USA > New York > History of the state of New York, political and governmental, Vol. VI > Part 36
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"Elected upon specific promises to curtail public expenditures and to bring the country back to a status of effective economy, the Repub- lican party in Congress wasted time and energy for more than a year in vain and extravagant investigations, costing the tax-payers great sums of money while revealing nothing beyond the incapacity of Republican politicians to cope with the problems. Demanding that the President, from his place at the peace table, call the Congress into extraordinary session for imperative purposes of readjustment, the Congress when convened spent thirteen months in partisan pursuits, failing to repeal a single war statute which harassed business or to initiate a single constructive measure to help business. It busied itself making a preëlection record of pretended thrift, having not one particle of substantial existence in fact. It raged against profiteers and the high cost of living without enacting a single statute to make the former afraid or doing a single act to bring the latter within limitations.
"The simple truth is that the high cost of living can only be reme- died by increased production, strict governmental economy, and a relentless pursuit of those who take advantage of post-war conditions and are demanding and receiving outrageous profits.
"We pledge the Democratic party to a policy of strict economy in government expenditures, and to the enactment and enforcement of
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such legislation as may be required to bring profiteers before the bar of criminal justice.
"The Tariff .- We reaffirm the traditional policy of the Demo- cratic party in favor of a tariff for revenue only, and we confirm the policy of basing tariff revisions upon the intelligent research of a non- partisan commission rather than upon the demands of selfish inter- ests, temporarily held in abeyance.
"Budget .- In the interest of economy and good administration, we favor the creation of an effective budget system that will function in accord with the principles of the Constitution. The reform should reach both the executive and legislative aspects of the question. The supervision and preparation of the budget should be vested in the Secretary of the Treasury as the representative of the President. The budget, as such, should not be increased by the Congress except by a two-thirds vote, each house, however, being free to exercise its consti- tutional privilege of making appropriations through independent bills. The Appropriation bills should be considered by single committees of the House and Senate. The audit system should be consolidated and its powers expanded so as to pass upon the wisdom of, as well as the authority for, expenditures.
"A Budget bill was passed in the closing days of the second session of the Sixty-sixth Congress which, invalidated by plain constitutional defects and defaced by considerations of patronage, the President was obliged to veto. The House amended the bill to meet the Executive objection. We condemn the Republican Senate for adjourning with- out passing the amended measure, when by devoting an hour or two more to this urgent public business a budget system could have been provided.
"Senate Rules .- We favor such alteration of the rules of procedure of the Senate of the United States as will permit the prompt transac- tion of the nation's legislative business.
"Agricultural Interests .- To the great agricultural interests of the country the Democratic party does not find it necessary to make promises. It already is rich in its record of things actually accom- plished. For nearly half a century of Republican rule not a sentence was written into the Federal statutes affording one dollar of bank
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credits to the farming interests of America. In the first term of this Democratic administration the National Bank act was so altered as to authorize loans of five years' maturity on improved farm lands. Later was established a system of Farm Loan banks, from which the borrowings already exceed three hundred millions of dollars and under which the interest rate to farmers has been so materially reduced as to drive out of business the farm loan sharks who formerly subsisted by extortion upon the great agricultural interests of the country.
"Thus it was a Democratic Congress in the administration of a Democratic President which enabled the farmers of America for the first time to obtain credit upon reasonable terms and insured their opportunity for the future development of the nation's agricultural resources. Tied up in Supreme Court proceedings, in a suit by hostile interests, the Federal Farm Loan system, originally opposed by the Republican candidate for the Presidency, appealed in vain to a Repub- lican Congress for adequate financial assistance to tide over the interim between the beginning and the ending of the current year, awaiting a final decision of the highest court on the validity of the contested act. We pledge prompt and consistent support of sound and effective measures to sustain, amplify, and perfect the Rural Credits statutes and thus to check and reduce the growth and course of farm tenancy.
"Not only did the Democratic party put into effect a great Farm Loan system of land mortgage banks, but it passed the Smith-Lever Agricultural Extension act, carrying to every farmer in every section of the country, through the medium of trained experts and by demon- stration farms, the practical knowledge acquired by the Federal Agri- cultural department in all things relating to agriculture, horticulture, and animal life; it established the Bureau of Markets, the Bureau of Farm Management, and passed the Cotton Futures act, the Grain Grades bill, the Cooperative Farm Administration act, and the Fed- eral Warehouse act.
"The Democratic party has vastly improved the rural mail system and has built up the parcel post system to such an extent as to render its activities and its practical service indispensable to the farming com- munity. It was this wise encouragement and this effective concern of the Democratic party for the farmers of the United States that
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enabled this great interest to render such essential service in feeding the armies of America and the Allied nations of the war and succoring starving populations since Armistice day.
