People's Pilot, Volume 3, Number 35, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 16 February 1894 — A DOUBTFUL STEP. [ARTICLE]

A DOUBTFUL STEP.

The I«aoe of New Bonds Under the Old Resumption Act Not the Proper Way of Meeting the DeSclt. A correspondent asks us what plan other than borrowing would the Constitution suggest to Mr. Carlisle at this time. The question is a very timely one, and we shall give it a plain and democratic answer. We would suggest to the administration to treat the bond issue project precisely as Benjamin j Harrison treated it We should turn aside from John Sherman’s sinister advice with an emphasis that the country could not mistake. We should place the whole responsibility on congress | where it properly belongs. Mr. Carlisle has not a particle more interest in providing for the treasury deficit than congress—not half so much. He cannot provide the ways and means for carrying on the government and preserving its credit. He has done his whole duty when he lays before congress the facts of the situation and urges that body to act promptly. There his responsibility ends and that of congress begins. But has Mr. Carlisle done his whole duty in this matter? His annual report was long withheld. When it was finally sent to congress, it announced that there would be a deficit of about $28,000,000 some time during the year. He .expressed no anxity; he made no urgent demand on congress for relief. But now Mr. Voorhees is waked in the middle of the night and informed that there will be a deficiency above $77,000,000, and that the emergency is so great that Mr. Carlisle will be compelled to issue bonds on his own hook (as we say in Georgia) if congress doesn’t act promptly. Now, several important questions suggest themselves. Did Mr. Carlisle fumble with figures in his first report cr in his latest statement? There has been fumbling somewhere. Most important of all, who made Mr. Carlisle or anj r other executive officer the custodian of the country’s credit? If congress should fail to act, what person on the face of the earth would lay the responsibility at Mr. Carlisle’s door? He has done his duty in this matter so far. He has brought the emergency to the attention of congress--p«rrhaps not in the way or at the time it ought to have been brought. But his zesponsibility ended right at the door of congress. If there is a lapse in the credit of the government—if obligations cannot be cashed —Mr. Carlisle is no more responsible for it than the doorkeeper of the senate. Congress represents the people, and is the custodian of the people's credit. Upon congress devolves the responsibility of dealing with tilie people’s finances. It will not do for Mr. Carlisle or any other executive officer of the government to forget that the people themselves are the government and that they manifest their will and desire through congress. If congress chooses to issue bonds, well and good. If it fails to do so, the people are not likely to hold Mr. Carlisle or any other member of the administration responsible for results. It will be a most unfortunate event for Mr. Carlisle, for the administration, and, we fear, for the democratic party if Mr. Carlisle shall take on himself the responsibility of issuing bonds under the doubtful authority of the law of 1875. —Atlanta Constitution.