American politics (non-partisan) from the beginning to date

by Thomas V. Cooper; Hector T. Fenton

We believe that labor is best rewarded where it is freest and most enlightened. It should, therefore, be fostered and cherished. We favor the repeal of all laws restricting the free action of labor, and the enactment of laws by which labor organizations may be incorporated, and of all such legislation as will tend to enlighten the people as to the true relations of capital and labor.

We believe that the public lands 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 grant 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.

All the great woes of our country have come because of imported labor. Our fathers made this land the home of the free for all men appreciating our institutions, with energy enough to bring themselves here, and such we welcome, but our country ought never to be a lazar-house for the deportation of the pauper labor of other countries through governmental aid, or the importation of the same kind of labor as an instrument with which capital can debase American workingmen and women from the proud position they now occupy by competing with them by imported labor or convict labor, while at the same time capital asks and receives protection of its interests at the hands of the Government, under guise of providing for American labor. This evil like all others finds birth in the cupidity and selfishness of men. The laborer’s demands should be redressed by law. Labor has a right to demand a just share of the profits of its own productions.

The future of the country unites with the laboring men in the demand for the liberal support by the United States of the school system of the States for the common education of all the children, the same affording a sufficient foundation for the coming generations to acquire due knowledge of their duties as citizens.

That every species of monopoly engenders two classes, the very rich and the very poor, both of which are equally hurtful to a Republic which should give to its people equal rights and equal privileges under the law.

That the public lands of the United States were the equal heritage of all the citizens and should have been held open to the use of all in such quantities only as are needed for cultivation and improvement by all. Therefore we view with alarm the absorption of these lands by corporations and individuals in large areas, some of them more than equal to princely domains, and demand of Congress to apply appropriate remedies with a stern hand so that the lands of the people may be held by the many and not by the few.

That the public lands of the Nation are held by the Government in trust for those who make their homes in the United States, and who mean to become citizens of the Republic, and we protest against the purchase and monopolization of these lands by corporations and the alien aristocracy of Europe.

That all corporate bodies, created either in the States or Nation for the purpose of performing public duties, are public servants and to be regulated in all their actions by the same power that created them at its own will, and that it is within the power and is the duty of the creator to so govern its creature that by its acts it shall become neither a monopoly nor a burden upon the people, but be their servant and convenience, which is the true test of its usefulness. Therefore we call upon Congress to exercise its great constitutional powers for regulating inter-estate commerce to provide that by no contrivance whatever, under forms of law or otherwise, shall discriminating rates and charges for the transportation of freight and travel be made in favor of the few against the many or enhance the rates of transportation between the producer and the consumer.

The various offices of the Government belong to the people thereof and who rightfully demand to exercise and fill the same whenever they are fitted by capacity, integrity and energy, the last two qualifications never to be tested by any scholastic examination. We hold that frequent changes of Federal officials are shown to be necessary. First, to counteract the growing aristocratic tendencies to a caste of life offices. Second, experience having shown that all investigation is useless while the incumbent and his associates hold their places. Frequent change of officers is necessary to the discovery and punishment of frauds, peculations, defalcations and embezzlements of the public money.

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 make ours a 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 great 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 to the United States, papers of naturalization, issued by courts of competent jurisdiction, must be respected by the executive 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 violation thereof. An American citizen is only responsible to his own Government for an act done in his own country or under her flag, and can only be tried therefore 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 the Democratic administration. That policy has never been in regard to foreign Nations, so long as they do not act detrimental to the interests of the country or hurtful to our citizens, to let them alone. That as the result of this policy we recall the acquisition of Louisiana, Florida, California and of 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.