USA > New York > History of the state of New York, political and governmental, Vol. VI > Part 21
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"The conduct of foreign affairs by the present administration has been distinguished by its inefficiency and its cowardice. Having withdrawn from the Senate all pending treaties effected by Republi- can administrations for the removal of foreign burdens and restric- tions upon our commerce and for its extension into better markets, it has neither effected nor proposed any others in their stead. Pro- fessing adherence to the Monroe doctrine, it has seen, with idle com- placency, the extension of foreign influence in Central America and of foreign trade everywhere among our neighbors. It has refused to
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charter, sanction, or encourage any American organization for con- structing the Nicaragua canal, a work of vital importance to the maintenance of the Monroe doctrine and of our national influence in Central and South America, and necessary for the development of trade with the Pacific territory, with South America, and with the islands and farther coasts of the Pacific Ocean.
"We arraign the present Democratic administration for its weak and unpatriotic treatment of the fisheries question, and its pusillani- mous surrender of the essential privileges to which our fishing ves- sels are entitled in Canadian ports under the treaty of 1818, the reciprocal maritime legislation of 1830, and the comity of nations, and which Canadian fishing vessels receive in the ports of the United States. We condemn the policy of the present administration and the Democratic majority in Congress toward our fisheries as un- friendly and conspicuously unpatriotic, and as tending to destroy a valuable national industry and an indispensable resource of defense against a foreign enemy. 'The name of American applies alike to all citizens of the republic, and imposes upon all alike the same obliga- tion of obedience to the laws. At the same time, that citizenship is and must be the panoply and safeguard of him who wears it, and protect him, whether high or low, rich or poor, in all his civil rights. It should and must afford him protection at home, and follow and protect him abroad, in whatever land he may be on a lawful errand.'
"The men who abandoned the Republican party in 1884 and con- tinue to adhere to the Democratic party have deserted not only the cause of honest government, of sound finance, of freedom, of purity of the ballot, but especially have deserted the cause of reform in the civil service. We will not fail to keep our pledges because they have broken theirs, or because their candidate has broken his. We therefore repeat our declaration of 1884, to-wit: "The reform of the civil service, auspiciously begun under the Republican adminis- tration, should be completed by the further extension of the reform system, already established by law, to all the grades of the service to which it is applicable. The spirit and purpose of the reform should be observed in all executive appointments, and all laws at variance
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with the object of existing reform legislation should be repealed, to the end that the dangers to free institutions which lurk in the power of official patronage may be wisely and effectively avoided.'
"The gratitude of the nation to the defenders of the Union can- not be measured by laws. The legislation of Congress should con- form to the pledge made by a loyal people, and be so enlarged and extended as to provide against the possibility that any man who honorably wore the Federal uniform should become the inmate of an almshouse, or dependent upon private charity. In the presence of an overflowing treasury it would be a public scandal to do less for those whose valorous service preserved the government. We denounce the hostile spirit shown by President Cleveland in his numerous vetoes of measures for pension relief and the action of the Democratic House of Representatives in refusing even a con- sideration of general pension legislation.
"In support of the principles herewith enunciated, we invite the cooperation of patriotic men of all parties, and especially of all workingmen, whose prosperity is seriously threatened by the free trade policy of the present administration."
Other Parties
Prohibition Party .- Convention held in Indianapo- lis, May 20, 1888. For President, Clinton B. Fisk, of New Jersey; for Vice-President, John A. Brooks, of Missouri.
Union Labor Party .- Convention held in Cincinnati, May 15, 1888. For President, Alson J. Streeter, of Illinois; for Vice-President, Samuel Evans, of Texas.
United Labor Party .- Convention held in Cincin- nati, May 15, 1888. For President, Robert H. Cow- drey, of Illinois ; for Vice-President, W. H. T. Wake- field, of Kansas.
Equal Rights Convention .- Held in Des Moines,
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May 15, 1888. For President, Mrs. Belva A. Lock- wood, of the District of Columbia; for Vice-President, Alfred H. Love, of Pennsylvania.
