State legislation, and the full powers of Government should be exerted to secure this result. No party that fails to recognize the dominant nature of this issue in American politics is deserving of the support of the people. the formation of pools, trusts and combinations for the arbitrary advancement of prices should be suppressed. "15. We pledge that the Prohibition party if elected to power will ever grant just pensions to disabled veterans of the Union Army and Navy, their widows and orphans. "14. We stand unequivocally for the American public school, and opposed to any appropriation of public moneys for sectarian schools. We declare that only taught in the English language, can we hope to become and remain a homogeneous and harmonious people. WOMAN SUFFRAGE.-"2. No citizen should be denied the right to vote on account of sex, and equal labor should receive equal wages, without regard to sex. MONEY.-3. The money of the country should consist of gold, silver and paper, and be issued by the General Gov-by united support of such common schools, ernment only, and in sufficient quantity to meet the demands of business and give full opportunity for the employment of labor. To this end an increase in the volume of money is demanded. No individual or corporation should be allowed to make any profit through its issue. It should be made a legal tender for the payment of all debts, public and private. Its volume should be fixed at a definite sum per capita, and made to increase with our increase in population. SILVER.-"4. We favor the free and unlimited coinage of gold and silver. (This plank was stricken out by the con vention by a vote of 335 for to 596 against it.) TARIFF.-"5. Tariff should be levied only as a defence against foreign Governments which levy tarif upon or bar out our products from their markets, revenues being incidental. The residue of means necessary to an economical administration of the Government should be raised by levying a burden on what the people possess, instead of upon what they con sume. tele CORPORATIONS.-"6. Railroad, graph and other public corporations should be controlled by the Government in the interest of the people, and no higher charges allowed than necessary to give the right of trial by constitutional tribunals. • IMMIGRATION AND NATURALIZATION.-7. Foreign immigration has become a burden upon industry, one of the factors in depressing wages and causing discontent; therefore our immigration laws should be revised and strictly enforced. The time of residence for naturalization should be extended, and no naturalized person should be allowed to vote until one year after he becomes a citizen. LAND.-"8. Non-resident aliens should not be allowed to acquire land in this country, and we favor the limitation of individual and corporate ownership of land. All unearned grants of lands to railroad companies or other corporations should be reclaimed. MOB LAW.-9. Years of inaction and treachery on the part of the Republican and Democratic parties have resulted in the present reign of mob law, and we demand that every citizen be protected in the right of trial by constitutional tribunals. 2 MISCELLANEOUS.-"10. All men should be protected by law in their right to one day of rest in seven. "11. Arbitration is the wisest and most economical and humane method of settling National differences. "12. Speculations in margins, the cornering of grain, money and products, and REPUBLICANS AND DEMOCRATS."15. We arraign the Republican and Democratic parties as false to the standards reared by their founders; as faithless to the principles of the illustrious leaders of the past to whom they do homage with the lips; as recreant to the 'higher law,' which is as inflexible in political affairs as in personal life, and as no longer embodying the aspirations of the American people, or inviting the confidence of enlightened, progressive patriotism. Their protest against the admission of 'moral issues' into politics is a confession of their own moral degeneracy. The declaration of an eminent authority that municipal misrule is 'the one conspicuous failure of American politics' follows as a natural consequence of such degeneracy, and it is true alike of cities under Republican and Democratic control. Each accuses the other of extravagance in Congressional appropriations, and both are alike guilty; each protests when out of power against infraction of the civil service laws, and each when in power violates those laws in letter and in spirit; each professes fealty to the interests of the toiling masses, but both covertly truckle to the money power in their administration of public affairs. Even the tariff issue, as represented in the Democratic Mills bill and the Republican McKinley bill, is no longer treated by them as an issue between great and divergent principles of government, but is a mere catering to different sectional and class interests. The attempt in many States to wrest the Australian ballot system from its true purpose, and to so deform it as to render it extremely difficult for new parties to rage upon popular government. The comexercise the rights of suffrage, is an outpetition of both these parties for the vote of the slums, and their assiduous courting of the liquor power and subserviency to the money power, have resulted in placing those powers in the position of practical arbiters of the destinies of the Nation. We renew our protest against these perilous tendencies, and invite all citizens to join us in the upbuilding of a party that has shown in five National campaigns that it prefers temporary defeat to an abandonment of the claims of justice, sobriety, personal rights and the protection of American homes. PROHIBITION.