A History of the Republican Party Part 16

We renew and emphasize our allegiance to the policy of protection as the bulwark of American industrial independence and the foundation of American development and prosperity. This true American policy taxes foreign products and encourages home industry; it puts the burden of revenue on foreign goods; it secures the American market for the American producer; it upholds the American standard of wages for the American workingman; it puts the factory by the side of the farm, and makes the American farmer less dependent on foreign demand and price; it diffuses general thrift, and founds the strength of all on the strength of each. In its reasonable application it is just, fair and impartial; equally opposed to foreign control and domestic monopoly, to sectional discrimination and individual favoritism.

We denounce the present Democratic tariff as sectional, injurious to the public credit, and destructive to business enterprise. We demand such an equitable tariff on foreign imports which come into compet.i.tion with American products as will not only furnish adequate revenue for the necessary expenses of the government, but will protect American labor from degradation to the wage level of other lands. We are not pledged to any particular schedules. The question of rates is a practical question to be governed by the conditions of time and of production; the ruling and uncompromising principle is the protection and development of American labor and industry. The country demands a right settlement, and then it wants rest.

RECIPROCITY.

We believe the repeal of the reciprocity arrangements negotiated by the last Republican administration was a national calamity, and we demand their renewal and extension on such terms as will equalize our trade with other nations, remove the restrictions which now obstruct the sale of American products in the ports of other countries, and secure enlarged markets for the products of our farms, forests and factories.

Protection and reciprocity are both twin measures of Republican policy and go hand in hand. Democratic rule has recklessly struck down both, and both must be re-established. Protection for what we produce; free admission for the necessaries of life which we do not produce; reciprocity agreements of mutual interests which gain open markets for us in return for our open market to others. Protection builds up domestic industry and trade, and secures our own market for ourselves; reciprocity builds up foreign trade, and finds an outlet for our surplus.

SUGAR.

We condemn the present administration for not keeping faith with the sugar-producers of this country. The Republican party favors such protection as will lead to the production on American soil of all the sugar which the American people use, and for which they pay other countries more than $100,000,000 annually.

WOOL AND WOOLENS.

To all our products--to those of the mine and the fields as well as to those of the shop and the factory; to hemp, to wool, the product of the great industry of sheep husbandry, as well as to the finished woolens of the mills--we promise the most ample protection.

MERCHANT MARINE.

We favor restoring the American policy of discriminating duties for the upbuilding of our merchant marine and the protection of our shipping in the foreign carrying trade, so that American ships--the product of American labor, employed in American shipyards, sailing under the Stars and Stripes, and manned, officered, and owned by Americans--may regain the carrying of our foreign commerce.

FINANCE.

The Republican Party is unreservedly for sound money. It caused the enactment of the law providing for the resumption of specie payments in 1879; since then every dollar has been as good as gold.

We are unalterably opposed to every measure calculated to debase our currency or impair the credit of our country. We are, therefore, opposed to the free coinage of silver except by international agreement with the leading commercial nations of the world, which we pledge ourselves to promote, and until such agreement can be obtained, the existing gold standard must be preserved. All our silver and paper currency must be maintained at parity with gold, and we favor all measures designed to maintain inviolably the obligations of the United States and all our money, whether coin or paper, at the present standard, the standard of the most enlightened nations of the earth.

PENSIONS.

The veterans of the Union army deserve and should receive fair treatment and generous recognition. Whenever practicable, they should be given the preference in the matter of employment, and they are ent.i.tled to the enactment of such laws as are best calculated to secure the fulfillment of the pledges made them in the dark days of the country's peril. We denounce the practice in the Pension Bureau, so recklessly and unjustly carried on by the present administration, of reducing pensions and arbitrarily dropping names from the rolls, as deserving the severest condemnation of the American people.

FOREIGN RELATIONS.

Our foreign policy should be at all times firm, vigorous, and dignified, and all our interests in the western hemisphere carefully watched and guarded. The Hawaiian Islands should be controlled by the United States, and no foreign power should be permitted to interfere with them; the Nicaragua Ca.n.a.l should be built, owned, and operated by the United States; and by the purchase of the Danish Islands we should secure a proper and much needed naval station in the West Indies.

