Guinea Hens

We should never have had one word to say to the farmer in favor of these fowls were it not that they have shown a disposition to feed upon and destroy the potato bug. Two years ago our attcntion was called to the fact by a farmer, who has a small flock of these birds, who said he was not troubled at all with the bug. He said the Guinea hens went some distance to the field every day, and went through the rows eating the bugs as though they liked them. Last year they did the same, and he recommends them to all who do not want the care and bother of removing these pests by hand. It will not cost much to try the experiment, and if it is true as stated, such fowls should be grown Gen. Ewing, Democratie candidato for Governor of Ohio, opened the cainpaign in that State by a stirring speech at Lancaster, Thursday evening, in which tlie issues belween the two great parties in the field were very forcibly. stated. We give below the leading points of the address: The two cliief parties which claim the suff rages of the people of Ohio thifl fall fairly represent the national parties of which they are important dlvisions. The Itapnhlicans. though not as outspoken, perhaps, here in Ohio on the question of finance and free elections as in the Eastern States, reflect the average sentiment of the whole party, and the Ohio Democracy representa the sentiment, of the overwhelming majority of the party throughout the country, as is shown by every vote in both the Senate and House on every phase of those questions. The struggle therefore, in Ohio this year is one between the dominating ideas of the two great opposing parties on the uppermost questions of the day, and chiefly to this fact is due the great momentum of intiuence which is everywhere conceded to it. The Republican party enters the canvass claiming to have administered the government economically, reduced the interest on public debt, and established specie payments, and coníidently demands a new lease of power as a public benefactor. Let us see which of the two great parties is most entitled to credit for economy in public expenditures. The Democracy for four years past has held the House of Representativos, which controls the appropriation of public money, and in that time the appropriations for the expenses of the government, exclusive of interest on the public debt, have been $(04,i10,000. For the four years preceding, during which the Republican party controlled the appropriations, the same expenses amounted to $699,339,000, so that the economy of one brancli of Congress by the Democracy for these four years has saved the people $84,720,000, being an average of over $21,000,000 a year. Since June 30, 1866, the people have paid $4,311,000,000 in Federal taxes, and out of that vast sum but $528,000,000 have been applied to the principal of the public debt. If the Republicans had been as economical during the nine years preceding 1875 as the Democrats have forced them to be fince then, the public debt would have been reduced $345,000,000 more without imposing one dollar of additional taxes on the people. The $21,000,000 a year saved since 1S70 by Uie Democratie House have been saved in spite of the most vehement and deterinined resistance of the administration and the Senate, and it ncver would have been saved at all had not the people at last disregarded the howls about the alleged treasonable puiposes of the Democracy, which have fonned the eampaign argumenta of the Republicana since the war. He claimed this as an illustration of the necessity of frequent changes of administration. Reform of extravagance and abuses can only be secured by such changes. He said Mr. Siierman claimed great creait for having successfully funded $847,000,000 of the public debt into 5, 4% and 4 per cent bonds since March 4, 1877. and reducing the interest paid by the government about 10,000,000 a year. It appears, however, by the flnance report, that the interest on the public debt paid in 1877 was $97,124,000, and last year $102,500,000, and this year, $lor,000,000. In other words, in 1878 and 1879 over $18,000,000 more of interest on government bonds has been paid than when Mr. Sherman took charge of the f unding operation. That large sum is what the operation cost. It is made up of bonuses in the shape of doublé interest and of commissions paid to the syndicate. Meantime Mr. Sherman has increased the principal of the bonded debt $86,000,000. It will take the savings of interest by refunding for eight or ten years to pay off this debt, and the bonuses and doublé interest, and get even on the cntire operation. He claimed, further, that American capitalists had bought the four per cent. bonds because they were practically six and a half per cent. bonds, being exempt from about two and a half per cent. of taxes. which other property pays, and because the industries of the country have been so broken down that capital had better get six and a half per cent. assured by the government than risk an investment in almost any industrial pursuit. I assert and am able to prove that after all of the $430.000,000 of taxes paid by the people, paid since 1866 ; after the nominal reduction of the public debt $528,000,000 and after the refunding so far accomplished, the public debt of the United States to-day is a far greater effective burden on the people than it was bef ore the flrst dollar of it was paid. Measure it by things which have to be sold to pay it ; by pork, corn, wheat, beef, horses ,1abor. It takes flf ty per cent. more of labor, land or producís to pay the interest than it took flve years ago. IIow is the country benefitted by a nominal reduction of $10,000,000 of interest when the reduction has been accomplished only by adding fifty per cent to the amount of labor or property which it takes to pay it. The next great achievement of the Republican party has been the accomplishment of gold resumption. Do you recollect, iny friends, what Mr. Sherman promised a year ago as the result of resumption ? That gold would tlow out in circulation and that we would have a fuller volume of money actually current and consequently a general restoration of prosperity. Well, we have had gold resumption for over six months past. We have had, moreover, for three years past two unparalleled favorable coincidents - enormous crops at home and a great foreign demand for our surplus. The Republican party did not give us these two blessings. A kind Providence, looked down in pity on the industrial distress inflicted by the ingenuity of theorists and usurers, relieved its asperity by bounteous harvests at home and eager markets abroad : but for our self-inflicted troubles, these great crops would have flushed our country with exuberant prosperity. But in spite of these good] ces, in contradiction of the pledges of 1 gold resumptionists, which led the t [ie to a patiënt but longing endurance i of their trials, the promised prosperity q lias not come. Tho paper dollar is r. equal to the gold dollar, but the gokl t dollar is ingeniously kept hoarded in [ the treasury. The money actually i current is no greater now, if as great c. as it was one or two years ago. Every, t little debt you owe still nettles you. 1 Every large debt still threatens you, c with the loss of your home, your farm, t your factory, or your store. Every tax . you pay calis for more labor or product t than bef ore. Wages do not increase, i laboren still hunt for ernployers 1 stead of employers seeking laborera, i and it is at last becoming apparent ( tliat the condition of things last year t and the year before is to become the 1 prominent condition under the Í lished gold ]rices of labor and ' ty. I The other great finance issue, not i considered settled by either party, is 1 the question - Who shall make and 1 issue the paper money, the government ] or the national banks '{ ; The Democratie party in Congress ] luis alreauy favored the substitution of the treasurery notes for bank notes. 