THE HAGUE CONFERENCE-THE MONROE DOCTRINE-THE SOUTH AFRICAN WAR.

We commend the part taken by our Government in the Peace Conference at The Hague. We assert our steadfast adherence to the policy announced in the Monroe Doctrine. The provisions of The Hague convention were wisely regarded when President McKinley tendered his friendly offices in the interest of peace between Great Britain and the South African Republic. While the American Government inust continue the policy prescribed by Washington, affirmed by every succeeding President, and imposed upon us by The Hague treaty, of nonintervention in European controversies, the American people earnestly hope that a way may soon be found, honorable alike to both contending parties, to terminate the strife between them.

SOVEREIGNTY IN NEW POSSESSIONS.

In accepting by the treaty of Paris the just responsibility of our victories in the Spanish war, the President and the Senate won the undoubted approval of the American people. No other course was possible than to destroy Spain's sovereignty throughout the West Indies and in the Philippine Islands. That course created our responsibility before the world and with the unorganized population whom our intervention had freed from Spain to provide for the maintenance of law and order and for the establishment of good government and for the performance of international obligations.

Our authority could not be less than our responsibility, and wherever sovereign rights were extended it became the high duty of the Government to maintain its authority, to put down armed insurrection, and to confer the blessings of liberty and civilization upon all the rescued peoples.

The largest measure of self-government consistent with their welfare and our duties shall be secured to them by law.

INDEPENDENCE OF CUBA.

To Cuba independence and self-government were assured in the same voice by which war was declared, and to the letter this pledge shall be performed.

INVOKES THE JUDGMENT OF THE PEOPLE.

The Republican party, upon its history and upon this declaration of its principles and policies, confidently invokes the considerate and approving judgment of the American people.

The Democratic convention of 1904 was held at St. Louis, Mo., July 6-9.

Alton B. Parker, of New York, was nominated for President and Henry G. Davis, of West Virginia, was nominated for Vice-President.

The following platform was adopted:

DEMOCRATIC CONVENTION, 1904.

The Democratic party of the United States, in national convention assembled, declares its devotion to the essential principles of the Democratic faith which bring us together in party communion.

Under them local self-government and national unity and prosperity were alike established. They underlay our independence, the structure of our free Republic, and every Democratic extension from Louisiana to California and Texas to Oregon which preserved faithfully in all the States the tie between taxation and representation. They yet inspire the masses of our people, guarding jealously their rights and liberties and cherishing their fraternity, peace, and orderly development. They remind us of our duties and responsibilities as citizens, and impress upon us, particularly at this time, the necessity of reform and the rescue of the administration. of government from the headstrong, arbitrary, and spasmodic methods which distract business by uncertainty and pervade the public mind with dread, distrust, and perturbation.

FUNDAMENTAL PRINCIPLES.

The application of these fundamental principles to the living issues of the day is the first step toward the assured peace, safety, and progress of our nation. Freedom of the press, of conscience, and of speech; equality before thế law of all citizens; right of trial by jury; freedom of the person defended by the writ of habeas corpus; liberty of personal contract untrammeled by sumptuary laws; supremacy of the civil over military authority; a well-disciplined militia; the separation of church and state; economy in expenditures; low taxes, that labor may be lightly burdened; prompt and sacred fulfillment of public and private obligations; fidelity to treaties; peace and friendship with all nations, entangling alliances with none; absolute acquiescence in the will of the majority, the vital principle of republics-these are doctrines which Democracy has established as proverbs of the nation, and they should be constantly invoked and enforced.

CAPITAL AND LABOR.

We favor enactment and administration of laws giving labor and capital impartially their just rights. Capital and labor ought not to be enemies. Each is necessary to the other. Each has its rights, but the rights of labor are certainly no less vested," no less "sacred," and no less "unalienable" than the rights of capital.

CONSTITUTIONAL GUARANTEES.

Constitutional guarantees are violated whenever any citizen is denied the right to labor, acquire and enjoy property or reside where interest or inclination may determine. Any denial thereof by individuals, organizations, or governments should be summarily rebuked and punished.

We deny the right of any executive to disregard or suspend any constitutional privilege or limitation. Obedience to the laws and respect for their requirements are alike the supreme duty of the citizen and the official.

The military should be used only to support and maintain the law. We unqualifiedly condemn its employment for the summary banishment of citizens without trial, or for the control of elections.

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We approve the measure which passed the United States Senate in 1896, but which a Republican Congress has ever since refused to enact, relating to contempts in Federal courts and providing for trial by jury in cases of indirect contempt.

WATERWAYS.

We favor liberal appropriations for the care and improvement of the waterways of the country. When any waterway like the Mississippi River is of sufficient importance to demand special aid of the Government, such said should be extended with a definite plan of continuous work until permanent improvement is secured.

We oppose the Republican policy of starving home development in order to feed the greed for conquest and the appetite for national "prestige" and display of strength.

14 ECONOMY OF ADMINISTRATION.

Large reductions can easily be made in the annual expenditures of the Government without impairing the efficiency of any branch of the public service, and we shall insist upon the strictest economy and frugality compatible with vigorous and efficient civil, military, and naval administration as a right of the people too clear to be denied or withheld.

We favor the enforcement of honesty in the public service, and to that end a thorough legislative investigation of those executive departments of the Government already known to teem with corruption, as well as other departments suspected of harboring corruption, and the punishment of ascertained corruptionists, without fear or favor or regard to persons. The persistent and deliberate refusal of both the Senate and the House of Representatives to permit such investigation to be made demonstrates that only by a change in the executive and in the legislative departments can complete exposure, punishment, and correction be obtained.

FEDERAL GOVERNMENT CONTRACTS WITH

TRUSTS.

We condemn the action of the Republican party in Congress in refusing to prohibit an executive department from entering into contracts with convicted trusts or unlawful combinations in restraint of interstate trade. We

believe that one of the best methods of procuring economy and honesty in the public service is to have public officials, from the occupant of the White House down to the lowest of them, return as nearly as may be to Jeffersonian simplicity of living.

EXECUTIVE USURPATION.

We favor the nomination and election of a President imbued with the principles of the Constitution, who will set his face sternly against executive usurpation of legislative and judicial functions, whether that usurpation be veiled under the guise of executive construction of existing laws, or whether it take refuge in the tyrant's plea of necessity or superior wisdom.

IMPERIALISM.

We favor the preservation, so far as we can, of an open door for the world's commerce in the Orient, without an unnecessary entanglement in Oriental and European affairs, and without arbitrary, unlimited, irresponsible, and absolute government anywhere within our jurisdiction.

We oppose, as fervently as did George Washington himself, an indefinite, irresponsible, discretionary, and vague absolutism and a policy of colonial exploitation, no matter where or by whom invoked or exercised. We believe, with Thomas Jefferson and John Adams, that no government has a right to make one set of laws for those "at home" and another and a different set of laws, absolute in their character, for those "in the colonies." All men under the American flag are entitled to the protection of the institutions whose emblem the flag is. If they are inherently unfit for those institutions, then they are inherently unfit to be members of the American body politic. Wherever there may exist a people incapable of being governed under American laws, in consonance with the American Constitution, the territory of that people ought not to be part of the American domain.

FILIPINOS AND CUBANS.

We insist that we ought to do for the Filipinos what we have done already for the Cubans, and it is our duty to make that promise now and upon suitable guarantees of protection to citizens of our own and other countries resident