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United States from being used as a dumping ground for the known criminals and professional paupers of Europe and we demand the rigid enforcement of the laws against Chinese immigration or the importation of foreign workmen under contract to degrade American labor and lessen its wages; but we condemn and denounce any and all attempts to restrict the immigration of the industrious and worthy of foreign lands.

"Section 13. This convention hereby renews the expression of appreciation of the patriotism of the soldiers and sailors of the Union in the war for its preservation, and we favor just and liberal pensions for all disabled Union soldiers, their widows and dependents, but we demand that the work of the Pension Office shall be done industriously, impartially, and honestly. We denounce the present administration of that office as incompetent, corrupt, disgraceful, and dishonest.

"Section 14 The Federal Government should care for and improve the Mississippi river and other great waterways of the Republic so as to secure for the interior States easy and cheap transportation to tide water. When any waterway of the public is of sufficient importance to demand the aid of the Government-such aid should be extended upon a definite plan of continuous work until permanent improvement is secured.

"Section 15. For purposes of national defense, and the promotion of commerce between the States, we recognize the early construction of the Nicaragua canal and its protection against foreign control as of great importance to the United States.

"Section 16. Recognizing the World's Columbian Exposition as a national undertaking of vast importance in which the General Government has invited the co-operation of all the powers of the world, and appreciating the acceptance by many of such powers of the invitation so extended, and the broadest liberal efforts being made by them to contribute to the grandeur of the undertaking, we are of the opinion that Congress should make such necessary financial provision as shall be requisite to the maintenance of the national honor and public faith.

"Section 17. Popular education being the only safe basis of popular suffrage, we recommend to the several States most liberal appropriations for the public schools. Free common schools are the nursery of good government, and they have always received the fostering care of the Democratic party, which favors every means of increasing intelligence. Freedom of education being an essential of civil and religious liberty as well as a necessity for the development of intelligence, must not be interfered with under any pretext whatever. We are opposed to State interference with parental rights and rights of conscience in the education of children as an infringment of a fundamental Democratic doctrine that the largest individual liberty consistent with the rights of others insures the highest type of American citizenship and the best government.

"Section 18. We approve the action of the present House of Representa. tives in passsing bills for admitting into the Union as States the Territories of New Mexico and Arizona, and we favor the early admission of all the Territories having the necessary population and resources to entitle them to statehood, and while they remain Territories we hold that the officials appointed to administer the Government of any Territory, together with the District of Columbia and Alaska, should be bona fide residents of the Territory or District in which their duties are to be performed. The Democratic party believes in home rule and the control of their own affairs by the people of the vicinage.

"Section 19. We favor legislation by Congress and State legislatures to protect the lives and limbs of railway employees and those of other hazardous transportation companies, and denounce the inactivity of the Republican party, particularly the Republican Senate, for causing the defeat of measures beneficial and protective to this class of wage workers.

"Section 20. We are in favor of the enactment by the States of laws for abolishing the notorious sweating system, for abolishing contract convict labor, and for prohibiting the employment in factories of children under fifteen. years of age.

"Section 21. We are opposed to all sumptuary laws as an interference with the individual rights of the citizen.

"Section 22. Upon this statement of principles and policies the Democratic party asks the intelligent judgment of the American people. It asks a change of administration and a change of party, in order that there might be a change of system and a change of methods, thus assuring the maintenance unimpared of institutions under which the Republic has grown great and powerful."

GROVER CLEVELAND'S LETTER

Accepting the Democratic Nomination for the Presidency in 1892.

To Hon. William L. Wilson and Others, Committee, etc.

GENTLEMEN: In responding to your formal notification of my nomination to the Presidency by the National Democracy, I hope I may be permitted to say at the outset that continued reflection and observation have confirmed me in my adherence to the opinions, which I have heretofore plainly and publicly declared, touching the questions involved in the canvass.

This is a time, above all others, when these questions should be considered in the light afforded by a sober apprehension of the principles upon which our Government is based and a clear understanding of the relation it bears to the people for whose benefit it was created. We shall thus be supplied with a test by which the value of any proposition relating to the maintenance and administration of our Government can be ascertained and by which the justice and honesty of every political question can be judged. If doctrines or theories are presented which do not satisfy this test, loyal Americanism must pronounce them false and mischievous.

The protection of the people in the exclusive use and enjoyment of their property and earnings concededly constitutes the especial purpose and mission of our free Government. This design is so interwoven with the structure of our plan of rule that failure to protect the citizen in such use and enjoyment, or their unjustifiable diminution by the Government itself, is a betrayal of the people's trust.

We have, however, undertaken to build a great nation upon a plan especially our own. To maintain it and to furnish through its agency the means for the accomplishment of national objects the American people are willing through Federal taxation to surrender a part of their earnings and income.

