Rensselaer Republican, Volume 22, Number 7, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 24 October 1889 — WATTERSON MAKES A SPEECH. [ARTICLE]

WATTERSON MAKES A SPEECH.

_ .The National Board of Trade, in session at Louisville, was addressed, Friday, by ’Henry Watterson. ’ Of money matters, he said: “What are you going to do for a banking system when there are no more bonds to build On? Some ten years ago I ventured to propose that we reduce the National debt to a thousand million and then that, for a fiscal basis, we fund these thousand millions at a low rate of interest,and make the debt thus reduced perpetual. Everybody laughed at me. Some said I was crazy; others insisted that I was simply a fool. But lam more than ever persuaded of the truth and force of my suggestion, because, to say nothing of the banks and the future of our banking system,we ought to have some fixed securities for the small holders, which can neither be swallowed up by a deluge of watered stock nor be able to run away to Canada.” Mr. Watterson next took up the tariff, and among other things said: “I have never oelieved that we shall have free trade in this country until the manufacturers themselves lead the free trade movement. That this is only a question of time, I have always believed. But, meanwhile, here is a system of taxation devised exclusively for war purposes, yet outlasting those purposes a quarter of a century, and as surely as somebody proposes to put it on a peace footing, somebody else starts up and says that, being about all that survives of the war, we ought to hold it sacred and keep it as a relic. Well, it is a relic, sure enough, for war is barbarism, and there is not a doubt that the war tariff is a relic of barbarism. For my part I can live under,any kind of tariff that the rest can; and care as little for expenses, too, for in my day I have paid ns high as SSOO for a pair of boots and $5 lor a glass of water seasoned with nutmeg—in Confederate money; but, really, it does seem to me that at the moment when our public men are. cozening their wits to find the means of spending the excess of revenue the tariff yields us, it is about time that we consider whether it would not be better to save more and spend less.” Of tho pension position Mr. Watterson says: “We have a pension list that costs us nearly as much as the costliest standing army in Europe, and still the cry comes up formore. I have been ’fightfng this with all my might and main, and hhve had for my pains the charge very freely made that the motive of my opposition is hatred of the Northern soldier. Gentlemen, this intimation would be laughable if it were not detestable. It is circumstance and the feeling of brotherhood in.all that concerns the North which lies here, that has emboldened me to speak very plainly of the wasting of money and the corruption ness. If a stop be not put to it, tbat wliioh began in national indulgence! will end in national disgrace.”