"American" Convention .- Held in Washington, August 14, 1888. For President, James Langdon Cur- tis, of New York; for Vice-President, James B. Greer, of Tennessee. The platform demanded rigid restriction of immigration, repeal of the naturalization laws, dis- qualification of aliens to own real estate, taxation of all church property, and non-appropriation of public money for church institutions.
The Election
Electoral vote for President and Vice-President :
Benjamin Harrison and Levi P. Morton, Republicans :- Califor- nia, 8; Colorado, 3; Illinois, 22; Indiana, 15; Iowa, 13; Kansas, 9; Maine, 6; Massachusetts, 14; Michigan, 13; Minnesota, 7; Ne- braska, 5; Nevada, 3; New Hampshire, 4; New York, 36; Ohio, 23; Oregon, 3; Pennsylvania, 30; Rhode Island, 4; Vermont, 4; Wisconsin, 11. Total, 233. Elected.
Grover Cleveland and Allen G. Thurman, Democrats :- Ala- bama, 10; Arkansas, 7; Connecticut, 6; Delaware, 3; Florida, 4; Georgia, 12; Kentucky, 13; Louisiana, 8; Maryland, 8; Mississippi, 9; Missouri, 16; New Jersey, 9; North Carolina, 11; South Caro- lina, 9; Tennessee, 12; Texas, 13; Virginia, 12; West Virginia, 6. Total, 168.
Popular vote :
Cleveland, 5,540,050; Harrison, 5,444,337; Fisk, 250,125; Streeter, 146,897; Cowdrey, 2,808; Curtis, 1,591.
1892 Republican Party
Convention held in Minneapolis, June 7-10; tempo- rary chairman, J. Sloat Fassett, of New York; perma- nent chairman, William McKinley, of Ohio.
Benjamin Harrison was renominated for the Presi- dency on the first ballot, which stood: Harrison, 535 1-6; James G. Blaine, 182 1-6; William McKinley, 182; Thomas B. Reed, of Maine, 4; Robert T. Lincoln, of Illinois, 1.
The Vice-Presidential nominee was Whitelaw Reid, of New York, nominated by acclamation on the first ballot.
Platform :
"The representatives of the Republicans of the United States, assembled in general convention on the shores of the Mississippi River, the everlasting bond of an indestructible republic, whose most glorious chapter of history is the record of the Republican party, congratulate their countrymen on the majestic march of the nation under the banners inscribed with the principles of our platform of 1888, vindicated by victory at the polls and prosperity in our fields, workshops, and mines, and make the following declaration of prin- ciples :-
"We reaffirm the American doctrine of protection. We call attention to its growth abroad. We maintain that the prosperous condition of our country is largely due to the wise revenue legisla- tion of the Republican Congress. We believe that all articles
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which cannot be produced in the United States, except luxuries, should be admitted free of duty, and that on all imports coming into competition with the products of American labor there should be levied duties equal to the difference between wages abroad and at home.
"We assert that the prices of manufactured articles of general consumption have been reduced under the operations of the Tariff act of 1890.
"We denounce the efforts of the Democratic majority of the House of Representatives to destroy our Tariff laws by piecemeal, as manifested by their attacks upon wool, lead, and lead ores, the chief products of a number of States, and we ask the people for their judgment thereon.
"We point to the success of the Republican policy of reciprocity, under which our export trade has vastly increased and new and enlarged markets have been opened for the products of our farms and workshops. We remind the people of the bitter opposition of the Democratic party to this practical business measure, and claim that, executed by a Republican administration, our present laws will eventually give us control of the trade of the world.
"The American people, from tradition and interest, favor bimetal- ism, and the Republican party demands the use of both gold and silver as standard money, with such restrictions and under such pro- visions, to be determined by legislation, as will secure the mainte- nance of the parity of values of the two metals, so that the purchas- ing and debt-paying power of the dollar, whether of silver, gold, or paper, shall be at all times equal. The interests of the producers of the country, its farmers and its workingmen, demand that every dollar, paper or coin, issued by the government, shall be as good as any other. We commend the wise and patriotic steps already taken by our government to secure an international conference to adopt such measures as will insure a parity of value between gold and silver for use as money throughout the world.
