The Mineola Monitor (Mineola, Tex.), Vol. 11, No. 52, Ed. 1 Saturday, September 22, 1888 Page: 1 of 8
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VOL. XI.
MINEOLA, TEXAS. SATURDAY. SEPTEMBER 22. 1888.
NO. 52.
Democratic Platform of 1884.
The Democratic party of the Union, through its representatives in
National Convention assembled, recognizes that, as the nation grows
older, new issues are born of time' '.-..progress, and old issues perish.
But the fundamental principles of the Democracy, approved by the
united voice of the people, remain, and will ever remain, as the best
and only security for the continuance of free government. The pre-
servation of personal rights ; the equality of all citizens before the law ;
the reserved rights of the States ; and the supremacy of the Federal
Government within the limits of the Constitution, will ever form the
true basis of our liberties, and can never be surrendered without de-
stroying that balance of rights and powers which enables a continent
to be developed in peace, and soeial order to bo maintained by means
of local self-government.
But it is indispensable for the practical application and enforcement
of these fundamental principles, that the Government should not al-
ways be controlled by ono political party. Frequent change of admin-
, istration is as necessary as constant recurrence to the popular will,
v Otherwise abuses grow, and the Government, instead of being carried
on for the general welfare, becomes an instrumentality for imposing
heavy burdens on the many who arc governed, for the benefit of the
few who govern. Public servants thus become arbitrary rulers.
This is now the condition of the country. Ilencc a change is de-
manded. The Republican party, so far as principle is concerned, is a
reminiscence; in practice, it is an organization for enriching those who
control its machinery. The frauds and jobbery which have been
brought to light in every department of the Government, are sufficient
to have called for reform within the Republican party; yet those in
authority, made reckless by the long possession of power, have suc-
cumbed to its corrupting influence, and have placed in nomination a
ticket against which the independent portion of the party are in open
revolt.
Therefore a change is demanded. Such a change was alike necessary
in 1876, but thp will of the people was then defeated by a fraud which
can never be forgotten, nor condoned. Again, in 1880, the change de-
manded by the people was defeated by the lavish use of money con-
tributed by unscrupulous contractors and shameless jobbers who had
bargained for unlawful profits or for high office.
The Republican party during its legal, its stolen, and its bought ten-
ures of power, has steadily decayed in moral character and political
capacity.
Its platform promises are now a list of its past failures.
It demands the restoration of our Navy. It has squandered hundreds
of millions to create a navy that docs not exist.
It calls upon Congress to remove the burdens under which American
shipping has been depressed. It imposed and has continued those
burdens.
It professes the policy of reserving the public lands for small holdings
■,,f by actual settlers. It has given away the people's heritage till now a
few railroads, and non-resident aliens, individual and corporate, possess
a larger area than that of all our farms between the two seas.
It profosses a preference for free institutions. It organized and tried
to legalize a control of State elections by federal troops.
It professes a desire to elevate labor. It has subjected American
workingmen to the competition of convict and imported contract labor.
It professes gratitude to all who were disabled, or died in the war,
leaving widows and orphans. It left to a Democratic House of Repre-
sentatives the first effort to equalize both bounties and pensions.
It proffers a pledge to correct the irregularities of our tariff. It cre-
ated and has continued them. Its own Tariff Commission confessed
the need of more than twenty per cent, reduction. Its Congress gave
a reduction of less than four per cent.
It professes the protection of American manufactures. It has sub-
jected them to an increasing flood of manufactured goods, and a hope-
less competition with manufacturing nations, not one of which taxes
raw materials.
It professes to protect all American industries. It has impoverished
many to subsidize a few.
It professes the protection of American labor, It has depleted the
returns of American agriculture—an industry followed by half our people.
It professes the equality of all men before the law. Attempting to
fix the status of colored citizens, the acts of its Congress were overset
by the decisions of its Courts.
It "accepts anew the duty of leading in the work of progress and re-
form." Its caught criminals are permitted to escape through contrived
delays or actual connivance in the prosecution. Honeycombed with
corruption, outbreaking exposures no longer shock its moral sense. Its
honest members, its independent journals, no longer maintain a success-
ful contest for authority in its counsels or a veto upon bad nominations.
That change is necessary is proved by an existing surplus of more
j than 8100,000,000, which has yearly been collected from a suffering
people. Unnecessary taxation is unjust taxation. We denounce the
Republican party for having failed to relieve the people from crushing
war taxes which have paralyzed business, crippled industry, and de-
prived labor of employment and of just reward.