1 The Ohio Democracy this year, true to i its past avowals, declares for the gradwal withdravval of national bank notes and the substitution therefor of treasury notes, which in the languageof the platform, shall be "receivable for all debts and a legal tender equally with coin, such government issue to be regulated apon the principáis established by legislation or the organic law, soas tó secure thegreatest possible stability of values, The Republican party intended by the Resumption law and still intends to take up and destroy every dollar of greenback money. Sectaiïes Bristow and Morrill in their official reports declared that such was the purpose and effect of the law, and Mr. Sherman, its author, admitted it on the floor of the Senate. It was the agitation against the total destruction of greenbacks by the Western and Southern Democracy and the Nationals which, against the determined opposition of the great mass of the Republican party, established the greenbacks now in circulation as a part of the permanent currency of the country. But the money power regards the costless greenback as a standing means to its partial control of the currency, and an obstac'e to that complete control which it desires and intends to secure. The paper currency will not be left half costless and half subsidized, half issued by the government and half by private corporations. It should and will be issued wholly by one power or the other. Give the Republican party a new indorsement, dominated and controlled asit is by the national banks, and you will find that either through a contri ved judicial decisión or tllieclly uy legislalloii yoiu gieenbacks will be wiped out and the money power will give you just as much ar as httle paper money tor your business as it pleases, and will regúlate Lhe value of your labor and property to suit itself. If two or three thousand private corporations, acting as they always do in the interest of the holders of money securities, are permitted to control the value of currency at their pleasure there is no limit to the injury and loss they may inflict upon the people, or to the wealth they may themselves accumulate by hidden and concert ed measures of expansión and contraction of values. It was precisely this danger which led Jefferson to resist the incorporation of the lïrst Bank of the United States under "Washington's adniinistration, and to oppose th renewal of its charter under Madison, and which led Old Ilickory to make his grand and successful fight against the re-charter of the bank. He claimed further that the substitution of legal tenders for oatlonal bank notes would save the country 10,000,000 per annum, and vvith these notes bonds could be purchased, cancelled and interest stopped. He then discussed the question of free elections, claiming that the peo pie were swindledout of their election in 1870, and recited the metliods which lie claimed were used to carry the election in that year. He said the result of the struggle, so far, is the total repeal of the odious 'system of packing juries, the prohibition of the payment of money to send or maintain troops at the polls, and the witholding of apprcpriations for the fees of marshals until Congress can see what the fees are to be paid for. We have appealed f rom the President to the people. irou have to decide the controversy. If you want to pay hundreds of thousands of dollars each Congressional election to have bayonets around the polls and marshals and spies to inspect and control the State election offices, vote the Repubhcan ticket; for the Democracy will never spend a dollar for that service. The powers not üelegated to the United States by the Constitutiou nor prohibited by it to the States are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people. These reserved powers are the great mass of the powers of the government. You are proteeted in ahnost all of your rights of person or property by the State sovereignty alone. Our whole code of laws deflning the rights of persons and property, and providing remedies and punishments for wrongs, which make up the very body of our civilization, is adopted or created and enforced by the States, and not by the general government. Outside of the scope of this State sovereignty lie the powers specially delegated to the other sovereign, the whole people of the United States, operating through the general government. These two sovereigns, the liepublic and the States, have distributed between them by decree of partition the Constitution of the United States, all of the powers regarded by the people as safe to be intrusted to any government. Now, by the Constitution of the United States, the whole power to provide for and regúlate elections of members of Congress was lelt with the respective States.but for fear that any of them might fail altogether to provide for such elections, Congress was given power to itself by law to provide for them. If Ohio should refuse to pass a law to elect members of Congress the United States might pass such a law and provide the times, places and manner of holding such elections and the appointment of all the election's officers. But none of the States ever did refuse or fail to pass such laws, and trom the foundation of our government down until 1871 the elections were conducted without any interference whatever by Federal officers. In 1871 the Republicans euacted this Federal election law. It did not pretend to repeal, alter or amend any of the State laws providing f or the appointment of State officers to conduct these elections, or prescribing their duties, but it gave the Federal courts and marshals the power to appoint supervisors and deputies to inspect and direct the action of State officers in the performance of their duties under the State election laws. From the very nature of our government, from the separate character and powers of the general and State government, it is just as unconstitutional to subject State officers, while performing duties under valid State laws, to the supervisión or control of State officers. That sort of interference is organized anarchy. If submitted to, in the aspect of this subject by the States, there are no duties whicb State officers are called on to perform which the Federal government may not supervise and control. Mr. Foster says that the great question is, whether the State or nation is supreme. I say that the great question is, whether the Republic and the States are co-ordinate agencies of the government, each supreme in its sphere as detined by the Federal Constitution, or whether the State can exercise no powers of government not subject to Federal supervisión and control.