"We demand that every citizen of the United States shall be allowed to cast one free and unrestricted ballot in all public elections, and that such ballot shall be counted and returned as cast; that such
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laws shall be enacted and enforced as will secure to every citizen, be he rich or poor, native or foreign-born, white or black, this sovereign right guaranteed by the Constitution. The free and honest popular ballot, the just and equal representation of all the people, as well as their just and equal protection under the laws, are the foundation of our republican institutions, and the party will never relax its efforts until the integrity of the ballot and the purity of elections shall be fully guaranteed and protected in every State.
"We denounce the continued inhuman outrages perpetrated upon American citizens for political reasons in certain southern States of the Union.
"We favor the extension of our foreign commerce, the restoration of our mercantile marine by home-built ships, and the creation of a navy for the protection of our national interests and the honor of our flag; the maintenance of the most friendly relations with all foreign powers, entangling alliances with none, and the protection of the rights of our fishermen.
"We reaffirm our approval of the Monroe doctrine, and believe in the achievement of the manifest destiny of the republic in its broadest sense.
"We favor the enactment of more stringent laws and regulations for the restriction of criminal, pauper, and contract immigration.
"We favor efficient legislation by Congress to protect the life and limb of employes of transportation companies engaged in carrying on interstate commerce, and recommend legislation by the respective States that will protect employes engaged in State commerce, in mining, and manufacturing.
"The Republican party has always been the champion of the oppressed and recognizes the dignity of manhood, irrespective of faith, color, or nationality. It sympathizes with the cause of home rule in Ireland, and protests against the persecution of the Jews in Russia.
"The ultimate reliance of free popular government is the intelli- gence of the people and the maintenance of freedom among men. We therefore declare anew our devotion to liberty of thought and conscience, of speech and press, and approve all agencies and instru-
ULYSSES S. GRANT
Ulysses S. Grant, 18th president; born at Point Pleasant, Ohio, April 27, 1822; graduate of U. S. Military Academy, West Point; served in Mexican war under Taylor; later clerk of general store, Galena, Ill .; entered volunteer service, civil war, at Springfield, Ill., June 17, 1861; served with great dis- tinction and concededly won the decisive victories of the war of the rebellion; elected president of the United States, 1868; reelected, 1872; lost his fortune through dishonesty of Ferdinand Ward, his partner in banking business; wrote his memoirs, earning enough to pay his debts and leave his family in com- fort; died July 23, 1885 at McGregor, N. Y.
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mentalities which contribute to the education of the children of the land; but while insisting upon the fullest measure of religious liberty we are opposed to any union of church and state.
"We reaffirm our opposition, declared in the Republican platform of 1888, to all combinations of capital, organized in trusts or other- wise, to control arbitrarily the condition of trade among our citizens. We heartily endorse the action already taken upon this subject, and ask for such future legislation as may be required to remedy any defects in existing laws and to render their enforcement more com- plete and effective.
"We approve the policy of extending to towns, villages, and rural communities the advantages of the free-delivery service now. enjoyed by the larger cities of the country, and reaffirm the declaration con- tained in the Republican platform of 1888 pledging the reduction of letter postage to one cent at the earliest possible moment consistent with the maintenance of the Post Office department and the highest class of postal service. 1
"We commend the spirit and evidence of reform in the civil serv- ice, and the wise and consistent enforcement by the Republican party of the laws regulating the same.
"The construction of the Nicaragua canal is of the highest im- portance to the American people, both as a measure of national defense and to build up and maintain American commerce, and it should be controlled by the United States government.
"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.
"We favor the cession, subject to the Homestead laws, of the arid public lands to the States and Territories in which they lie, under such Congressional restrictions as to disposition, reclamation, and occupancy by settlers as will secure the maximum benefits to the people.
"The World's Columbian Exposition is a great national under-
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taking, and Congress should promptly enact such reasonable legisla- tion in aid thereof as will insure a discharge of the expenses and obli- gations incident thereto and the attainment of results commensurate with the dignity and progress of the nation.