The Democracy pledges itself to purify the administration from cor-
ruption, to restore economy, to revive respect for law, and to reduce
taxation to the lowest limit consistent with due regard to the preserva-
tion of the faith of the Nation to its creditors and pensioners.
Knowing full well, however, that legislation affecting the occupations
of the people should be cautious and conservative in method, not in ad-
vance of public opinion, but responsive to its demands, the Democratic
party is pledged to revise the tariff in a spirit of fairness to all interests.
But in making reduction in taxes, it is not proposed to injure any do-
mestic industries! but rather to promote their healthy growth. From
the foundation of this Government, taxes collected at the Custom House
have been the chief source of federal rpvenue. Such they must con-
tinue to be. Moreover, many industries have come to rely on legisla-
tion for a successful continuance, so that any change of law must be at
every step regardful of the labor and capital thus involved. The process
of reform must be subject in the execution to this plain dictate of justice.
All taxation shall be limited to the requirements of economical gov-
ernment. The necessary reduction in taxation can and must be effected
without depriving American labor of the ability to compete successfully
with foreign labor, and without imposing lower rates of duty than will
be ample to cover any increased cost of production which may exist in
consequence of the higher rate of wages prevailing in this country.
Sufficient revenue to pay all the expenses of the Federal Government,
economically administered, including pensions, interest, and principal
of the public debt, can be got, under our present system of taxation,
from custom-house taxes on fewer imported articles, bearing heaviest
on articles of luxury, and bearing lightest on articles of necessity.
We therefore denounce the abuses,of the existing tariff; and subject
to the preceding limitations, we demand that federal taxation shall be
exclusively for public purposes, and shall not exceed the needs of the
Government economically administered.
The system of direct taxation known as the "Internal Revenue" is
a war tax, and so long as the law continues, the money derived there-
from should be sacredly devoted to the relief of the people from the re-
maining burdens of the war, and be made a fund to defray the expense
of the care and comfort of the worthy soldiers disabled in line of duty
in the wars of the Republic, and for the payment of such pensions as
Congress may from time to time grant to such soldiers, a like fund for
the sailors having been already provided; and any surplus should be
paid into the treasury.
We favor an American continental poliey based upon more intimate
commercial and political relations with the fifteen sister Republics of
North, Central, and South America, but entangling alliances with none.
We believe in honest money, the gold and silver coinage of the Con-
stitution, and a circulating medium convertible into such money with-
out loss.
Asserting the equality of all men before the law, we hold that it is
the duty of the Government, in its dealings with the people, to mete
out equal and £xact justice to all citizens, of whatever nativity, race,
color, or persuasion—religious or political.
We believe in a free ballot and a fair count; and wo recall to the
memory of the people the noble struggle of the Democrats in the Forty-
lifth and Forty-sixth Congresses, by which a reluctant Republican op-
position was compelled to assent to legislation making everywhere ille-
gal the presence of troops at the polls, as the conclusive proof that a
Democratic administration will preserve liberty with order.
The selection of Federal officers for the Territories should be re-
stricted to citizens previously resident therein.
We oppose sumptuary laws which vex the citizen and interfere with
individual liberty ; we favor honest civil service reform ; and the com-
pensation of all United States officers by fixed salaries; the separation
of Church and State ; and the diffusion of free education by common
schools, so that every child in the land may be taught the rights and
duties of citizenship.
While we favor all legislation which will tend to the equitable distri-
butioiyof property, to the prevention of monopoly, and to the strict
enforcement of individual rights against corporate abuses, we hold that
regard for the rights
ed. murrie,
The leader in Quality of Groceries
and low Prices. Highest prices
paid for country produce.
the welfare of society depends upon a scrupulous
of property as defined by law.
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 bo 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 tho public lands ought, as far as possible, to bo kept
as homesteads for actual settlers; that all unearned lands heretofore
improvidently granted to railroad corporations by "the action of tho Re-
publican party should be restored to the public domain ; and that no
more grants 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.
In reaffirming the declaration of the Democratic platform of 1856,
that "tViA liKofol nvmAtnloa nmKir in 4Kn T\n«l
the liberal principles embodied by Jefferson in the Declaration
31)
the land of liberty and the asylum of the oppressed of every nation,
of Independence, and sanctioned in the Constitution which make ours
Cleveland and the Drouth Suf-
ferer's Dill.