-"16. Recognizing and declaring that prohibition of the liquor traffic has become the dominant issue in National politics, we invite to full party fellowship all those who on this one dominant issue are with us agreed in the full belief that this party can and will This was defeated by a large vote. remove sectional differences, promote Na- | protecting American productions and tional unity, and insure the best welfare manufactures against the competition of our entire land." of foreign nations, and suggesting the apFor the third resolution a minority re-pointment of a tariff commission. port favored "the issue of legal-tender Treasury notes, exchangeable in gold or silver bullion, on a plan similar to that which now floats $340,000,000 of greenbacks on $100,000,000 of gold reserve and make them more acceptable and convenient than either gold or silver coin." This was defeated on a rising vote-yeas 316, nays 337. For the fifth resolution, the minority reported a substitute declaring that the tariff should be so levied as to furnish revenue for the needs of the Government economically administered, relieving necessities used by the mass of the people, and for the benefit of labor, The sixteenth resolution was reported by a minority of the Committee on Resolutions. After Animated debate it was defeated, its friends being unable to rally the 200 votes necessary to order a vote by States. Subsequently it was taken from the table, and by a rising vote fourth paragraph out, was then adopted, added to the platform; which, with the as reported by James Black, chairman of the committee. John Bidwell was the nominee for President, and James B. Cranfield for VicePresident. POLITICAL PLATFORMS OF STATES. (See Almanac for 1895 for more extended abstracts of State platforms of 1894.) ALABAMA-REPUBLICAN. April 11, 1894. For the past twenty years in this State the candidates of the Republican party, as well as those of all others opposed to Organized Democracy for Congress, and for State offices, have been defrauded at every election, and Organized Democracy regardless of the will of the people has maintained party supremacy, over all opposition, by fictitious majorities and false election returns. Every effort of the Republican party in the past has been powerless to remedy these wrongs of which we so justly complain. All else has failed. Let us now try the efficacy of temporary and voluntary disfranchisement in the fifteen counties named. If the future can be judged by the past we have nothing to lose, but everything to hope for and gain by adopting the policy of refusing to either register or vote in the fifteen specified counties. These counties compose the "Black Belt" of Alabama. Where election frauds are SO great as to overcome the honest vote of the balance of the State, and thereby become the hope of the Organized Democracy for continued supremacy in this State, defeat in these counties the power by refusing to register, and the usual fictitious majorities returned by the Organized Democracy will be impossible and means its defeat in the August election this year. These counties embrace about one-fourth of the State in both territory and population. Yet so great have been, for years, the frauds against the elective franchise in this part of the State, so bold the manipulation of the ballot box and so often and so regularly have Republican votes, as well as those of others, been counted in this section of Alabama contrary to the way they were cast, that the Conference and Executive Committee deemed it unwise to call a State Convention or to nominate a Republican State ticket. It would only be a farce to do so. It was, however, thought not only best, but wise and patriotic to ask the Repub licans of these fifteen counties to refuse either to register in May or vote in August of this year, for under the new election law of this State, Organized Democracy cannot count for its ticket the unregistered voters of these counties, and without the fraudulent count of these voters its defeat in August next is certain. In Alabama the people have been awakened to the necessity of securing honest elections. This now in this State is the paramount issue. For upon honest election all reforms depend. Without "a free vote and a fair count" neither individual liberty is safe nor popular government possible. In 1892 the party which now promises the people of Alabama laws to secure "a free vote and a fair count" carried thirty-seven of the sixty-six counties of the State, and but for the frauds in the fifteen counties wherein Republicans are requested not to register or vote would to-day be in control of our State Government. It is in the power of the Republicans of these fifteen counties, by complying with the recommendations herein, to secure for themselves and their posterity full protection for the rights of franchise. То disregard these recommendations is to forever deny to themselves and their brethren in other parts of the State that protection. If Organized Democracy succeeds in the election next August, the project of the thirteenth plank of that party's platform in 1892 will be revived, and made the law of the State. In short, Alabamians will have fastened upon them either the Pettus bill or the Mississippi plan pure and simple, under which nearly one-third of the white voters and five-sixths of the colored voters of that State are now disfranchised by law. Since the repeal of the United States election laws the same State election laws govern in the Congressional election in November that control in the State election in August, so that the failure to register loses us nothing so far as the Congressional elections are concerned, for the same frauds will prevail (should Republicans register in May) at the November election that obtain in the August election. TARIFF.