing left after
paying absolute and necessary expenses.
| He pays increased rent because the increas-
ed taxes which his landlord is compelled
to pay render it necessary. 1t is these
things and others of like bearing and i'm
port that make the anticipated payment of
| the public debt so Odious.


We have seen published, as an illustration
of this policy, an account of the failure of
a commercial house in England "involVing
in its disaster numerous widows and or
phans, whom it reduced from opulence to
penury, the embarrassments of which arose
from the munifcent donations of its prin-
cipal partner to public charities and insti-
tutions of learning The governor was a
most generous fellow He lavlshed thous.
ands upon thousands on asylums aud lib
raries, churches and colleges, public works
and the destitute poor. Unfortunately for
his creditors, it was not his money that he
was throwing broadcast through the city
and country, but theirs. He is bankrupt,
but has enough left to feed him and clothe
him as well as if he were worth millions.
They are paupers, wear beggars clothes,
and eat the bread Of the poor" In principle
this is Mr.. BOutweIs 5ond-paying policy
exactly, and he will find that it will end
in the same way. The government is now
apparently sailing on sea of prosperity,
but this prosperity is only apparent-and
is delusion. All the money that goes into
the Treasury is obtained from the people by





industry by filling all the channels of con-
sumption with foreign products-at the ex-
Ipense of our own. The government may
survive the system, but the people viii be
impovished and wear the beggar's clothes


1t is claimed by the friends of the Secre-
tary that he has paid off one hundred and
forty millions of the debt 1t is true that
he has transferred this amOut, at an aver
age premium of ten per cent, into another
form of debt. If let alone, taxes could have
been reduced to that amount, the expenses
of living would have been greatly lessened,
productive industry would have been stimu-
lated to renewed efforts to regain markets
which they have lost, and the whole people
would feel as If they had a new lease of
prosperity.