Democratic Sentinel, Volume 9, Number 45, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 11 December 1885 — The Treasury Surplus. [ARTICLE]

The Treasury Surplus.

The President’s Message will be found on our inside pages, to-day. It is lengthy, but is well written, and treats in detail, in a businesslike way, the great questions presented for the inhumation and action of Congress. Taken as a whole-—it meets the expectations of the friends of the President J and dumbfounds his partisan adversaries. Read it. We have heard quite a number of Republic ns speak in flattering terms of the President’s Message. Our neighbor suggests no objections, and can only urge against it that “talk is cheap,” etc. With the Executive and Senate heretofore, and tno Senate now, to obstruct any efforts of the Democratic House to secure measures of reform, and legislation for the relief of the people, radical papers liav , the dishonest cheek to say to their readexs: “The Democratic administration is doing very effective work in perpetuating and aggravating the hard times.” See Republican of yesterday. The fact is the “hard times” are chargable to radical misrule and legislation and are “perpetuated and aggravated” by the radical majority which prevails in the United States Senate. When this Democratic National Admin stration removes a Republican from office and appoints a Democrat to the vacancy the Republican organs set up a howl all along the line.

The opposition party for Several months has been declaiming savagely that the Treasury surplus has been allowed to accumulate, instead of, as heretofore, being applied to the extinguishment of the public debt. But we deem the ac tion of the administration in this respect as in the highest degree statesmanlike. The country ha s been goiug on the road to liquidation too fast, and i lie excessive quantity of reduction has been a str iu upon the industries of the country, cumbered,' as they are, with debt, and the necessity of individual legislation. Nothing, in our opinion, could be more wasteful in view of the stringency of money than to draw funds from active employment through taxation in order to pay a debt, costing but 3 and 4 per cent, in the way of interest. Of course the Treasury accumulation, unless applied soon on such public works as are imperatively needed, would even be more idle than it would be if applied to the public debt, but th’s is not the course contemplated by the administration, which, for several months has been preparing to lay before Congress an extensive scheme for the rehabitation of the navy, es_ tablishing a secure line of coast defense, and the improvement of our river system; perhaps, also, a

canal across the isthmus. Aside from the possibilities intended by the administration, and that may be decided by Congress it is clear to all who have given aiiv attention to the causes that underlie our industrial stagnation, that i this would be xactly the course i that should be followed. It is equally clear that money expended , upon needed public works would not only flow into the channels cl j trade, but would serve the ex'n, i and at this juncture, important service of giving employment to | the host of idle men, whose projent losses far exceed any possible j saving that might accrue through ! its application to the public debt Som. such impetus as this isie

quire J to raise the wheels of enterprise from out of the rut, finan- ; cial and industrial, they have gotten into; and the use of the publi money in creating those forces of the navy and our foreign commerce would bear fruit far into the future, while the public debt is in that healthful condition now that it no longer needs to absorb the total attention of the Government.- Indianapolis Sentinel. . Let our neighbor derive consolation from the above, and rest content. W. H. Vanderbilt died suddenly Tuesday last, in New’ York, of appoplexy. Senator John Sherman was elected President pro. tern, of the Senate, and Mr. Carlisle was re elected Speaker of the House, in the organization of Congress.