-"We view with alarm the sectionalism which would, without time to prepare for so radical a change in the economic condition of the country as is proposed by the Wilson bill, inaugurate a tariff policy destructive alike to the young and growing industries of the South and West, as well as to the established industries of the North, and which tends to pauperize Americans in all sections of our country. We are so associated together as a people that what affects, beneficially or injuriously, one section alike affects all sections. We, therefore, sympathize with the North, who feel that their industry and labor are assailed, and rejoice to see that the people of the North express confidence in the ability of the people to reach a calm and dispassionate judgment on this most vital question, alike to them and to us." Then follows a series of resolutions. They pledge anew devotion to the principles of the National Republican party; invite a comparison of the conditions of the country under Republican rule with the condition of business stagnation and ruin of industries under a Democratic Administration and Congress; demand honest elections and a free vote and a fair count and honest return of all votes cast; favor a tariff so adjusted as to afford sufficient protection to American labor and industries; favor the use of so much silver money as can be maintained on a parity with gold; declare it to be unwise for the Republicans to nominate a State ticket; favor combination with those opposed to organized Democracy, and advise that no Republican, white or colored, should register or vote in the August election of 1894, in the following counties: Russell, Barbour, Macon, Montgomery, Autauga, Lowndes, Dallas, Wilcox, Perry, Hall, Greene, Sumter, Marengo and Clarke, ALABAMA DEMOCRATIC. "While there are differences of opinion among us in matters of detail, we all believe in the free coinage of silver whenever it can be done consistently with the maintenance of a sound and safe currency." ALABAMA JEFFERSONIAN DEM OCRATIC, 1894. SILVER.-"We demand the free coinage of gold and silver on the basis of 16 to 1; we denounce the demonetization of silver by the Democratic Congress as destructive of the prosperity of the industrial masses; we demand the expansion of the circulating medium to $50 per capita; we protest against the control of the circulating medium by corporate enterprises." TARIFF.-"We demand a tariff for revenue, and that the revenue necessary to meet the expenses of the Government be raised, so far as possible, by a tariff on importations. INCOME TAX.-"We demand a National graduated income tax on salaries or tures for the comforts and necessaries of life." ARKANSAS REPUBLICAN. TARIFF.-"We recognize the tariff legislation of the Republican party and the policy upon which such legislation was founded as being the ablest expression of patriotic principle relating to that subject ever enacted by an American Congress, and denounce any attempt to repeal or amend it which does not recognize protection to American labor and industries. The Republican party by its policy of protection to American industries has enabled the laboring man to demand and receive living wages for his labor, and we sympathize with the deplorable condition of the laboring masses caused by the success of the Democratic free trade party, and the rights of labor should be protected by an enlightened liberal policy." CURRENCY.-"The Republican party demands the use of both gold and silver as a standard money, with such restrictions and under such provisions to be determined by legislation as will secure and maintain the parity of values of the two metals, so that the purchasing and debtpaying power of a dollar, whether of silver, gold or paper, shall be at all times equal." PENSIONS.-Denounces the Democratic National Administration as unpatriotic in the illiberal policy toward the Union soldiers of the late war, and especially in its wholly unjustifiable attempt to cast discredit and dishonor upon that meritorious class of our fellow-citizens. ARKANSAS DEMOCRATIC. June 27, 1894. Insists upon a strict compliance with the repeated declarations of the party in favor of a tariff for revenue only. Demands an income tax law. Demands free and unlimited coinage of both gold and silver at a ratio of 16 to 1. Opposes the issue of bonds in time of peace. ARKANSAS POPULIST. July 20, 1894. Declares "the leaders of the Democratic party are incompetent and untrustworthy"; that "millions of our citizens are looking starvation in the face"; that "business from ocean to ocean, and from the great lakes to the greatest gulf is prostrate and paralyzed"; that "the Democratic Administration has increased the public debt by issuing $50,000,000 interestbearing non-taxable gold bonds without authority, and refuses to use the idle millions of silver stored in the vaults of the Treasury to meet the needs of the Government." Declares in favor of the free and unlimited coinage of silver at the ratio of 16 to 1, without wating for the co-operation of any other Government; favors a single term only for President and VicePresident, and the election of United States Senators by direct vote of the people; demands the restriction of immigration; denounces the repeal of the "pur incomes in excess of reasonable expendi-chasing clause of the silver act of 1890." CALIFORNIA REPUBLICAN. TARIFF.