A History of the Republican Party

by George Washington Platt

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 assured 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 Massachusetts, 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.

The Democratic National Convention met at Kansas City, Mo., July 4-6, 1900. There was a long wrangle in the Committee on Resolutions over the silver plank in the platform, but it was finally adopted by a vote of 26 to 24, and the Convention adopted the platform by acclamation. The platform declared that while not taking a backward step from any position of the party, Imperialism growing out of the Spanish war was the paramount issue. The Kansas City platform is here given in full as of great interest in the pending campaign.

DEMOCRATIC PLATFORM, 1900.

We, the representatives of the Democratic Party of the United States, assembled in national convention, on the anniversary of the adoption of the declaration of independence, do reaffirm our faith in that immortal proclamation of the inalienable rights of man, and our allegiance to the constitution framed in harmony therewith by the fathers of the republic. We hold with the United States Supreme Court that the declaration of independence is the spirit of our government, of which the constitution is the form and letter.