A New Champion of a Panacea for Ills Financial.

Washington, April 14, 1869.

A new music reaches the ear of Washington. It is the voice of the workingmen, with brass instruments in their hands, saluting their new leader. All hail! Senator Sprague of Rhode Island. The man who touches the pulse of the invalid with an earnest desire to do the patient good is called a kind physician. The man who feels the feverish pulse of a suffering nation, sees the people rise in their awful majesty, and immensity, echoes, “Here! Here!”

Senator Sprague has been studying the rise and decline of nations. He reminds us that there is a vicious something which underlies the basis of modern as well as ancient society, a nameless horror which picks the bones of a nation just as Victor Hugo’s devil-fish finishes the last delicate morsel of what was once a man. It is the same to the nation that the destructive worm is to the ship. It is the accumulation of tubercular deposits in the national tissues. The fatal seed of dissolution is already planted, and the harvest, when garnered, will be safely packed away in the frightful storehouse of death. With blanched face, in the distance, we shrink from the leprous patient, but upon closer examination we find the “sick man” is old Uncle Sam, and his old war wounds are still unhealed, though in a healthy condition, and none give him any trouble to-day except the sabre cut of Finance. In the early part of the last winter General Butler laid his hand on this tremendous wound. The nation quivered with hope and expectation, but Uncle Sam said, “Hands off, my brave general; don’t you see just so much of my substance has been shot away? If a lobster loses one of its claws, will any patent medicine make it grow again? Leave the lobster to the care of the kindly elements, and a new member, precisely like the old one, makes its appearance, beautifully, by degrees. The humblest reptile can teach the wisest man important wisdom.” When just so much substance has been destroyed by fire and sword, is it not the folly of madness to try to replace it by “financial policy”? Is there no other way to make a dollar except to dig the metal out of the bowels of the earth, take it to the mint, and give it a legitimate birth? The smallest child can understand the great “financial problem” as it exists to-day. Did General Butler enlighten us on the subject? We owe just so many gold dollars. As a lawyer he pointed out the way in which we could avoid a partial payment of our honest debts. The people said to General Butler, “We like your sagacity as lawyer, but we still believe that time is the best cure for all.” General Butler then subsided on the finance question. A new champion has arisen to point out a greener path over which to journey, as we march heavy ladened. It is the youthful millionaire, Senator Sprague. His bill before the Senate can be summed up in exactly three words: “Make more greenbacks.” This is the way to make money plenty? Why not? If Senator Sprague wants ten thousand yards of calico, he manufactures it. If the workingman wants more money, he is advised to manufacture the same. It is a great deal easier to print a paper dollar than to earn the gold the paper is expected to represent. But Senator Sprague was born into the manufacturing business, and, as it has been of such vast importance to him, is it a wonder that he advises the same employment to others when he has reaped riches and honor, whilst he is yet a growing man? Senator Sprague would also make the Government a kind of “Grand Lama”—a huge autocrat doing business for himself, just like Astor, Vanderbilt and Stewart. He would have him loan money; also, make him liable to sue and be sued. To be sure, this would extinguish all millionaire upstarts. So far so good; but would it not also add fresh fuel to the fires of corruption? What is the whisky ring but a set of dishonest officials, acting in the name of the Government, covering their plunder with the garments of Uncle Sam? Instead of diminishing the power to rob the people, Senator Sprague advocates an additional supply of the grand army officials. The flock of to-day may be compared to a cloud of locusts. “No!” say our legislators. Only a lunatic attempts to extinguish a fire by throwing on more fuel. A good government should be like the azure vault of heaven, resting on all alike, protecting the poor man in his cabin, the rich man in his palace, if he has honestly acquired his wealth. It should fall upon the honorable citizen like a web woven by fairy fingers; upon the criminal, whether powerful or weak, like the lariat flung by the unerring hand of the Indian hunter of the pampas. Senator Sprague and the workingmen who endorse him propose to take from the Government this most holy inheritance bequeathed us by our Revolutionary ancestors, baptized anew by the precious blood of three hundred thousand lives, and set it up in all the great cities of the Union, as the golden calf was set up in the wilderness, and the people, instead of being told to bow the knee, are advised to borrow. How will this help the poor man who has no security to give; or is the great national broker expected to lend without any security at all? No one disputes the fact that a great harassing debt annoys the people. It might have been much less. With sorrow we remember the millions that were flung into the sea by the incompetency of the late Navy Department; but with this folly our creditors have nothing to do. It is for us to say that we will pay to the last farthing. Shall we allow speculators in the name of Uncle Sam to use the people’s money and take the risk of being benefited in the end? Never! No, never! It is proven beyond a doubt that if the tax on whisky and tobacco could be honestly collected and turned over to the Treasury Department it would liquidate every penny of the interest of the public debt; other taxes would then gradually consume the principal. But if we are in haste, as we ought to be, to pay our debts, let the noble women of this country say, “No more of our gold shall drift seaward to bring us back jewels, silks, and knick-knacks.” Let the graceful, elegant wife of Senator Sprague be content with a wardrobe which vies in costliness with that of an European princess. Thirty silk walking dresses, all made to fit the same exquisite image, were within hearing of the workingmen’s serenade.

If, then, sharp Benjamin Butler has knocked a hole in his keel by cruising amongst the financial breakers, Senator Sprague, so much younger, with much less experience, need not be ashamed to strike his colors before he goes down. No man in the Senate has a better record than this intrepid young Senator. We may question his good taste about bringing his Rhode Island battle upon the floor of the American Senate, but this harms no one but himself. In the strife for honor and fame at a nation’s hands he has had two difficulties to overcome. The talent of his early life has been obscured by his immense wealth; in later years he has dwelt in the blighting shadows of greatness.

Our first recollection of the rebellion cluster around his head. When the great coal mines of Pennsylvania tossed out their grimy workers, and they rushed to the defence of Washington, without stopping to change their clothes or bid their wives farewell, William Sprague was at the scene of action, giving his time, money, all that a man has to give, that these citizen-soldiers might have wherewith to preserve life. With the boom of the first cannon this citizen of Rhode Island flung his soul into the struggle for the life of the Republic. Away up in the rocky ledges of the American continent is a magic spring of smallest proportions. If at a certain period of the world’s life a foreign substance, no larger than a man’s boot, had been thrust into it, the course of the mighty Mississippi would have been changed. Who can estimate the incalculable blessing to this nation produced by a single man coming forward at exactly the right moment with the real bone and sinew of war in his hands. He bought the blankets, and tincups, and loaves of bread for the new recruits, whilst General Jim Lane was guarding Abraham Lincoln. It is superfluous to recall his meritorious conduct as an officer in every fearful trial which has rocked our ship of state, for it is fresh within the memory of us all. It may be said that many speeches for polish and elegance of diction surpass those of the Senator from Rhode Island, but the inquiry naturally arises, is a man dear to our hearts for his words or his deeds? For both, we answer. But if the two are not always found wedded like husband and wife, give us the substance, and whilst the Creator is filling anew his generous order for more men, let us humbly petition that he send a good round number no better, no worse, than Senator Sprague.

Olivia.