-Favors June 20, 1894. the protection of American industry and American labor, and demands the tariff system, which, under the administration of the Republican party, brought prosperity to the country, good wages to the laborer, happiness to the people, and glory to the Nation. Denounces the Democratic attempt to imitate the English free-trade system, and holds it responsible for the widespread depression, which has resulted in throwing hundreds of thousands of American workmen out of employment, stopping the wheels of many factories, scattering ruin and desolation throughout the land, frightening capital and starving labor. Demands that the wool industry shall be guarded by appropriate legislation from unfair competition with foreign countries; also that the seedless raisin of the State, corresponding to the Zante product, and other raisins, shall be protected by the imposition of a protective duty on the "Zante currants," and all other dried grapes and fruits. PENSIONS.-Denounces the "treatment accorded the veterans of the Civil War regarding their pensions, by the Interior Department of the present Democratic National Administration, as an insult to the honored Union soldier and sailor. SILVER.-Favors the free and unlimited coinage of silver, at the ratio of 16 to 1, and the making of silver, as well as gold, a legal tender in payment of all debts, both public and private. IMMIGRATION.-Demands the enactment and strict enforcement of such laws as will absolutely and effectually prohibit the immigration of all foreign laborers, both skilled and unskilled, into this country. WOMAN SUFFRAGE.-Favors the extension of the right of suffrage to all citizens of the United States, both men and women. CALIFORNIA DEMOCRATIC. August 23, 1894. TARIFF.-Congratulates the Democratic party and the people of the United States upon the fact that, notwithstanding the opposition of the Republican party a substantial measure of tariff reform has been enacted. MONEY.-Favors the retirement of all gold coins and paper currency below the denomination of $10 in order to restore silver to its full use as a circulating medium; also the reopening of the mints of the United States to the coinage of both gold and silver without discrimination on such basis as will maintain their parity. CALIFORNIA POPULIST. May 23, 1894. Demands the repeal of the National Bank act, and in lieu of National Bank notes that the Government issue Treasury notes, legal-tenders for all debts, public the free and private, and provide for coinage of gold and silver at a ratio of 16 to 1; a graduated annual tax on all lands owned by any individual or corporation above the assessed valuation of $10, 000; a graduated income tax on all incomes in excess of $3,000 per annum. CALIFORNIA PROHIBITIONIST, May 17, 1894. Favors an educational qualification for voters and admitting women to suffrage on an equality with men, subject only to the same limitations which apply to men; the free and unlimited coinage of silver, the product of the mines of the United States, at the present ratio; the election of President, Vice-President and Senators by direct vote of the people; the adoption of the methods of legislation known as the initiative and referendum as far as practicable, also proportional representation; the ownership and control of railroads, telegraph, telephones and the establishment of postal savings banks by the Government, all to be administered under a strict civil service system. COLORADO REPUBLICAN. September 12, 1894. MONEY.-Demands the free and unlimited coinage of silver and gold at the ratio of 16 to 1, and is opposed to making the policy of the United States await, or depend upon, the action of any other country. Denounces the People's Party as the most insidious foe to the restoration of the free and unlimited coinage of silver, in that its platform demands an extensive issue of paper money, not based upon or redeemable in either gold or silver; believes that free coinage will only come from the hands of the Republicans. COLORADO DEMOCRATIC. September 3, 1894. MONEY.-Advocates and demands the immediate restoration of the laws of January 18, 1873, providing for the free and unlimited coinage of gold and silver at a ratio of 1 to 16, without discrimination against either metal, without waiting for or inviting the co-operation of any other nation or nations. com TARIFF.-Indorses the principle of tariff reform as embodied in the Democratic National platform of 1892, mends the action of the House of Representatives in its efforts to secure its practical realization, and pledges to continue the fight for the removal of all unjust and unnecessary taxation until successful, not only at the polls, but in the National Congress. Commends the enactment of a law placing a tax upon incomes. COLORADO POPULIST. September 5, 1894. Demands the free and unlimited coinage of silver at the ratio of 16 to 1; protests against the issuance of Government bonds in times of peace; insists that the National Government has exclusive control of all money issued by its authority, and demands the adoption of the methods of initiative and referendum and proportionate representation. CONNECTICUT REPUBLICAN. September 19, 1894. TARIFF.