"Meanwhile the Republican leaders at Washington have failed utterly to propose one single measure to make rural life more tolerable. They have signalized their fifteen months of Congressional power by urging schemes which would strip the farms of labor ; by assailing the principles of the Farm Loan system and seeking to impair its efficiency ; by covertly attempting to destroy the great nitrogen plant at Muscle Shoals upon which the government has expended $70,000,000 to supply American farmers with fertilizers at reasonable cost; by ruth- lessly crippling nearly every branch of agricultural endeavor, literally starving the productive mediums through which the people must be fed.
"We favor such legislation as will confirm to the primary produc- ers of the nation the right of collective bargaining and the right of cooperative handling and marketing of the products of the workshop and the farm, and such legislation as will facilitate the exportation of our farm products.
"We favor comprehensive studies of farm production costs and the uncensored publication of facts found in such studies.
"Labor and Industry .- The Democratic party is now, as ever, the firm friend of honest labor and the promoter of progressive industry. It established the Department of Labor at Washington, and a Demo- cratic President called to his official council board the first practical workingman who ever held a cabinet portfolio. Under this adminis- tration have been established employment bureaus to bring the man and the job together ; have been peaceably determined many bitter dis- putes between capital and labor ; were passed the Child Labor act, the Workingmen's Compensation act (the extension of which we advocate so as to include laborers engaged in loading and unloading ships and in interstate commerce), the Eight-hour law, the act for vocational training, and a code of other wholesome laws affecting the liberties and bettering the conditions of the laboring classes. In the Depart- ment of Labor the Democratic administration established a Woman's
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bureau, which a Republican Congress destroyed by withholding ap- propriations.
"Labor is not a commodity; it is human. Those who labor have rights, and the national security and safety depend upon a just recog- nition of those rights and the conservation of the strength of the workers and their families in the interest of sound-hearted and sound- headed men, women, and children. Laws regulating hours of labor and conditions under which labor is performed, when passed in recognition of the conditions under which life must be lived to attain the highest development and happiness, are just assertions of the national interest in the welfare of the people.
"At the same time, the nation depends upon the products of labor ; a cessation of production means loss and, if long continued, disaster. The whole people, therefore, have a right to insist that justice shall be done to those who work, and in turn that those whose labor cre- ates the necessities upon which the life of the nation depends must recognize the reciprocal obligation between the worker and the state. They should participate in the formulation of sound laws and regula- tions governing the conditions under which labor is performed, recog- nize and obey the laws so formulated, and seek their amendment when necessary by the processes ordinarily addressed to the laws and regu- lations affecting the other relations of life.
"Labor, as well as capital, is entitled to adequate compensation. Each has the indefeasible right of organization, of collective bargain- ing, and of speaking through representatives of their own selection. Neither class, however, should at any time nor in any circumstances take action that will put in jeopardy the public welfare. Resort to strikes and lockouts which endanger the health or lives of the people is an unsatisfactory device for determining disputes, and the Demo- cratic party pledges itself to contrive, if possible, and put into effective operation, a fair and comprehensive method of composing differences of this nature.
"In private industrial disputes we are opposed to compulsory arbi- tration as a method plausible in theory but a failure in fact. With respect to government service, we hold distinctly that the rights of the people are paramount to the right to strike. However, we profess
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scrupulous regard for the conditions of public employment and pledge the Democratic party to instant inquiry into the pay of government employes and equally speedy regulations designed to bring salaries to a just and proper level.
"Woman Suffrage .- We endorse the proposed Nineteenth amend- ment of the Constitution of the United States granting equal suffrage to women. We congratulate the Legislatures of the thirty-five States which have already ratified said amendment, and we urge the Demo- cratic Governors and Legislatures of Tennessee, North Carolina, and Florida, and such States as have not yet ratified the Federal Suffrage amendment, to unite in an effort to complete the process of ratification and secure the thirty-sixth State in time for all the women of the United States to participate in the fall election. We commend the effective advocacy of the measure by President Wilson.
"Welfare of Women and Children .- We urge cooperation with the States for the protection of child life through infancy and mater- nity care, in the prohibition of child labor, and by adequate appropria- tions for the Children's bureau and the Woman's bureau in the De- partment of Labor.
"Women in Industry .- We advocate full representation of women on all commissions dealing with women's work or women's interests and a reclassification of the Federal civil service free from discrimina- tion on the ground of sex ; a continuance of appropriations for educa- tion in sex hygiene; Federal legislation which shall insure that Ameri- can women resident in the United States, but married to aliens, shall retain their American citizenship, and that the same process of natu- ralization shall be required for women as for men.
