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

by Thomas V. Cooper; Hector T. Fenton

We declare our opposition to all combinations of capital organized in trusts or otherwise to control arbitrarily the condition of trade among our citizens, and we recommend to Congress and to the State Legislatures in their respective jurisdictions such legislation as will prevent the execution of all the schemes to oppress the people by undue charges on their supplies, or by the unjust rates for the transportation of their products to market. We approve the legislation by Congress to prevent alike unjust burdens and unfair discriminations between the States.

We reaffirm the policy of appropriating the public lands of the United States to be homesteads for American citizens and settlers, not aliens, which the Republican party established in 1862, against the persistent opposition of the Democrats in Congress, and which has brought our great western domain into such magnificent development. The restoration of unearned railroad land grants to the public domain, for the use of the actual settlers, which was begun under the administration of President Arthur, should be continued. We deny that the Democratic party has ever revoked one acre to the people, but declare that, by the joint action of Republicans and Democrats, about fifty millions of acres of unearned lands originally granted for the construction of railroads have been restored to the public domain, in pursuance of the conditions inserted by the Republican party in the original grants. We charge the Democratic administration with failure to execute the laws securing to settlers titles to their homesteads, and with using appropriations made for that purpose to harass innocent settlers with spies and prosecutions under the false pretence of exposing frauds and vindicating the law.

The Government by Congress of the Territories is based upon necessity only, to the end that they may become States in the Union; therefore, whenever the conditions of population, material resources, public intelligence and morality are such as to insure a stable Government therein, the people of such territories should be permitted, as a right inherent in them, the right to form for themselves constitutions and State Governments and be admitted into the Union. Pending the preparation for statehood, all officers thereof should be selected from the bona fide residents and citizens of the territory wherein they are to serve. South Dakota should of right be immediately admitted as a State in the Union under the Constitution framed and adopted by her people, and we heartily endorse the action of the Republican Senate in twice passing bills for admission. The refusal of the Democratic House of Representatives, for partisan purposes, to favorably consider these bills, is a willful violation of the sacred American principle of local self government and merits the condemnation of all just men. The pending bills in the Senate for acts to enable the people of Washington, North Dakota and Montana territories to form Constitutions and establish State Governments, should be passed without unnecessary delay. The Republican party pledges itself to do all in its power to facilitate the admission of the Territories of New Mexico, Wyoming, Idaho and Arizona to the enjoyment of self-government as States, such of them as are not qualified as soon as they may become so.

The political power of the Mormon church in the Territories, as exercised in the past, is a menace to free institutions, a danger no longer to be suffered;

Therefore, we pledge the Republican party to appropriate legislation asserting the sovereignty of the Nation in all Territories where the same is questioned, and in furtherance of that end to place upon the statute books legislation stringent enough to divorce the political from the ecclesiastical power, and thus stamp out the attendant wickedness of polygamy.

The Republican party is in favor of the use of both gold and silver as money, and condemns the policy of the Democratic Administration in its efforts to demonetize silver.

We demand the reduction of letter postage to one cent per ounce.

In a Republic like ours, where the citizen is the sovereign and the official the servant; where no power is exercised except by the will of the people, it is important that the sovereign—the people—should possess intelligence. The free school is the promoter of that intelligence which is to preserve us as a free nation; the State or nation, or both combined, should support free institutions of learning sufficient to afford to every child growing up in the land the opportunity of a good common-school education.

We earnestly recommend that prompt action be taken by Congress in the enactment of such legislation as will best secure the rehabilitation of the American merchant marine, and we protest against the passage by Congress of a free ship bill, as calculated to work injustice to labor by lessening the wages of those engaged in preparing materials as well as those directly employed in our ship yards. We demand appropriations for the early rebuilding of our navy; for the construction of coast fortifications and modern ordnance and other approved modern means of defence for the protection of our defenceless harbors and cities; for the payment of just pensions to our soldiers; for necessary works of national importance in the improvement of harbors and the channels of internal, coastwise and foreign commerce; for the encouragement of the shipping interests of the Atlantic, Gulf and Pacific States, as well as for the payment of the maturing public debt. This policy will give employment to our labor, activity to our various industries, increase the security of our country, promote trade, open new and direct markets for our produce, and cheapen the cost of transportation. We affirm this to be far better for our country than the Democratic policy of loaning the Government’s money without interest to “pet banks.”

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 affected by Republican administrations for the removal of foreign burdens and restrictions upon our commerce and for its extension into better markets, it has neither effected nor proposed any others in their stead. Professing adherence to the Monroe doctrine, it has seen with idle complacency the extension of foreign influence in Central America and of foreign trade everywhere among our neighbors. It has refused to charter, sanction or encourage any American organization for constructing 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 our Pacific territory, with South America and with the islands and further coasts of the Pacific Ocean.