Tariff legislation presents a familiar form of Federal taxaion. Such legislation results as surely in a tax upon the daily life of our people as the tribute paid directly into the hand of the tax-gatherer. We feel the burden of these tariff taxes too palpably to be persuaded by any sophistry that they do not exist, or are paid for by foreigners.

Such taxes, representing a diminution of the property rights of the people, are only justifiable when laid and collected for the purpose of maintaining our government, and furnishing the means for the accomplishment of its

legitimate purposes and functions. This is taxtation under the operation of a tariff for revenue. It accords with the professions of American free institutions, and its justice and honesty answer the test supplied by a correct appreciation of the principles upon which these institutions rest.

This theory of tariff legislation manifestly enjoins strict economy in public expenditures and their limitation to legitimate public uses, inasmuch as it exhibits as absolute extortion any exaction, by way of taxation, from the substance of the people, beyond the necessities of a careful and proper administration of government:

Opposed to this theory the dogma is now boldly presented, that tariff taxation is justifiable for the express purpose and intent of thereby promoting especial interests and enterprises. Such a proposition is so clearly contrary to the spirit of our Constitution and so directly encourages the disturbance by selfishness and greed of patriotic sentiment, that its statement would rudely shock our people, if they had not already been insidiously allured from the safe landmarks of principle. Never have honest desire for national growth, patriotic devotion to country, and sincere regard for those who toil, been so betrayed to the support of a pernicious doctrine. In its behalf, the plea that our infant industries should be fostered, did service until discredited by our stalwart growth; then followed the exigencies of a terrible war which made our people heedless of the opportunities for ulterior schemes afforded by their willing and patriotic payment of unprecedented tribute; and now, after a long period of peace, when our overburdened countrymen ask for relief and a restoration to a fuller enjoyment of their incomes and earnings they are met by the claim that tariff taxation for the sake of protection is an American system, the continuance of which is necessary in order that high wages may be paid to our workingmen and a home market be provided for our farm products.

These pretenses should no longer deceive. The truth is that such a system is directly antagonized by every sentiment of justice and fairness of which Americans are pre-eminently proud. It is also true that while our workmen. and farmers can, the least of all our people, defend themselves against the harder home life which such tariff taxation decrees, the workingman suffering from the importation and employment of pauper labor instigated by his professed friends, and seeking security for his interests in organized co-operation, still waits for a division of the advantages secured to his employer under cover of a generous solicitude for his wages, while the farmer is learning that the prices of his products are fixed in foreign markets; where he suffers from a competition invited and built up by the system he is asked to support.

The struggle for unearned advantages at the doors of the Government tramples on the rights of those who patiently rely upon assurances of American equality. Every governmental concession to clamorous favorites invites cor

ruption in political affairs by encouraging the expenditure of money to debauch suffrage in support of a policy directly favorable to private and selfish gain. This in the end must strangle patriotism and weaken popular confidence in the rectitude of republican institutions.

Though the subject of tariff legislation involves a question of markets, it also involves a question of morals. We cannot with impunity permit injustice. to taint the spirit of right and equity which is the life of our republic; and we shall fail to reach our national destiny if greed and selfishness lead the way.

Recognizing these truths, the National Democracy will seek by the application of just and sound principles to equalize to our people the blessings due them from the government they support, to promote among our countrymen a closer community of interests cemented by patriotism and national pride, and to point out a fair field, where prosperous and diversified American enterprise may grow and thrive in the wholesome atmosphere of American industry, ingenuity and intelligence.

Tariff reform is still our purpose. Though we oppose the theory that tariff laws may be passed having for their object the granting of discriminating and unfair governmental aid to private ventures, we wage no exterminating war against any American interests. We believe a readjustment can be accomplished in accordance with the principles we profess without disaster or demolition. We believe that the advantages of freer raw materials should be accorded to our manufacturers, and we contemplate a fair and careful distribution of necessary tariff burdens, rather than the precipitation of free trade. We anticipate with calmness the misrepresentation of our motives and purposes, instigated by a selfishness which seeks to hold in unrelenting grasp its unfair advantage under present tariff laws. We will rely upon the intelligence of our fellow countrymen to reject the charge that a party comprising a majority of our people is planning the destruction or injury of American inter. ests; and we know they cannot be frightened by the spectre of impossible free trade.

The administration and management of our Government depend upon popular will. Federal power is the instrument of that will-not its master. Therefore the attempt of the opponents of Democracy to interfere with and control the suffrage of the States through federal agencies, develops a design, which no explanation can mitigate, to reverse the fundamental and safe relations between the people and their government. Such an attempt cannot fail to be regarded by thoughtful men as proof of a bold determination to secure the ascendancy of a discredited party in reckless disregard of a free expression of the popular will. To resist such a scheme is an impulse of Democracy. At all times and in all places we trust the people. As against a disposition to force the way to federal power we present to them as our claim to their confidence and support, a steady championship of their rights.

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