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tency, honesty and sobriety are essential qualifications for holding civil office, and we oppose the removal of such persons from mere administrative offices, except so far as it may be absolutely necessary to secure effectiveness to the vital issues on which the general administration of the government has intrusted to a party; that the collection of revenues from alcohol, liquors and tobacco should be abolished as the vices of men and not a proper subject for taxation; that revenues for customs duties should be levied for the support of the government economically administered, and when so levied the fostering of American labor, manufactures and industries should constantly be held in view; that the public land should be held for homes for the people and not for gifts to corporations, or to be held in large bodies for speculation upon the needs of actual settlers.

That all money, coin and paper, shall be made, issued and regulated by the general government, and shall be a legal tender for all debts, public and private.

That grateful care and support should be given to our soldiers and sailors, their dependent widows and orphans, disabled in the service of the country.

That we repudiate as un-American, contrary to and subversive of the principles of the Declaration of Independence, from which our government has grown to be the government of fifty-five millions of people and a recognized power among the nations, that any person or people shall or may be excluded from residence or citizenship, with all others who may desire the benefits which our institutions confer upon the oppressed of all nations.

That while there are important reforms that are demanded for purity of administration and the welfare of the people, their importance sinks into insignificance when compared with the reform of the drink traffic, which annually wastes $800,000,000 of the wealth created by toil and thrift and drags down thousands of families from comfort to poverty; which fills jails, penitentiaries, insane asylums, hospitals and institutions for dependency; which destroys the health, saps industry and causes loss of life and property to thousands in the land, lowers intellectual and physical vigor, dulls the cunning hand of the artisan, is the chief cause of bankruptcy, insolvency and loss in trade, and by its corrupting power endangers the perpetuity of free institutions.

That Congress should exercise its undoubted power, and prohibit the manufacture and sale of intoxicating beverages in the District of Columbia, the Territories of the United States, in all places over which the government has exclusive jurisdiction; that hereafter no State shall be admitted into the Union until its Constitution shall expressly prohibit polygamy and the manufacture and sale of intoxicating beverages.

We earnestly call the attention of the laborer and the mechanic, the miner and manufacturer, and ask investigation of the baneful effects upon labor and industry caused by the needless liquor business, which will be found the robber who lessens wages and profits, the destroyer of the happiness and family welfare of the laboring man; and that labor and all

legitimate industry demand deliverance from taxation and loss which this traffic imposes; and that no tariff or other legislation can so healthily stimulate production, or increase a demand for capital and labor, or produce so much of comfort and content as the suppressing of this traffic would bring to the laboring man, mechanic or employer of labor throughout our land.

That the activity and co-operation of the women of America for the promotion of temperance has, in all the history of the past, been a strength and encouragement, which we gratefully acknowledge and record. In the latter and present phase of the movement for prohibition of the licensed traffic by the abolition of the drink saloon, the purity of purpose and method, the earnestness, zeal, intelligence and devotion of the mothers and daughters of the Women's Christian Temperance Union have been eminently blessed by God. Kansas and Iowa have been given her as "sheafs" of rejoicing, and the education and arousing of the public mind, and the demand for constitutional amendment now prevailing, are largely the fruit of her prayers and labors, and we rejoice to have our Christian women unite with us in sharing the labor that shall bring the abolition of traffic to the polls. She shall join in the grand "Praise God, from whom all blessings flow," when by law our boys and friends shall be free from legal drink and tempta

tion.

That we believe in the civil and political equality of the sexes, and that the ballot in the hand of woman is a right for her protection, and would prove a powerful ally for the abolition of the drink saloon, the execution of law, the promotion of reform in civil affairs, and the removal of corruption in public life; and thus believing, we relegate the practical outworking of this reform to the discretion of the Prohibition party in the several States, according to the condition of pubfic sentiment in those States. That, gratefully, we acknowledge and praise God for the presence of His Spirit, guiding our counsels and granting the success which has been vouchsafed in the progress of temperance reform; and looking to Him from whom all wisdom and help come, we ask the voters of the United States to make the principles of the above declaration a ruling principle in the government of the Nation and of the States.

Resolved, That henceforth the Prohibition Home Protection party shall be called by the name of the Prohibition party.

PARTY PLATFORMS.

1888.

DEMOCRATIC, REPUBLICAN, PROHIBITION.

NATIONAL DEMOCRATIC PLATFORM.

ADOPTED AT ST. LOUIS, JUNE 7, 1888.

The Democratic party of the United States, in National Convention assembled, renews the pledge of its fidelity to Democratic faith and reaffirms the platform adopted by its representatives in the convention of 1884, and indorses the views expressed by President Cleveland in his last annual message to Congress as the correct interpretation of that platform upon the question of tariff reduction; and also indorses the efforts of our Democratic representatives in Congress to secure a reduction of excessive taxation.

Chief among its principles of party faith are the maintenance of an indissoluble union of free and indestructible States, now about to enter upon its second century of unexampled progress and renown; devotion to a plan of government regulated by a written Constitution, strictly specifying every granted power and expressly reserving to the States or people the entire ungranted residue of power; the encouragement of a jealous popular vigilance directed to all who have been chosen for brief terms to enact and execute the laws, and are charged with the duty of preserving peace, insuring equality and establishing justice.

