A History of the Republican Party Part 18

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 effectively restrain and prevent all such abuses, protect and promote compet.i.tion, and secure the rights of producers, laborers, and all who are engaged in industry and commerce.

PROTECTION POLICY REAFFIRMED.

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, compet.i.tion 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, and always distinguishing our working people in their better conditions of life from those of any competing country. Enjoying the blessings of the 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 to finally enter the markets of the world.

RECIPROCITY FAVORED.

We favor the a.s.sociated 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.

RESTRICTION OF IMMIGRATION, AND OTHER LABOR LEGISLATION.

In the further interest of American workmen we favor a more effective restriction of the immigration of cheap labor from foreign lands, the extension of opportunities of education for working-children, the raising of the age limit for child-labor, the protection of free labor as against contract convict labor, and an effective system of labor insurance.

SHIPPING.

Our present dependence upon foreign shipping for nine-tenths of our foreign-carrying trade is a great loss to the industry of this country.

It is also a serious danger to our trade, for its sudden withdrawal in the event of European war would seriously cripple our expanding foreign commerce. The national defense and naval efficiency of this country, moreover, supply a compelling reason for legislation which will enable us to recover our former place among the trade carrying fleets of the world.

DEBT TO SOLDIERS AND SAILORS.

The nation owes a debt of profound grat.i.tude to the soldiers and sailors who have fought its battles, and it is the government's duty to provide for the survivors and for the widows and orphans of those who have fallen in the country's wars. The pension laws, founded on this just sentiment, should be liberally administered, and preference should be given, wherever practicable, with respect to employment in the public service, to soldiers and sailors and to their widows and orphans.

THE CIVIL SERVICE.

We commend the policy of the Republican Party in maintaining the efficiency of the civil service. The administration has acted wisely in its effort to secure for public service in Cuba, Porto Rico, Hawaii, and the Philippine Islands, only those whose fitness has been determined by training and experience. We believe that employment in the public service in these territories should be confined, as far as practicable, to their inhabitants.

THE RACE QUESTION.

It was the plain purpose of the Fifteenth Amendment to the Const.i.tution to prevent discrimination on account of race or color in regulating the elective franchise. Devices of state governments, whether by statutory or const.i.tutional enactment, to avoid the purpose of this amendment are revolutionary and should be condemned.

PUBLIC ROADS.

Public movements looking to a permanent improvement of the roads and highways of the country meet with our cordial approval, and we recommend this subject to the earnest consideration of the people and of the legislatures of the several states.

RURAL FREE DELIVERY.

We favor the extension of the rural free delivery service wherever its extension may be justified.

LAND LEGISLATION.

In further pursuance of the constant policy of the Republican Party to provide free homes on the public domain we recommend adequate national legislation to reclaim the arid lands of the United States, reserving control of the distribution of water for irrigation to the respective states and territories.

NEW STATES PROPOSED.

We favor home-rule for, and the early admission to statehood of, the territories of New Mexico, Arizona and Oklahoma.

REDUCTION OF WAR TAXES.

The Dingley Act, amended to provide sufficient revenue for the conduct of the war, has so well performed its work that it has been possible to reduce the war debt in the sum of $40,000,000. So ample are the government's revenues and so great is the public confidence in the integrity of its obligations, that its newly funded 2 per cent. bonds sell at a premium. The country is now justified in expecting, and it will be the policy of the Republican Party to bring about, a reduction of the war taxes.

ISTHMIAN Ca.n.a.l AND NEW MARKETS.

We favor the construction, ownership, control, and protection of an isthmian ca.n.a.l by the government of the United States. New markets are necessary for the increasing surplus of our farm products. Every effort should be made to open and obtain new markets, especially in the Orient, and the administration is to be warmly commended for its successful efforts to commit all trading and colonizing nations to the policy of the open door in China.

DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE.

In the interest of our expanding commerce we recommend that Congress create a Department of Commerce and Industries, in the charge of a secretary with a seat in the cabinet. The United States consular system should be reorganized under the supervision of this new department, upon such a basis of appointment and tenure as will render it still more servicable to the nation's increasing trade.

PROTECTION OF CITIZENS.

The American government must protect the person and property of every citizen wherever they are wrongfully violated or placed in peril.

SERVICES OF WOMEN.

We congratulate the women of America upon their splendid record of public service in the Volunteer Aid a.s.sociation and as nurses in camp and hospital during the recent campaigns of our armies in the East and West Indies, and we appreciate their faithful co-operation in all works of education and industry.

FOREIGN AFFAIRS, SAMOAN AND HAWAIIAN ISLANDS.

President McKinley has conducted the foreign affairs of the United States with distinguished credit to the American people. In releasing us from vexatious conditions of a European alliance for the government of Samoa, his course is especially to be commended. By securing to our undivided control the most important island of the Samoan group and the best harbor in the Southern Pacific, every American interest has been safeguarded.

We approve the annexation of the Hawaiian islands to the United States.

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 a.s.sert our steadfast adherence to the policy announced in the Monroe doctrine. The provisions of The Hague convention was 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 must continue the policy prescribed by Washington, affirmed by every succeeding president, and imposed upon us by The Hague Treaty, of non-intervention 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.

SOVEREIGNITY 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 sovereignity 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 people.

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 a.s.sured 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.

On the third day of the Convention, Thursday, June 21, 1900, Mr. Quay, of Pennsylvania, withdrew a plan of representation which he had presented the previous day, and the Convention proceeded to the nominations for President and Vice-President. Alabama yielded to Ohio, and Senator Joseph B. Foraker, of Ohio, who had the same great honor four years previous, went to the platform and in a speech of great vigor and eloquence nominated William McKinley, of Ohio, for President. The nomination was seconded by Theodore Roosevelt, of New York, Senator John M. Thurston, John W. Yerkes, of Kentucky, George Knight, of California, and Governor James A. Mount, of Indiana. There were no further nominations. The ballot showed that 930 votes had been cast, and that William McKinley had received 930, and pandemonium broke loose. After it had subsided, Col. Lafe Young, in a remarkable speech, withdrew the name of Jonathan P. Dolliver for Vice-President and nominated Theodore Roosevelt of New York. Butler Murray, of Ma.s.sachusetts, and James A.

Ashton, of Washington, seconded the nomination, and in response to demands for "Depew! Depew!" that gentleman came forward and with his customary eloquence and wit also seconded the nomination. The balloting then proceeded and Theodore Roosevelt received 929 votes, he having refrained from voting for himself. Thus, in this Convention, for the first time in the history of the party, the candidates for President and Vice-President were practically nominated by acclamation.