"Education .- Cooperative Federal assistance to the States is im- mediately required for the removal of illiteracy, for the increase of teachers' salaries, and instruction in citizenship for both native and foreign-born ; increased appropriation for vocational training in home economics; reestablishment of joint Federal and State employment service with women's departments under the direction of technically qualified women.
"Disabled Soldiers .- The Federal government should treat with the utmost consideration every disabled soldier, sailor, and marine of
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the World War, whether his disability be due to wounds received in line of action or to health impaired in service; and for the dependents of the brave men who died in line of duty the government's tenderest concern and richest bounty should be their requital. The fine patriot- ism exhibited, the heroic conduct displayed by American soldiers, sailors, and marines at home and abroad, constitute a sacred heritage of posterity, the worth of which can never be recompensed from the treasury and the glory of which must not be diminished.
"The Democratic administration wisely established a War Risk Insurance bureau, giving four and a half millions of enlisted men insurance at unprecedentedly low rates and through the medium of which compensation of men and women injured in service is readily adjusted and hospital facilities for those whose health is impaired are abundantly afforded.
"The Federal Board for Vocational Education should be made a part of the War Risk Insurance bureau, in order that the task may be treated as a whole, and this machinery of protection and assistance must receive every aid of law and appropriation necessary to full and effective operation.
"We believe that no higher or more valued privilege can be afforded to an American citizen than to become a freeholder in the soil of the United States, and to that end we pledge our party to the en- actment of soldier settlements and home aid legislation which will afford to the men who fought for America the opportunity to become land and home-owners under conditions affording genuine government assistance unencumbered by needless difficulties of red tape or advance financial investment.
"The Railroads .- The railroads were subjected to Federal control as a war measure without other idea than the swift transport of troops, munitions, and supplies. When human life and national hopes were at stake profits could not be considered and were not. Federal opera- tion, however, was marked by an intelligence and efficiency that mini- mized loss and resulted in many and marked reforms. The equipment taken over was not only grossly inadequate, but shamefully outworn. Unification practices overcame these initial handicaps and provided additions, betterments, and improvements. Economies enabled opera-
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tion without the rate raises that private control would have found necessary, and labor was treated with an exact justice that secured the enthusiastic cooperation that victory demanded. The fundamental purpose of Federal control was achieved fully and splendidly, and at far less cost to the taxpayer than would have been the case under private operation. Investments in railroad properties were not only saved by government operation, but government management returned these properties vastly improved in every physical and executive detail. A great task was greatly discharged.
"The President's recommendation of return to private ownership gave the Republican majority a full year in which to enact the neces- sary legislation. The House took six months to formulate its ideas, and another six months was consumed by the Republican Senate in equally vague debate. As a consequence, the Esch-Cummins bill went to the President in the closing hours of the time limit prescribed, and he was forced to a choice between the chaos of a veto and acquiescence in the measure submitted however grave may have been his objections to it.
"There should be a fair and complete test of the law, and until careful and mature action by Congress may cure its defects and insure a thoroughly effective transportation system under private ownership without government subsidy at the expense of the taxpayers of the country.
"Improved Highways .- Improved roads are of vital importance not only to commerce and industry, but also to agriculture and rural life. The Federal Road act of 1916, enacted by a Democratic Con- gress, represented the first systematic effort of the government to insure the building of an adequate system of roads in this country. The act, as amended, has resulted in placing the movement for im- proved highways on a progressive and substantial basis in every State in the Union and in bringing under actual construction more than 13,000 miles of roads suited to the traffic needs of the communities in which they are located.
"We favor a continuance of the present Federal aid plan under existing Federal and State agencies, amended so as to include as one of
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the elements in determining the ratio in which the several States shall be entitled to share in the fund, the area of any public lands therein.
"Inasmuch as the postal service has been extended by the Demo- cratic party to the door of practically every producer and every con- sumer in the country (rural free delivery alone having been provided for 6,000,000 additional patrons within the past eight years without material added cost), we declare that this instrumentality can and will be used to the maximum of its capacity to improve the efficiency of distribution and reduce the cost of living to consumers while increas- ing the profitable operations of producers.
"We strongly favor the increased use of the motor vehicle in the transportation of the mails and urge the removal of the restrictions imposed by the Republican Congress on the use of motor devices in mail transportation in rural territories.