The Democratic party welcome an exacting scrutiny of the administration of the Executive power, which four years ago was committed to its trust in the election of Grover Cleveland, President of the United States; and it challenges the most searching inquiry concerning its fidelity and devotion to the pledges which then invited the suffrages of the people.

During a most critical period of our financial affairs, resulting from overtaxation, the anomalous condition of our currency and a public debt unmatured, it has, by the adoption of a wise and conservative course, not only averted disaster, but greatly promoted the prosperity of the people.

It has reversed the improvident and unwise policy of the Republican party touching the public domain, and has reclaimed from corporations and syndicates, alien and domestic, and restored to the people nearly one hundred millions of acres of valuable land to be sacredly held as homesteads for our citizens.

While carefully guarding the interest of the taxpayers and conforming strictly to the principles of justice and equity, it

has paid out more for pensions and bounties to the soldiers and sailors of the Republic than was ever paid before during an equal period.

By an intelligent management and a judicious and economical expenditure of the public money it has set on foot the reconstruction of the American Navy upon a system which forbids the recurrence of scandal and insures successful results.

It has adopted and consistently pursued a firm and prudent foreign policy, preserving peace with all nations while scrupulously maintaining all the rights and interests of our government and people at home and abroad.

The exclusion from our shores of Chinese laborers has been effectually secured under the provisions of a treaty, the operation of which has been postponed by the action of a Republican majority in the Senate.

Honest reform in the Civil Service has been inaugurated and maintained by President Cleveland, and he has brought the public service to the highest standard of efficiency, not only by rule and precept, but by the example of his own untiring and unselfish administration of public affairs.

In every branch and department of the government under Democratic control, the rights and welfare of all the people have been guarded and defended; every public interest has been protected, and the equality of all our citizens before the law, without regard to race or section, has been steadfastly maintained.

Upon its record thus exhibited and upon the pledge of a continuance to the people of the benefits of good government, the National Democracy invokes a renewal of popular trust by the re-election of a Chief Magistrate who has been faithful, able and prudent.

They invoke an addition to that trust by the transfer also to the Democracy of the entire legislative power.

The Republican party, controlling the Senate and resisting in both Houses of Congress a reformation of unjust and unequal tax laws, which have outlasted the necessities of war and are now undermining the abundance of a long peace, deny to the people equality before the law and the fairness and the justice which are their right.

Thus the cry of American labor for a better share in the rewards of industry is stifled with false pretences; enterprise is fettered and bound down to home markets; capital is discouraged with doubt; and unequal, unjust laws can neither be properly amended nor repealed.

The Democratic party will continue, with all the power confided to it, the struggle to reform these laws in accordance with the pledges of its last platform endorsed at the ballotbox by the suffrages of the people.

Of all the industrious freemen of our land, an immense majority, including every tiller of the soil, gain no advantage from excessive tax laws; but the price of nearly everything they buy is increased by the favoritism of an unequal system of tax legislation.

All unnecessary taxation is unjust taxation.

It is repugnant to the creed of Democracy that by such taxation the cost of the necessaries of life should be unjustifiably increased to all our people.

Judged by Democratic principles, the interests of the people are betrayed, when, by unnecessary taxation, trusts and combinations are permitted and fostered, which, while unduly enriching the few that combine, rob the body of our citizens by depriving them of the benefits of natural competition. Every Democratic rule of governmental action is violated when through unnecessary taxation a vast sum of money, far beyond the needs of an economical administration, is drawn from the people and the channels of trade and accumulated as a demoralizing surplus in the National Treasury.

The money now lying idle in the Federal Treasury resulting from superfluous taxation amounts to more than $125,000,000, and the surplus collected is reaching the sum of more than $60,000,000 annually.

Debauched by the immense temptation the remedy of the Republican party is to meet and exhaust by extravagant appropriations and expenditures, whether constitutional or not, the accumulations of extravagant taxation.

The Democratic remedy is to enforce frugality in public expense and abolish needless taxation.

Our established domestic industries and enterprises should not, and need not, be endangered by a reduction and correction of the burdens of taxation. On the contrary, a fair and careful revision of our tax laws, with due allowance for the difference between the wages of American and foreign labor, must promote and encourage every branch of such industries and enterprises by giving them assurance of an extended market and steady and continuous operation.

In the interest of American labor, which should in no event be neglected, the revision of our tax laws contemplated by the Democratic party would promote the advantage of such labor by cheapening the cost of the necessaries of life in the home of every workingman, and at the same time securing to him steady and remunerative employment.

Upon this great issue of tariff reform, so closely concerning every phase of our national life, and upon every question involved in the problem of good government, the Democratic party submits its principles and professions to the intelligent suffrages of the American people.

NATIONAL REPUBLICAN PLATFORM.

ADOPTED AT CHICAGO, JUNE 21, 1888.

The Republicans of the United States, assembled by their delegates in National Convention, pause on the threshold of their proceedings to honor the memory of their first great leader, the immortal champion of liberty and the rights of the people-Abraham Lincoln; and to cover also with wreaths of imperishable remembrance and gratitude the heroic names of our later leaders who have more recently been called away

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