July 5, 1890





Record and Guide.







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Vol. XLVI.





JULY 5, 1890.





No. 1,164





Prices of railroad stocks for the past week have ruled flrm and
there is a good outlook of a continuance of this feeling due to a gen¬
erally good crop prospect, good business throughout the country,
a continuance of large railroad earnings and a cessation of gold
exports. The Treasury shows an increase of over $16,000,000 in
gold coin during the past year, and a remarkable exhibit is made
in relation to the steady increase of its holdings of gold for some
years. For instance, on the Ist day of June, 1888, the Treasury
held of gold coin $195,0(X),0(X); on the 1st day of June, 1889, it had
$236,000,000, which amount was increased by the 1st day of June,
1890, to $253,750,000. It is estimated that there is of gold coin in
the country, in the Treasury and in circulation, $629,000,000, in ad¬
dition to which there are over $15:^,000,000 of gold certificates; then,
further, we have $366,526,266 of standard silver dollars, $299,592,106
silver certificates and $76,818,427 of small silver coins. Then add
to this $346,681,016 of U. S. legal tender notes and $187,549,848 of
National Bank notes, making a grand total of $2,064,459,896, and
it wdll be seen that there is no legitimate reason for any fright
about there not being money enough in the country. What we
need to be more concerned about is that we shall have as much
corn, cotton, wheat, provisions, oil, etc., as we had last year, and
of this it can only be said that at present the outlook is all that we
can expect. We look for a gradual hardening of prices during the
coming month, and in some stocks for a decided rise.





The bill passed by the House, concurred in by the Senate, and
now in the hands of the President, providing for the building of a
bridge across the Hudson between New York and New Jersey, is
fraught with great consequences for this city. The plans for the
proposed structure have been prepared by Gustav Lindenthal, and
call for a suspension bridge having but one span between the estab¬
lished pier lines of New York and New Jersey. The plans of the
bridge and the methods of its construction must be approved by
the Secretary of War; and the bill contains provisions for se¬
curing the rights of the public and the railroads to its use under
equitable conditions. The great span will be fully 2,860 feet
long, or 1,265 feet longer than that of the Brooklyn Bridge.
Added to this will be 1,500 feel for the end spans on each shore,
«o that it is estimated that with the two approaches the bridge
rannot well be less than 6,500 feet long. The towers will be double
en each side; they will rest on enormous masonry piers about 25
feet above high water, and will be 500 feet high, of wrought iron
and steel, containing sixteen smaller piers each. The single cable
of the Brooklyn bridge will be doubled in the Hudson River bridge,
each being 4 feet in diameter, 50 feet apart, and braced. A Board
of Engirware have approved the plans and the unanimity with
which i. ^assed Congress is an indication that valid objections
against tLt scheme are difficult to find. According to the Wash¬
ington dispatches, Mr. Lindenthal estimates the cost of the
structure itself in the neighborhood of $16,000,000. This is about
the cost of the Brooklynbridge, butin thecaseof the latter there
is included the expense of purchasing the land necessary for the
approaches. For the Hudson River Bridge it is estimated by the
engineer that no less than $30,000,000 will be needed to condemn
the land required for this purpose on either side of the river. It has
not transpired as yet where the projectors wish to locate the bridge;
but if $30,000,000 will be used for the purchase of the land, it is
obvious that it must be in some quarter in which property is already
of considerable value. When we consider^ furthermore, that some
ten railroads will probably use the bridge, and all of these may
need storage and terminal facilities either on one side of the bridge
GC the ocher, some idea of the immense importance of the structure,
not only to the city at large, but to the immediate vicinity, in which
it is located, it is not too mudh to say that the proposed
bridge will have more effect on the future of this city than
any single improvement since the Erie Canal. There is still much
to be done, however, before the scheme can be brought into the
sphere of immediate action. Two Legislatures have to be con¬
sulted, neither of which can be regarded as abnormally sc^citous
about the iatereeto ol the public ; and there is already a corporation





in existence with a charter from this State which may have to be
dickered with before any action can be taken.