"We sympathize with all wise and legitimate efforts to lessen and prevent the evils of intemperance and promote morality.
"Ever mindful of the services and sacrifices of the men who saved the life of the nation, we pledge anew to the veteran soldiers of the republic a watchful care and recognition of their just claims upon a grateful people.
"We commend the able, patriotic, and thoroughly American ad- ministration of President Harrison. Under it the country has enjoyed remarkable prosperity, and the dignity and honor of the nation, at home and abroad, have been faithfully maintained; and we offer the record of pledges kept as a guarantee of faithful perform- ance in the future."
Democratic Party
Convention held in Chicago, June 21-23, 1892; tem- porary chairman, William C. Owens, of Kentucky; permanent chairman, William L. Wilson, of West Virginia:
Great preparations had been made by the supporters of David B. Hill, of New York, to secure the Presi- dential nomination for him. Grover Cleveland, how- ever, was successful on the first ballot, which stood: Cleveland, 617 1-3; Hill, 114; Horace Boies, of Iowa, 103; Arthur P. Gorman, of Maryland, 3612 ; Adlai E. Stevenson, of Illinois, 16 2-3 ; John G. Carlisle, of Ken- tucky, 14; William R. Morrison, of Illinois, 3; James E. Campbell, of Ohio, 2; William E. Russell, of Mas- sachusetts, 1; Robert E. Pattison, of Pennsylvania, 1; William C. Whitney, of New York, 1.
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Adlai E. Stevenson, of Illinois, was nominated for Vice-President on the first ballot.
Platform :
"Section 1 .- The representatives of the Democratic party of the United States, in national convention assembled, do reaffirm their allegiance to the principles of the party as formulated by Jefferson and exemplified by the long and illustrious line of his successors in Democratic leadership, from Madison to Cleveland; we believe the public welfare demands that these principles be applied to the con- duct of the Federal government through the accession to power of the party that advocates them; and we solemnly declare that the need of a return to these fundamental principles of free popular government, based on home rule and individual liberty, was never more urgent than now, when the tendency to centralize all power at the Federal capital has become a menace to the reserved rights of the States that strikes at the very roots of our government under the Constitution as framed by the fathers of the republic.
"Section 2 .- We warn the people of our common country, jealous for the preservation of their free institutions, that the policy of Federal control of elections to which the Republican party has com- mitted itself is fraught with the gravest dangers, scarcely less momen- tous than would result from a revolution practically establishing mon- archy on the ruins of the republic. It strikes at the north as well as the south, and injures the colored citizen even more than the white. It means a horde of Deputy Marshals at every polling-place armed with Federal power, returning boards appointed and con- trolled by Federal authority, the outrage of the electoral rights of the people in the several States, the subjugation of the colored people to the control of the party in power, and the reviving of race antago- nisms now happily abated, of the utmost peril to the safety and happi- ness of all-a measure deliberately and justly described by a leading Republican Senator as 'the most infamous bill that ever crossed the threshold of the Senate.' Such a policy, if sanctioned by law, would mean the dominance of a self-perpetuating oligarchy of office-holders, and the party first entrusted with its machinery could be dislodged
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from power only by an appeal to the reserved right of the people to resist oppression, which is inherent in all self-governing com- munities. Two years ago this revolutionary policy was emphatically condemned by the people at the polls; but in contempt of that ver- dict the Republican party has defiantly declared, in its latest authori- tative utterance, that its success in the coming elections will mean the enactment of the Force bill and the usurpation of despotic control over elections in all the States.
"Believing that the preservation of republican government in the United States is dependent upon the defeat of this policy of legalized force and fraud, we invite the support of all citizens who desire to see the Constitution maintained in its integrity with the laws pursuant thereto which have given our country a hundred years of unexampled prosperity, and we pledge the Democratic party, if it be entrusted with power, not only to the defeat of the Force bill but also to relent- less opposition to the Republican policy of profligate expenditure, which in the short space of two years squandered an enormous surplus and emptied an overflowing treasury after piling new bur- dens of taxation upon the already overtaxed labor of the country.