Mr. Cleveland iB being severely
criticised by tho little pop-guns
who do the spoaking for the Union
Labor party because ho vetoed the
bill which passed Congress appro-
priating $10,000 to purchaso seed
for the drouth stricken people of
Texas. Looking at the mattor
from a sentimental standpoint, the
criticisms arc all right, but looking
at it from the standpoint of the
Federal Constitution, which Mr.
Cleveland is swom to support,
the criticisms are all wrong. It is
charged also that Mr. Cleveland
approved a similar bill for the
Ohio flood sufferers. This is not
true. That bill was passed in 1882,
and we defy the Union Labor ora-
tors to deny it. Now, Bon\e of tho
ablest and best Democrats in the
United States Senate voted against
this seed bill on constitutional
grounds, while a majority of the
senators who voted for it were Re-
publicans ; among the Democrats
who voted against the bill were
Berry and Jones, of Arkansas, But-
ler of South Carolina, Saulsbury, of
North Carolina, and Vest, of Mia-
# / '
soun, and in justifying his action
Mr. Saulsbury made tho following
remarks, which, with the vote on
the bill, will be found on page 1269
of the Congressional Record, 49th
Congress, 2nd Session:
" I am opposed to the appropriation
of money from the Treasury of the Uni-
ted Mates for any purjtoaes except those
which are constitutional and within tho
.legitimate scope of our power. I do not
believe we have any right to take the
people's money brought into the Fed-
eral Treasury by taxation and make do-
nations of it to persons in Kansas, Tex-
as, or elsewhere. We are acting as
trustees for the people, bound to faith-
fully account for our trust and apply the
money raised by taxation of the people
to the legitimate demands of the Gov-
ernment, to the support and mainte-
nance of the Government. We are not
almouers of charity to anybody.' That
is my view of our constitutional ixtwor
and duty.
" The precedents cited are, in my
opinion, the very strongest argument
which could be made against this ap-
propriation of money. We see what we
are coming to. Year after year applica-
in here from some sectfo
the country for donations of money out
tions come up here from some section of
the country for donatioi
of tho public Treasury. We ought at
ey
*nl
upon such
have over been cardinal principles in the Democratic faith," we never-
theless do not sanction the importation of foreign labor, or the admis-
sion 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 equal 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, United States papers of naturalization, is-
sued by courts of competent jurisdiction, must be respected by the Ex-
ecutive and 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 invasion thereof.
An American citizen is only responsible to his own Government for
any act done in his own country, or under her flag, and can only be
tried therefor 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 Democratic administration; that policy has ever been, in
regard to foreign nations, so long as they do no act detrimental to the
interests of the country or hurtful to our citizens, to lot 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 statesman-
ship with the purchase of Alaska, the sole fruit of a'Republican admin-
istration of nearly a quarter of a century.
The Federal Government should care for and improve the Mississ-
ippi river and other great waterways of the republic, so as to secure for
the interior States easy and cheap transportation to tidowatcr.
Under a long period of Democratic rule and policy, our merchant
marine was fast overtaking, and on the point of outstripping, that of
Great Britain.
Under twenty years of Republican rule and policy, our commerce
has been left to British Bottoms, and almost has the American flag been
swept from off the high seas.
Instead of the Republican party's British policy, we demand for the
people of the United States an American policy.
Under Democratic rule and policy, our merchants and sailors, flying
the stars and stripes in every port, successfully searched out a market
for the varied products of American industry.
Under a quarter century of Republican rule and policy, despite our
manifest advantage over all other nations in high-paid labor, favorable
climates, and teeming soils; despite freedom of trade among all these
United States; despite their population by the foremost races of men,
and an annual immigration of the young, thrifty and adventurous of
all nations ; despite our freedom here from the inherited burdens of life
and industry in old-world monarchies—their costly war navies, their
vast tax-consuming, non-producing standing armies ; despite twenty, h V) . , of know^i^
years of peace—that Republican rule and policy have managed to sur- j v„tcd for any such appropriation, and
render to Great Bntam, along with our commerce, the control of the ! with the help of God till I leave here I
markets of the world. | will not give such a vote."
Instead of the Republican party's British policy, we demand in be-i «♦ .
half of the American Democracy an American policy. j A Curb fob Diabbhoba.—Mr.