The so-called Force Bill is a most obnoxious measure. It would
not be a very great exaggeration to say that, South or North, there
are few^ thoroughly " square " elections. Cooking the returns, bal¬
lot-box stuffing and similar devices for obtaining the suffrage of
the free and sovereign i)eople, are among the common evolutions
of political tactics. An honest ballot is, undoubtedly, something to
be striven for, mght and day, in season and out of season, but to
endeavor to secure it through a Federal election law would be, it
seems to us, little more than bargaining with the Devil for the ex¬
change of one evil for another exactly like it. Elections, local and
general, are so corrupt, as they are such vulgar travesties of what
it is pretended they are, because they ar* so completely affairs of
" practical politics." But what would the machinery of a Federal
election law be run foo ? Righteousness or " politics ? " There can
be no doubt as to which. Any such law would be nothing but an¬
other entrenchment thrown around whatever party should be in
power in Washington. One of the great political evils of the times
is partisanship; partisanship,for instance, of the Ingalls type, which
deliberately places the ascendency of party before morality ; openly
declares political reform to be an evanescent dream, and ranks the
politician with the pirate by asserting that there is no place in his
career for the Decalogue. While the present conditions exist it
would be folly unspeakable to expect that a Federal election law
would be anything else than another piece of machinery for parti¬
sanship to run for political advantage. In truth, have we not al¬
ready quite enough of this ? The Force Bill should be summarily
dropped. It is time Congress should give a little of its expensive
attention to measures other than those of merely party importance.
The National Legislature is fast becoming a political bear garden,
and the interest the people have in what is going on there seems to
be of the kind exactly suited to an ursine contest, the result of
which could be of no importance except to the animals.





The present Congress has probably been as purely partisan a body
as any which has ever sat in Washington. From the first it has
turned its attention almost to the exclusion of everything else to
the passage of measures out of which the Republicans expected
to make political capital, or which were [framed simply for the
purpose of perpetuating Republican rule. Some of this legislation
is good and some of it bad. But whether good or bad, it has been
just of the character which would naturally arouse heated opposi¬
tion. In consequence there have been many stormy debates in
the House, and that august assemblage has been continually en¬
gaged in squabbles that were undignified and frequently petty. But
the queerest aspect of the whole matter is that during the last five
months, when bills of the utmost importance have been under dis¬
cussion, there has been no appeal of any description to the people.
The Republicans have held no mass meetings of any consequence
to place their views before the electors; and the protests of the
Democrats have been made on the floor of the House or through
the columns of the newspapers. The Republicans are making
changes in our tariff laws of considerable importance, changes
in our financial system that are of still more importance, and
changes in our election laws that reverse the precedents of
a century, and, as some believe, are unconstitutional in
letter and spirit. They are committing the country to pension
legislation of the most unwarrantable and extravagant description
—legislation that may in the end invol/e the practical subsidizing
of every man who took part in the war, no matter how little he
deserves or needs the assistance. All these things are being done,
yet the public either takes so little interest in the proceedings, or
else the politicians allow the people such a small portion of self-
government that no public meeting, general in charlu;ter, has been
held to cry aloud for or against these important and far-reaching
measures. The apathy of the public is as singular as it is unfor¬
tunate. It does not speak well for free institutions when the elec¬
torate are so indifferent to their most vital interests that they will
not organize meetings, of their own accord, if the polititions will
not take the initative, to raise their voices either on one side or the
other. Of course, when Congress adjourns and the fall nomina¬
tions are made, there will be meetings in plenty, and the opinions
of the electorate either one way or the other will be declared.
But then it will be too late. In Great Britain the meetings are
held at all times when Parliament is in session, and we have
recently had an illustration, in the failure of the license-purchasing
clause in the Excise bill howm vigorously expressed popular disap¬
proval will be felt in the House of Commons. The Democrats can
get but small comfort out of a victory next fall. The Republicans
will still have another session in which to complete their plans,
and they can rely on the Senate both to prevent the Democrats
from repealing any of the partisan l^slation and from passing
similar bills of their own.