-"We declare anew our hearty adhesion to the time-honored principle of to judicious tariff protection for American Industries-especially the great manufacturing and agricultural interests and American wages-a principle announced in every Republican party platform, embodied in Republican legislation, and vindicated by thirty years of unprecedented prosperity-and we invite the business men, manufacturers, mechanics, wageearners and farmers of Connecticut pass judgment by their ballots upon a Democratic tariff bill conceived in sectionalism and brought forth in scandal, resting upon no discoverable principle; as unscientific as it is unpatriotic; swarming with crudities, inequalities and flagrant discriminations; borrowing its most striking and obnoxious features from the Populists and justly denounced as a monument of 'party perfidy and party dishonor." MONEY.-"The Republican party, now, as always, the party of honest money, and opposed to any debasement of the people's currency, holds that American silver as well as American gold should be used as a standard money under such international agreements as will insure the maintenarce of a parity of values, so that the purchasing and debt-paying power of every dollar issued by the Government, whether of gold, silver or paper, shall be at all times the same." PENSIONS.-"The Republicans of Connecticut, ever holding in grateful remembrance their debt to the men who fought on land and sea in the war for the Union, share the just resentment of the veterans at the manner and spirit in which the pension laws have been administered by this Democratic Administration." CONNECTICUT DEMOCRATIC. September 25, 1894. Commends the passage of the Wilson Tariff law; believes that free coal and iron bills would be beneficial to the interests of the whole country if promptly passed. Demands the prompt passage of a law which will abolish the differential duties on refined sugar. CONNECTICUT PEOPLE'S. July 3, 1894. The main features of the platform declare for an American system of finance in which paper money, silver and gold, shall be on an equality; an increase of currency circulation equal to the amount paid out for pensions, until there shall be $50 per capita; that all land held for speculative purposes shall be taxed on its full market value. CONNECTICUT PROHIBITIONIST. August 22, 1894. Favors the "creation of a tariff commission whose duty it shall be to frame and commend to Congress a general tariff policy, and to make suggestions of such incidental changes as the general welfare demands" Favors woman suffrage, laws for the restriction of immigration, the supervision and control of railways and telegraph by the Government, also a change in the State Constitution so that a plurality vote shall elect State officers, DELAWARE REPUBLICAN, August 21, 1894. Reaffrms belief in the American doctrine of protection to home industries; holds that duties should be levied on all imports except luxuries which cannot be produced in the United States, and favors the speedy enactment and enforcement of stringent laws for the protection of American institutions and American labor from the evils of unrestricted immigration. Denounces the revenue bill passed by the Democratic Congress as a cowardly makeshift that will reduce the wages of labor, cripple agriculture, manufactures and shipping, and continue in the future that feeling of uncertainty and distrust which has attended Democratic ascendency in the General Government. Denounces the income tax, and maintains that the Republican policy of reciprocity has largely increased foreign trade and should be fostered and extended for the benefit of farmers, workshops, manufactures and shipping. Favors bimetallism and demands the use of both gold and silver as standard money at such ratio and under such conditions as shall be fixed by international agreement. Renews to the soldier veterans a generous recognition of their just claims upon a grateful people, and condemns the unfriendly and unjust policy of the Democratic Administration toward them. DELAWARE DEMOCRATIC. TARIFF.-Commends and indorses the action of Congress in passing the Wilson Tariff bill; holds to the use of both gold and silver as the standard money of the country, and to the coinage of both gold and silver without discriminating against either metal; and demands that all paper currency shall be kept at par with and redeemable in such coin. DELAWARE PROHIBITION. Advocates the entire elimination of the tariff question from partisan politics, and its reference to a non-partisan commission which shall adjust the schedule to the changing conditions of trade. Advocates woman suffrage; that the money of the country, whether gold, silver or paper, should be of full legal-tender and sufficient in quantity for the business of the country; that immigration shall be restricted to actual settlers who come to be real Americans; that no appropriations of public money shall be made for sectarian purposes. DELAWARE POPULIST. September 4, 1894. The platform declared in favor of Government control of railroads and telegraph lines, and for the free coinage of gold and silver at a ratio of 16 to 1. FLORIDA DEMOCRATIC. August 1, 1894. Approved the course of the Democratic House of Representatives of the United States in the passage of the Wilson Tariff bill; opposed all legislation for the hene. |