"Section 3 .- We denounce Republican protection as a fraud- a robbery of the great majority of the American people for the benefit of the few. We declare it to be a fundamental principle of the Democratic party that the Federal government has no constitu- tional power to impose and collect tariff duties except for the pur- poses of revenue only, and we demand that the collection of such taxes shall be limited to the necessities of the government when hon- estly and economically administered.
"We denounce the Mckinley Tariff law enacted by the Fifty-first Congress as the culminating atrocity of class legislation ; we endorse the efforts made by the Democrats of the present Congress to modify its most oppressive features in the direction of free raw materials and cheaper manufactured goods that enter into general consumption, and we promise its repeal as one of the beneficent results that will follow the action of the people in entrusting power to the Democratic party. Since the Mckinley tariff went into operation there have been ten reductions of the wages of laboring men to one increase. We
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deny that there has been any increase of prosperity to the country since that tariff went into operation, and we point to the dullness and distress, the wage reductions and strikes in the iron trade, as the best possible evidence that no such prosperity has resulted from the Mc- Kinley act.
"We call the attention of thoughtful Americans to the fact that, after thirty years of restrictive taxes against the importation of for- eign wealth in exchange for our agricultural surplus, the homes and farms of the country have become burdened with a real estate mort- gage debt of over two thousand, five hundred million dollars, exclu- sive of all other forms of indebtedness; that in one of the chief agricultural States of the west there appears a real estate mortgage debt averaging $165 per capita of the total population, and that similar conditions and tendencies are shown to exist in the other agricultural exporting States. We denounce a policy which fosters no industry so much as it does that of the sheriff.
"Section 4 .- Trade interchange on the basis of reciprocal advan- tages to the countries participating is a time-honored doctrine of the Democratic faith; but we denounce the sham reciprocity which juggles with the people's desire for enlarged foreign markets and freer exchanges by pretending to establish closer trade relations for a country whose articles of export are almost exclusively agricultural products with other countries that are also agricultural, while erect- ing a custom house barrier of prohibitive tariff taxes against the richest countries of the world, that stand ready to take our entire sur- plus of products and to exchange therefor commodities which are necessaries and comforts of life among our own people.
"Section 5 .- We recognize in the trusts and combinations which are designed to enable capital to secure more than its just share of the joint product of capital and labor, a natural consequence of the prohibitive taxes which prevent the free competition which is the life of honest trade, but believe their worst evils can be abated by law; and we demand the rigid enforcement of the laws made to prevent and control them, together with such further legislation in restraint of their abuses as experience may show to be necessary.
"Section 6 .- The Republican party, while professing a policy of
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reserving the public land for small holdings by actual settlers, has given away the people's heritage till now a few railroads and non- resident aliens, individual and corporate, possess a larger area than that of all our farms between the two seas. The last Democratic administration reversed the improvident and unwise policy of the Republican party touching the public domain and reclaimed from corporations and syndicates, alien and domestic, and restored to the people, nearly 100,000,000 acres of valuable land, to be sacredly held as homesteads for our citizens; and we pledge ourselves to continue this policy until every acre of land so unlawfully held shall be reclaimed and restored to the people.
"Section 7 .- We denounce the Republican legislation known as the Sherman act of 1890 as a cowardly makeshift, fraught with pos- sibilities of danger in the future which should make all of its sup- porters, as well as its author, anxious for its speedy repeal. We hold to the use of both gold and silver as the standard money of the country, and to the coinage of both gold and silver without discrimi- nating against either metal or charge for mintage; but the dollar unit of coinage of both metals must be of equal intrinsic and exchange- able value, or be adjusted through international agreement or by such safeguards of legislation as shall insure the maintenance of the parity of the two metals and the equal power of every dollar at all times in the markets and in the payment of debts; and we demand that all paper currency shall be kept at par with and redeemable in such coin. We insist upon this policy as especially necessary for the protection of the farmers and laboring classes, the first and most defenseless victims of unstable money and a fluctuating currency.
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