Our Presidents and how we make them

by Alexander K. McClure

We believe that the public land ought, as far as possible, to be kept as homesteads for actual settlers; that all unearned lands heretofore improvidently granted to railroad corporations by the action of the Republican party should be restored to the public domain, and that no more grants of land shall be made to corporations or be allowed to fall into the ownership of alien absentees.

We are opposed to all propositions which, upon any pretext, would convert the General Government into a machine for collecting taxes to be distributed among the States or the citizens thereof.

In reaffirming the declaration of the Democratic platform of 1856, that “the liberal principles embodied by Jefferson in the Declaration of Independence, and sanctioned in the Constitution, which makes ours the land of liberty and the asylum of the oppressed of every nation, have ever been cardinal principles in the Democratic faith,” we nevertheless do not sanction the importation of foreign labor or the admission of servile races, unfitted by habits, training, religion, or kindred, for absorption into the great body of our people, or for the citizenship which our laws confer. American civilization demands that against the immigration or importation of Mongolians to these shores our gates be closed.

The Democratic party insists that it is the duty of this Government to protect with equal fidelity and vigilance the rights of its citizens, native and naturalized, at home and abroad; and, to the end that this protection may be assured, United States papers of naturalization, issued by courts of competent jurisdiction, must be respected by the executive and legislative departments of our own Government and by all foreign powers. It is an imperative duty of this Government to efficiently protect all the rights of persons and property of every American citizen in foreign lands, and demand and enforce full reparation for any invasion thereof. An American citizen is only responsible to his own Government for any act done in his own country or under her flag, and can only be tried therefor on her own soil and according to her laws; and no power exists in this Government to expatriate an American citizen to be tried in any foreign land for any such act.

This country has never had a well-defined and executed foreign policy, save under Democratic administration. That policy has ever been in regard to foreign nations, so long as they do no act detrimental to the interests of the country, or hurtful to our citizens, to let them alone. As the result of this policy, we recall the acquisition of Louisiana, Florida, California and the adjacent Mexican Territory by purchase alone, and contrast these grand acquisitions of Democratic statesmanship with the purchase of Alaska, the sole fruit of a Republican administration of nearly a quarter of a century.

The Federal Government should care for and improve the Mississippi River and other great waterways of the Republic, so as to secure for the interior States easy and cheap transportation to tide water.

Under a long period of Democratic rule and policy, our merchant marine was fast overtaking and on the point of outstripping that of Great Britain. Under twenty years of Republican rule and policy, our commerce has been left to British bottoms, and the American flag has almost been swept off the high seas. Instead of the Republican party’s British policy, we demand for the people of the United States an American policy. Under Democratic rule and policy, our merchants and sailors, flying the Stars and Stripes in every port, successfully searched out a market for the various products of American industry; under a quarter of a century of Republican rule and policy, despite our manifest advantages over all other nations, in high paid labor, favorable climates, and teeming soils; despite freedom of trade among all these United States; despite their population by the foremost races of men, and an annual immigration of the young, thrifty, and adventurous of all nations; despite our freedom here from the inherited burdens of life and industry in Old World monarchies, their costly war navies, their vast tax-consuming, non-producing standing armies; despite twenty years of peace—that Republican rule and policy have managed to surrender to Great Britain, along with our commerce, the control of the markets of the world. Instead of the Republican party’s British policy, we demand, in behalf of the American Democracy, an American policy. Instead of the Republican party’s discredited scheme and false pretence of friendship for American labor, expressed by imposing taxes, we demand, in behalf of the Democracy, freedom for American labor by reducing taxes, to the end that these United States may compete with unhindered powers for the primacy among nations in all the arts of peace and fruits of liberty.

With profound regret we have been apprised by the venerable statesman, through whose person was struck that blow at the vital principles of republics, acquiescence in the will of the majority, that he cannot permit us again to place in his hands the leadership of the Democratic hosts, for the reason that the achievement of reform in the administration of the Federal Government is an undertaking now too heavy for his age and failing strength. Rejoicing that his life has been prolonged until the general judgment of our fellow-countrymen is united in the wish that that wrong were righted in his person, for the Democracy of the United States we offer to him, in his withdrawal from public cares, not only our respectful sympathy and esteem, but also that best of homage of freemen—the pledge of our devotion to the principles and the cause now inseparable in the history of this Republic from the labors and the name of Samuel J. Tilden.

With this statement of the hopes, principles and purposes of the Democratic party, the great issue of reform and change in administration is submitted to the people, in calm confidence that the popular voice will pronounce in favor of new men and new and more favorable conditions for the growth of industry, the extension of trade and employment and due reward of labor and of capital, and the general welfare of the whole country.

The campaign of 1884 gave birth to the Anti-Monopoly party, that held its national convention at Chicago on the 14th of May, with John F. Henry as permanent president. General Benjamin F. Butler, of Massachusetts, was nominated as the candidate for President on the 1st ballot, receiving 122 votes to 7 for Allen G. Thurman, of Ohio, and 1 for Solon Chase, of Maine. No nomination for Vice-President was made. The National Committee later nominated A. M. West, of Mississippi, for that office. The following platform was adopted by a vote of 85 to 29: