American politics (non-partisan) from the beginning to date - Thomas V. Cooper; Hector T. Fenton

The Reciprocity Issue, 1892.

REPUBLICAN.	DEMOCRATIC.

We point to the success of the Republican policy of reciprocity, under which our export trade has vastly increased and new and enlarged markets have been opened for the products of our farms and workshops. We remind the people of the bitter opposition of the Democratic party to this practical business measure, and claim that, executed by a Republican administration, our present laws will eventually give us control or the trade of the world.	Trade interchange on the basis of reciprocal advantages to the countries participating is a time-honored doctrine of the Democratic faith, but we denounce the sham reciprocity which juggles with the people’s desire for enlarged foreign markets and free exchanges by pretending to establish closer trade relations for a country whose articles of export are almost exclusively agricultural products with other countries that are also agricultural, while erecting a Custom House barrier of prohibitive tariff taxes against the richest countries of the world that stand ready to take our entire surplus of products and to exchange therefor commodities which are necessaries and comforts of life among our own people.

REPUBLICAN.

DEMOCRATIC.

We point to the success of the Republican policy of reciprocity, under which our export trade has vastly increased and new and enlarged markets have been opened for the products of our farms and workshops.
We remind the people of the bitter opposition of the Democratic party to this practical business measure, and claim that, executed by a Republican administration, our present laws will eventually give us control or the trade of the world.

Trade interchange on the basis of reciprocal advantages to the countries participating is a time-honored doctrine of the Democratic faith, but we denounce the sham reciprocity which juggles with the people’s desire for enlarged foreign markets and free exchanges by pretending to establish closer trade relations for a country whose articles of export are almost exclusively agricultural products with other countries that are also agricultural, while erecting a Custom House barrier of prohibitive tariff taxes against the richest countries of the world that stand ready to take our entire surplus of products and to exchange therefor commodities which are necessaries and comforts of life among our own people.

The Silver Issue, 1892.

REPUBLICAN.	DEMOCRATIC.

The American people, from tradition and interest, favor bi-metallism, and the Republican party demands the use of both gold and silver as standard money, with such restrictions and under such provisions, to be determined by legislation, as will secure the maintenance of the parity values of the two metals, so that the purchasing and debt-paying power of the dollar, whether of silver, gold or paper, shall be at all times equal. The interests or the producers of the country, its farmers and its workingmen, demand that every dollar, paper or coin, issued by the government, shall be as good as any other. We commend the wise and patriotic steps already taken by our government to secure an international conference, to adopt such measures as will insure a parity of value between gold and silver for use as money throughout the world.	We denounce the Republican legislation known as the Sherman act of 1890 as a cowardly makeshift, fraught with possibilities of danger in the future, which should make all its supporters, as well as its author, anxious for its speedy repeal. We hold to the use of both gold and silver as the standard money of the country, and to the coinage of both gold and silver, without discriminating against either metal or charge for mintage, the dollar unit or coinage of both metals must be of equal intrinsic and exchangeable value, or be adjusted through international agreement or by such safeguards of legislation as shall insure the maintenance of the parity of the two metals, and the equal power of every dollar at all times in the markets and in the payment of debts, and we demand that all paper currency shall be kept at par with and redeemable in such coin. We insist upon this policy as specially necessary for the protection of the farmers and laboring classes the first and most defenceless victims of unstable money and a fluctuating currency.

REPUBLICAN.

DEMOCRATIC.

The American people, from tradition and interest, favor bi-metallism, and the Republican party demands the use of both gold and silver as standard money, with such restrictions and under such provisions, to be determined by legislation, as will secure the maintenance of the parity values of the two metals, so that the purchasing and debt-paying power of the dollar, whether of silver, gold or paper, shall be at all times equal. The interests or the producers of the country, its farmers and its workingmen, demand that every dollar, paper or coin, issued by the government, shall be as good as any other. We commend the wise and patriotic steps already taken by our government to secure an international conference, to adopt such measures as will insure a parity of value between gold and silver for use as money throughout the world.

We denounce the Republican legislation known as the Sherman act of 1890 as a cowardly makeshift, fraught with possibilities of danger in the future, which should make all its supporters, as well as its author, anxious for its speedy repeal. We hold to the use of both gold and silver as the standard money of the country, and to the coinage of both gold and silver, without discriminating against either metal or charge for mintage, the dollar unit or coinage of both metals must be of equal intrinsic and exchangeable value, or be adjusted through international agreement or by such safeguards of legislation as shall insure the maintenance of the parity of the two metals, and the equal power of every dollar at all times in the markets and in the payment of debts, and we demand that all paper currency shall be kept at par with and redeemable in such coin. We insist upon this policy as specially necessary for the protection of the farmers and laboring classes the first and most defenceless victims of unstable money and a fluctuating currency.

The Ballot Issue, 1892.

REPUBLICAN.	DEMOCRATIC.

We demand that every citizen of the United States shall be allowed to cast one free and unrestricted ballot in all public elections and that such ballot shall be counted and returned as cast; that such laws shall be enacted and enforced as will secure to every citizen, be he rich or poor, native or foreign born, white or black, this sovereign right guaranteed by the Constitution. The free and honest popular ballot, the just and equal representation of all the people, as well as their just and equal protection under the laws, are the foundation of our republican institutions, and the party will never relax its efforts until the integrity of the ballot and the purity of elections shall be fully guaranteed and protected in every State. We denounce the continued inhuman outrages perpetrated upon American citizens for political reasons in certain Southern States of the Union.	We warn the people of our common country, jealous for the preservation of their free institutions, that the policy of Federal control of elections to which the Republican party has committed itself is fraught with the gravest dangers, scarcely less momentous than would result from a revolution practically establishing a monarchy on the ruins of the republic. It strikes at the North as well as the South, and injures the colored citizen even more than the white; it means a horde of deputy marshals at every polling place, armed with Federal power, returning boards appointed and controlled by Federal authority; the outrage of the electoral rights of the people in the several States; the subjugation of the colored people to the control of the party in power and the reviving of race antagonisms, now happily abated, of the utmost peril to the safety and happiness of all—a measure deliberately and justly described by a leading Republican Senator as “the most infamous bill that ever crossed the threshold of the Senate.” Such a policy, if sanctioned by law, would mean the dominance of a self-perpetuating oligarchy of office-holders, and the party first intrusted with its machinery could be dislodged from power only by an appeal to the reserved right of the people to resist oppression which is inherent in all self-governing communities. Two years ago this revolutionary policy was emphatically condemned by the people at the polls; but, in contempt of that verdict, the Republican party has defiantly declared, in its latest authoritative utterance, that its success in the coming elections will mean the enactment of the Force bill and the usurpation of despotic control over elections in all the States. Believing that the preservation of republican government in the United States is dependent upon the defeat of this policy of legalized force and fraud, we invite the support of all citizens who desire to see the Constitution maintained in its integrity with the laws pursuant thereto which have given our country a hundred years of unexampled prosperity; and we pledge the Democratic party, if it be intrusted with power, not only to the defeat of the Force bill but also to relentless opposition to the Republican policy of profligate expenditure, which in the short space of two years has squandered an enormous surplus and emptied an overflowing Treasury, after piling new burdens of taxation upon the already overtaxed

REPUBLICAN.

DEMOCRATIC.

We demand that every citizen of the United States shall be allowed to cast one free and unrestricted ballot in all public elections and that such ballot shall be counted and returned as cast; that such laws shall be enacted and enforced as will secure to every citizen, be he rich or poor, native or foreign born, white or black, this sovereign right guaranteed by the Constitution.
The free and honest popular ballot, the just and equal representation of all the people, as well as their just and equal protection under the laws, are the foundation of our republican institutions, and the party will never relax its efforts until the integrity of the ballot and the purity of elections shall be fully guaranteed and protected in every State.
We denounce the continued inhuman outrages perpetrated upon American citizens for political reasons in certain Southern States of the Union.

We warn the people of our common country, jealous for the preservation of their free institutions, that the policy of Federal control of elections to which the Republican party has committed itself is fraught with the gravest dangers, scarcely less momentous than would result from a revolution practically establishing a monarchy on the ruins of the republic. It strikes at the North as well as the South, and injures the colored citizen even more than the white; it means a horde of deputy marshals at every polling place, armed with Federal power, returning boards appointed and controlled by Federal authority; the outrage of the electoral rights of the people in the several States; the subjugation of the colored people to the control of the party in power and the reviving of race antagonisms, now happily abated, of the utmost peril to the safety and happiness of all—a measure deliberately and justly described by a leading Republican Senator as “the most infamous bill that ever crossed the threshold of the Senate.” Such a policy, if sanctioned by law, would mean the dominance of a self-perpetuating oligarchy of office-holders, and the party first intrusted with its machinery could be dislodged from power only by an appeal to the reserved right of the people to resist oppression which is inherent in all self-governing communities. Two years ago this revolutionary policy was emphatically condemned by the people at the polls; but, in contempt of that verdict, the Republican party has defiantly declared, in its latest authoritative utterance, that its success in the coming elections will mean the enactment of the Force bill and the usurpation of despotic control over elections in all the States.
Believing that the preservation of republican government in the United States is dependent upon the defeat of this policy of legalized force and fraud, we invite the support of all citizens who desire to see the Constitution maintained in its integrity with the laws pursuant thereto which have given our country a hundred years of unexampled prosperity; and we pledge the Democratic party, if it be intrusted with power, not only to the defeat of the Force bill but also to relentless opposition to the Republican policy of profligate expenditure, which in the short space of two years has squandered an enormous surplus and emptied an overflowing Treasury, after piling new burdens of taxation upon the already overtaxed

Civil Service, 1892.

REPUBLICAN.	DEMOCRATIC.

We commend the spirit and evidence of reform in the Civil Service and the wise and consistent enforcement by the Republican party of the laws regulating the same.	Public office is a public trust. We reaffirm the declaration of the Democratic National Convention of 1876 for the reform of the civil service, and we call for the honest enforcement of all laws regulating the same. The nomination of a President, as in the recent Republican Convention, by delegations composed largely of his appointees, holding office at his pleasure, is a scandalous satire upon free popular institutions and a startling illustration of the methods by which a President may gratify his ambition. We denounce a policy under which Federal office-holders usurp control of party conventions in the States, and we pledge the Democratic party to the reform of these and all other abuses which threaten individual liberty and local self-government.

REPUBLICAN.

DEMOCRATIC.

We commend the spirit and evidence of reform in the Civil Service and the wise and consistent enforcement by the Republican party of the laws regulating the same.

Public office is a public trust. We reaffirm the declaration of the Democratic National Convention of 1876 for the reform of the civil service, and we call for the honest enforcement of all laws regulating the same. The nomination of a President, as in the recent Republican Convention, by delegations composed largely of his appointees, holding office at his pleasure, is a scandalous satire upon free popular institutions and a startling illustration of the methods by which a President may gratify his ambition. We denounce a policy under which Federal office-holders usurp control of party conventions in the States, and we pledge the Democratic party to the reform of these and all other abuses which threaten individual liberty and local self-government.

The Third or People’s Party.

The political wing of the Farmers’ Alliance and the elements favoring the entering of the Labor organizations into politics, united in a National Convention at Omaha on the 4th of July, 1892. This Convention was the outcome of several previous efforts on the part of these several organizations to enter national politics. In many State Conventions of the Alliance its sub-treasury plan divided the organization into two factions—political and non-political, and as a result the representation at Omaha did not reflect the views of the entire organization.