"Merchant Marine .- We desire to congratulate the American people upon the rebirth of our merchant marine, which once more maintains its former place in the world. It was under a Democratic administration that this was accomplished after seventy years of in- difference and neglect, thirteen million tons having been constructed since the act was passed, in 1916. We pledge the policy of our party to the continued growth of our merchant marine under proper legis- lation so that American products will be carried to all ports of the world by vessels built in American yards, flying the American flag.
"Port Facilities .- The urgent demands of the war for adequate transportation of war materials, as well as for domestic need, revealed the fact that our port facilities and rate adjustments were such as to seriously affect the whole country in times of peace as well as war.
"We pledge our party to stand for equality of rates, both import and export, for the ports of the country, to the end that there may be adequate and fair facilities and rates for the mobilization of the products of the country offered for shipment.
"Inland Waterways .- We call attention to the failure of the Republican national convention to recognize in any way the rapid development of barge transportation on our inland waterways, which development is the result of the constructive policies of the Demo- cratic administration. And we pledge ourselves to the further devel-
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opment of adequate transportation facilities on our rivers and to the further improvement of our inland waterways; and we recognize the importance of connecting the Great Lakes with the sea by way of the Mississippi River and its tributaries, as well as by the St. Lawrence River. We favor an enterprising foreign trade policy with all nations, and in this connection we favor the full utilization of all Atlantic, Gulf, and Pacific ports, and an equitable distribution of shipping facilities between the various ports.
"Transportation remains an increasingly vital problem in the con- tinued development and prosperity of the nation.
"Our present facilities for distribution by rail are inadequate, and the promotion of transportation by water is imperative.
"We therefore favor a liberal and comprehensive policy for devel- opment and utilization of our harbors and interior waterways.
"Flood Control .- We commend the Democratic Congress for the redemption of the pledge contained in our last platform by the passage of the Flood Control act of March 1, 1917, and point to the success- ful control of floods of the Mississippi River and the Sacramento River, California, under the policy of that law, for its complete justi- fication. We favor the extension of this policy to other flood-control problems wherever the Federal interest involved justifies the expendi- ture required.
"Reclamation of Arid Lands .- By wise legislation and progressive administration we have transformed the government reclamation projects, representing an investment of $100,000,000, from a condi- tion of impending failure and loss of confidence in the ability of the government to carry through such large enterprises, to a condition of demonstrated success, whereby formerly arid and wholly unproductive lands now sustain 40,000 prosperous families and have an annual crop production of over $70,000,000, not including the crops grown on a million acres outside the projects supplied with storage water from government works.
"We favor ample appropriations for the continuation and exten- sion of this great work of home-building and internal improvement along the same general lines, to the end that all practical projects shall be built, and waters now running to waste shall be made to provide
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homes and add to the food supply, power resources, and taxable prop- erty, with the government ultimately reimbursed for the entire outlay.
"The Trade Commission .- The Democratic party heartily endorses the creation and work of the Federal Trade commission in establish- ing a fair field for competitive business, free from restraints of trade and monopoly, and recommends amplification of the statutes governing its activities so as to grant it authority to prevent the unfair use of patents in restraint of trade.
"Live-Stock Markets .- For the purpose of insuring just and fair treatment in the great interstate live-stock markets and thus instilling confidence in growers through which production will be stimulated and the price of meats to consumers be ultimately reduced, we favor the enactment of legislation for the supervision of such markets by the national government.
"Mexico .- The United States is the neighbor and friend of the nations of the three Americas. In a very special sense our interna- tional relations in this hemisphere should be characterized by good will and free from any possible suspicion as to our national purpose.
"The administration, remembering always that Mexico is an inde- pendent nation and that permanent stability in her government and her institutions could come only from the consent of her own people to a government of their own making, has been unwilling either to profit by the misfortunes of the people of Mexico or to enfeeble their future by imposing from the outside a rule upon their temporarily distracted councils. As a consequence, order is gradually reappearing in Mexico; at no time in many years have American lives and interests been so safe as they now are; peace reigns along the border and industry is resuming.
"When the new government of Mexico shall have given ample proof of its ability permanently to maintain law and order, signified its willingness to meet its international obligations, and written upon its statute-books just laws under which foreign investors shall have rights as well as duties, that government should receive our recognition and sympathetic assistance. Until these proper expectations have been met, Mexico must realize the propriety of a policy that asserts the right of the United States to demand full protection for its citizens.
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"Petroleum .- The Democratic party recognizes the importance of the acquisition by Americans of additional sources of supply of petro- leum and other minerals, and declares that such acquisition both at home and abroad should be fostered and encouraged. We urge such action, legislative and executive, as may secure to American citizens the same rights in the acquirement of mining rights in foreign coun- tries as are enjoyed by the citizens or subjects of any other nation.
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