Chairman Richardson said:

"I am deeply sensible of the great honor you have bestowed upon me in calling me to preside over this great Democratic convention. We have been clothed with the authority to formally name the candidates who at the next election are to be chosen President and Vice-President of the United States, and to lay down a platform of principles upon which the battle is to be fought and the victory won. With your permission I will address myself to some of the issues of the impending campaign.

"The last great national contest for supremacy was fought mainly upon one issue-that is to say, one issue was paramount in the struggle. That issue was familiarly called, '16 to 1.' It involved the question of the free coinage of gold and silver at a ratio of sixteen parts of silver to one part of gold, with which all of us are familiar.

"The momentous issue this year is again '16 to 1,' but the sixteen parts to the one part of this campaign, which I will briefly discuss, are wholly different from those of 1896. I will first refer to the sixteen parts and then to the one part. These sixteen parts are:

"First, we have the issue fraught with indescribable importance to our people native born, and those who have for patriotic reasons cast their fortunes with us-namely: that of the republic against the empire. On this part alone of the sixteen, if there were no other, we confidently expect to win a sweeping victory in November. The Republican party stands for empire. The Democratic party stands for the republic, for the Declaration of Independence, and the constitution of our country.

"Second-The paternal and fostering care given by those with whom we contend, to the combinations of corporations and companies into powerful organizations, familiarly known as trusts. Under three years of Republican rule, while they controlled the Presidency, the Senate. and the House of Representatives—that is, all of the law-making power of the government-trusts have been propagated and fostered by legislation until they not only dominate all markets, both the buying and selling, but defy the power of the Government itself.

"The farcical efforts put forth by the Republican party in an alleged attempt to restrain them in the dying hours of the late session of Congress only excited ridicule and contempt and served to emphasize their inability and disinclination to grapple the monsters and regulate their conduct and actions. No matter what their excusses may be, the fact is that their policies have created them, and, though clothed with all power, they refuse to enact legislation to control them.

"Third-Called to power on March 4, 1897, under a pledge to reform the currency, they seized the first opportunity to fasten upon the land the highest protective tariff law ever put upon the statute books of any country.

"This law was enacted not to raise revenue but to give protection to favored manufacturers. It failed to raise sufficient revenue

for the government, but answered the purpose of enriching the fav. ored few, while it robbed the many, and at the same time brought forth trusts to plague us as numerous as the lice and locusts of Egypt. Their high protective tariff is the mother of trusts.

"Fourth-This administration came into power with a solemn declaration in favor of bimetallism and a pledge to promote it. It has failed to keep that pledge. It has erected in its stead the single standard of gold, and has endeavored to destroy all hope of bimetallism. In doing this it has built up a powerful national bank trust and has given us a currency based upon the debts and liabilities of the government. We stand for bimetallism and not for a monometallic standard of either one or the other metal.

"Fifth-The dominant party has recently made the fraudulent' declaration that it favored the Monroe doctrine, and yet their Presi dent and Secretary of State have done all in their power to nullify and abrogate that famous and much revered Democratic doctrine.

"In the name of its Democratic author, James Monroe, I denounce their vaunted advocacy of this truly American doctrine as false and hypocritical. We stand for this doctrine in its essence and form and demand its rigid enforcement.

"Sixth-In order to obtain place and power they pledged themselves, in the interest of an expanding commerce, to construct a water-way to connect the two great oceans. They have repudiated this promise. They have negotiated the Hay-Pauncefote treaty which, while it virtually abrogates the Monroe doctrine, renders it impossible to build an American canal. Under the terms and provisions of this treaty, which is English and not American, the canal can never be constructed. We stand for an American canal, owned, constructed, operated, and fortified by America.

"Seventh-They declared in their platform that their party was responsible for the merit system; that it was their creature; and that the civil service law should be protected and its operation extended.

"Their protection of this law has been such as the wolf gives the babe. They did not dare openly repeal the law nor to modify it by an act of Congress, but they have insidiously by an order from the President, extorted from him to aid them to obtain and hold political power, greatly impaired the efficiency of the law.

"By the President's order many thousand lucrative offices regularly covered by the civil service law were taken from under the protection, and these places turned over to his partisan followers in a vain effort to satisfy their political greed.

"Eighth-They declared in their platform in favor of the admission of the Territories of Arizona, New Mexico, and Oklahoma as States of the Union, yet, after nearly four years of full power, they are still Territories. Under the wicked rule of law as now applied by the Republican party to some of our Territories they may at an early date find erected between themselves and the balance of the Union a tariff wall which will serve to pauperize them while it enriches others.

"Ninth-When Congress last assembled the President, in his

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first utterance addressed to the representatives fresh from the people, solemnly urged upon them that it was their 'plain duty' to give free trade to Porto Rico. His party leaders, quick to obey his injunction, made ready to comply with his recommendations. But in a night, almost in the twinkling of an eye, the mighty magnates of the trusts swept down upon Washington and interposed their strong arm, and 'plain duty' vanished like mist before the rising

sun.

"The President wheeled into line, the Republican party reversed its policy, and set up a tariff wall between the Island of Porto Rico and the remainder of the United States. It is not at all surprising that in the recent somewhat lengthy declarations of principles enunciated by the party in convention assembled, while they enlarged upon almost every political question, they could not find the space to point with pride to the achievements of their party in its dealings with that unhappy island.

"The Democratic party stands for equal taxation, equal rights, and opportunities to all who come under the folds of the flag.

"Tenth-They wholly failed by their legislation or by the cheaper method of platform declaration to tell the country what their policy is in respect to the Philippine Islands. For two years by their equivocating policy, and no policy at all, they have continued in that archipelago a war, expensive in human blood as well as in money.

"Incompetent to deal with this question and too cowardly to avow their real purpose of imperialism and militarism in dealing with these and kindred colonial questions, they should be retired from power, and the control should be given to a party honest, bold, and patriotic enough to apply American theories and precepts to existing conditions, and thereby solve them in harmony with the underlying principles of the Declaration of Independence and the constitution of our country.

"Eleventh-Another part of the issue of the campaign this year is the scandalous dealings of a high Cabinet officer with private banks of the country. These scandals are notorious and are based upon the earnest and repeated written demands of the officers of some of these banks that they should be favored by this administration because of money contributed by them with which to buy the Presidency of 1896.

"Correspondence submitted to Congress shows that, in one case at least, an appeal from an institution in New York City to the Secretary of the Treasury for financial assistance because, as it was claimed, the officers of that bank had contributed liberally to the election of the present Chief Executive, was not made in vain, and the asked for assistance in this case from the Government was freely if not corruptly given.

"Twelfth-The scandals which surrounded the War department in feeding embalmed beef to the soldiers, in its purchase of old yachts, tugs, ocean liners, ocean tramps, barges, scows, etc., for use as army transports constitute an important chapter.

"Thirteenth-So also the scandals in connection with the post