Naturalization Laws.... Persons Excluded from Suffrage .... Popular and Electoral Votes for President, 1824-1896.. Popular Vote for President 1896.. Prohibition Party Platform Republican Platform.... ... PAGE 39 40-48 9-15 36 16-20 33 20-21 37-39 27-28 29.31 32 34 22-26 REPUBLICAN PLATFORM ADOPTED IN NATIONAL CONVENTION AT PHLIADELPHIA, PENN., JUNE 20, 1900. The Republicans of the United States, through their chosen representatives, met in national convention, looking back upon an unsurpassed record of achievement and looking forward into a great field of duty and opportunity; and, appealing to the judgment of their countrymen, make these declarations: PREAMBLE. The expectation in which the American people, turning from the Democratic party, intrusted power four years ago to a Republican Chief Magistrate and a Republican Congress, has been met and satisfied. When the people then assembled at the polls, after a term of Democratic legislation and administration, business was dead, industry paralyzed, and the national credit disastrously impaired. The country's capital was hidden away and its labor distressed and unemployed. The Democrats had no other plan with which to improve the ruinous conditions, which they had themselves produced, than to coin silver at the ratio of 16 to 1. PLEDGES FILLED. The Republican party, denouncing this plan as sure to produce conditions even worse than those from which relief was sought, promised to restore prosperity by means of two legislative measures -a protective tariff and a law making gold the standard of value. The people, by great majorities, issued to the Republican party a commission to enact these laws. This commission has been executed, and the Republican promise is redeemed. 945697 BEC 5 '40 Prosperity more general and more abundant than we have ever known has followed these enactments. There is no longer controversy as to the value of any government obligations. Every American dollar is a gold dollar or its assured equivalent, and American credit stands higher than that of any nation. Capital is fully employed and everywhere labor is profitably occupied. No single fact can more strikingly tell the story of what Republican government means to the country than this-that while during the whole period of 107 years, from 1790 to 1897, there was an excess of exports over imports of only $383,028,497, there has been in the short three years of the present Republican administration an excess of exports over imports in the enormous sum of $1,483,537,091. TRIUMPH IN WAR. And while the American people, sustained by this Republican legislation, have been achieving these splendid triumphs in their business and commerce, they have conducted and in victory concluded a war for liberty and human rights. No thought of national aggrandizement tarnished the high purpose with which American standards were unfurled. It was a war unsought and patiently resisted, but when it came the American government was ready. Its fleets were cleared for action. Its armies were in the field, and the quick and signal triumph of its forces on land and sea bore equal tribute to the courage of American soldiers and sailors and to the skill and foresight of Republican statesmanship. To ten millions of the human race there was given "a new birth of freedom," and to the American people a new and noble responsibility. TRUE TO MCKINLEY. We indorse the administration of William McKinley. Its acts have been established in wisdom and in patriotism, and at home and abroad it has distinctly elevated and extended the influence of the American nation. Walking untried paths and facing unforeseen responsibilities, President McKinley has been in every situation the true American patriot and the upright statesman, clear in vision, strong in judgment, firm in action, always inspiring, and deserving the confidence of his countrymen. In asking the American people to indorse this Republican record and to renew their commission to the Republican party, we remind them of the fact that the menace to their prosperity has always resided in Democratic principles and no less in the general incapacity of the Democratic party to conduct public affairs. The prime essential of business prosperity is public confidence in the good sense of the government and in its ability to deal intelligently with each new problem of administration and legislation. That confidence the Democratic party has never earned. It is hopelessly inadequate, and the country's prosperity when Democratic success at the polls is announced halts and ceases in mere anticipation of Democratic blunders and failures. GOLD STANDARD. We renew our allegiance to the principle of the gold standard and declare our confidence in the wisdom of the legislation of the Fiftysixth Congress, by which the parity of all our money and the stability of our currency on a gold basis have been secured. We recognize that interest rates are a potent factor in production and business activity, and for the purpose of further equalizing and of further lowering the rates of interest we favor such monetary legislation as will enable the varying needs of the season and of all sections to be promptly met in order that trade may be evenly sustained, labor steadily employed, and commerce enlarged. The volume of money in circulation was never so great per capita as it is to-day. We declare our steadfast opposition to the free and unlimited coinage of silver. No measure to that end could be considered which was without the support of the leading commercial countries of the world. However firmly Republican legislation may seem to have secured the country against the peril of base and discredited currency, the election of a Democratic President could not fail to impair the country's credit and to bring once more into question the intention of the American people to maintain upon the gold standard the parity of their money circulation. The Democratic party must be convinced that the American people will never tolerate the Chicago platform. AGAINST TRUSTS. We recognize the necessity and propriety of the honest co-operation of capital to meet new business conditions, and especially to extend our rapidly increasing foreign trade, but we condemn all conspiracies and combinations intended to restrict business, to create monopolies, to limit production, or to control prices, and favor such legislation as will effectually restrain and prevent all such abuses, protect and promote competition, and secure the rights of producers, laborers, and all who are engaged in industry and commerce. PROTECTION. We renew our faith in the policy of protection to American labor. In that policy our industries have been established, diversified and maintained. By protecting the home market the competition has been stimulated and production cheapened. Opportunity to the inventive genius of our people has been secured and wages in every department of labor maintained at high rates, higher now than ever before, always distinguishing our working people in their better conditions of life from those of any competing country. Enjoying the blessings of American common school, secure in the right of self-government, and protected in the occupancy of their own markets, their constantly increasing knowledge and skill have enabled them finally to enter the markets of the world. We favor the associated policy of reciprocity so directed as to open our markets on favorable terms for what we do not ourselves produce in return for free foreign markets. DEC 5 47 |