ARMENIAN Ma.s.sACRES.

The ma.s.sacres in Armenia have aroused the deep sympathy and just indignation of the American people, and we believe that the United States should exercise all the influence it can properly exert to bring these atrocities to an end. In Turkey, American residents have been exposed to the gravest dangers and American property destroyed. There and everywhere American citizens and American property must be absolutely protected at all hazards and at any cost.

MONROE DOCTRINE.

We rea.s.sert the Monroe doctrine in its full extent, and we reaffirm the right of the United States to give the doctrine effect by responding to the appeal of any American State for friendly intervention in case of European encroachment. We have not interfered and shall not interfere with the existing possessions of any European power in this hemisphere, but these possessions must not on any extent be extended. We hopefully look forward to the eventual withdrawal of the European powers from this hemisphere, and to the ultimate union of all English-speaking parts of the continent by the free consent of its inhabitants.

CUBA.

From the hour of achieving their own independence, the people of the United States have regarded with sympathy the struggles of other American peoples to free themselves from European dominion. We watch with deep and abiding interest the heroic battle of the Cuban patriots against cruelty and oppression, and our best hopes go out for the full success of their determined contest for liberty.

The Government of Spain having lost control of Cuba and being unable to protect the property or lives of resident American citizens or to comply with its treaty obligations, we believe that the Government of the United States should actively use its influence and good offices to restore peace and give independence to the island.

THE NAVY.

The peace and security of the Republic and the maintenance of its rightful influence among the nations of the earth demand a naval power commensurate with its position and responsibility. We therefore favor the continued enlargement of the navy and a complete system of harbor and seacoast defenses.

FOREIGN IMMIGRATION.

For the protection of the quality of our American citizenship and of the wages of our workingmen against the fatal compet.i.tion of low priced labor, we demand that the immigration laws be thoroughly enforced, and so extended as to exclude from entrance to the United States those who can neither read nor write.

CIVIL SERVICE.

The civil-service law was placed on the statute-book by the Republican party, which has always sustained it, and we renew our repeated declarations that it shall be thoroughly and honestly enforced, and extended wherever practicable.

FREE BALLOT.

We demand that every citizen of the United States shall be allowed to cast one free and unrestricted ballot, and that such ballot shall be counted and returned as cast.

LYNCHINGS.

We proclaim our unqualified condemnation of the uncivilized and barbarous practice well known as lynching or killing of human beings suspected or charged with crime, without process of law.

NATIONAL ARBITRATION.

We favor the creation of a national board of arbitration to settle and adjust differences which may arise between employers and employes engaged in interstate commerce.

HOMESTEADS.

We believe in an immediate return to the free-homestead policy of the Republican Party, and urge the pa.s.sage by Congress of a satisfactory free-homestead measure such as has already pa.s.sed the House and is now pending in the Senate.

TERRITORIES.

We favor the admission of the remaining territories at the earliest practicable date, having due regard to the interests of the people of the territories and of the United States. All the federal officers appointed for the territories should be selected from bona fide residents thereof, and the right of self-government should be accorded as far as practicable.

ALASKA.

We believe the citizens of Alaska should have representation in the Congress of the United States, to the end that needful legislation may be intelligently enacted.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Thomas B. Reed.]

TEMPERANCE.

We sympathize with all wise and legitimate efforts to lessen and prevent the evils of intemperance and promote morality.

RIGHTS OF WOMEN.

The Republican Party is mindful of the rights and interests of women.

Protection of American industries includes equal opportunities, equal pay for equal work, and protection to the home. We favor the admission of women to wider spheres of usefulness, and welcome their co-operation in rescuing the country from Democratic and Populist mismanagement and misrule.

Such are the principles and policies of the Republican Party. By these principles we will abide and these policies we will put into execution.

We ask for them the considerate judgment of the American people.