Instead of the Republican party's discredited scheme and false pre-'J. A. Burnison, of Colburg, Mont-
tense of friendship for American labor, expressed by imposing taxes, j gomery Co Ia haB found out how
we demand in behalf of the Democracy, freedom for American labor by u , .
reducing taxes/to the end that these Upited States may compete with j onn ""7® ,l"y Rn"° Diarrhoea
unhindered powers for the primacy among nations in all the arts of Two of his children had Diarrhoea
peace and fruits of liberty. i for about six weeks he tried four
With profound regret we have been apprised by the venerable states-! different kinds of Patent Medicines
man through whose person was struck that blow at the vital principle, with out benefit, but he finally
of republics (acquiesence in the will of the majority), that he can not got hold of a bottle of Chamber-
permit us again to place in his hands the leadership" of the Democratic, Iain's Colic, Cholera and Diarrhoea
hosts, for the reason that the achievement of reform in the administra-; Remedy, which he says completely
tion of the Federal Government is an undertaking now too heavy for cured them, and is confident that
his age and failing strength. i it will cure any case when the
Rejoicing that his life has been prolonged until the general judgment [ plainly printed directions are fol-
of our fellow-countrymen is united in the wish that that wrong were'lowed.—Sold by R. M. Armstrong,
righted in his person, for the Democracy of the United States we offer
to him in his withdrawal from public cares not only our respectful sym-
pathy and esteem, but also that best homage of freemen, the pledge of our
devotion to the principles and the cause now inseparable in the history
of this Republic from the labors and the name of Samnel J. Tilden.
once to put our foot down
proceedings.
" I have as much regard for tho i eo-
ple of Texas as I have for the
people of any other section of the coun-
try. I would as soon appropriate mon-
ey out of the public Treasury to relieve
y
distress in Texas as I would in New
York or Massachusetts or Deleware;
but I do not believe we have any right
to use the (>eoplo's money in any such
way. 1 have no doubt that the distress
the Senator of Texas speaks of actually
occurred, and that those people are as
worthy of appropriations of money
from the public Treasury as other peo-
ple ; but 1 can not vote for the proposi-
tion, because in the first place 1 do not
believe I have right as a Senator of the
United States to take the money out of
the public Treasury and give it to the
people in any particular locality in the
country, and I will not do it. I never
out and
worth of railroads
Tho government should own and
control the railroads of this coun-
try. Then you would have no
more pools. If privatfi individuals
or corporations can declare 8 per
cent, dividends o'u watered stock,
why can't tho government do the
same tiling? We are told that to
buy tho railroads would bankrupt
tho country. This is all stuff. It
is estimated that railroad property
of tho government is 8720,000,000,
of that amount $400,000,000 is
watered stock. Squeeze the water
you have #320,000,000
railroads to buy. Issue
$320,000,000 in greenbacks, make it
a full legal tonder for all debts pub-
lic and private, interost on national
debt and all "debts owing by the
government" and buy tho roads
Labor Organ.
The above article from the Labor
Organ, a Union Labor paper pub-
lished at Wills Point, is a fair ex-
ample of tho fairness and intelli-
gence with w|iieh the leaders of
that party are discussing the great
questions before the people in the
present campaign. It is estimated
and we presume no one will dis-
pute tho figures, that there are
150,000 miles of railroads in the
United States. In order to operate'
these vast lines millions of dollars
must be invested in large machine
shops all over the country, in ter-
minal facilities and depots in al-
most every town and city in the
United States^ and vast numbers Of
cars and engines. It has been as-
certained by official investigation
that the actual cost of thoso lines
and equipages equals about $40,000
per mile of road, or in round fig-
ures moro than six billions of dol-
lars. In an effort to dupe the poo-
plo into the acceptance of their
platform which declares for govern-
ment ownership of the railroads,
they wilfully misrepresent the
facts. The fact is, that $320,000,-
000 which tho Labor Organ esti-
mates will buy the roads, would
only pay twenty-one months and
ten days interest on the actual cost
of the roads at the remarkable low
rate of 3 per cent, per annum.
The Labor Organ's estimate is only
twenty-one hundred and thirty-
three dollars per mile. We can
not think that the editor of the
Organ is quite so idiotic as to be-
lieve the correctness of this esti-
mate, and we therefore take it as a
wilful misrepresentation conceived
and published like the great mass
of stuff fed to their crcdulous fol-
lowers with the intent to deceive.
To Our Subscribers.
We have been furnishing the
Monitor to the great bulk of our
subscribers to be paid for this fall.
The expense of publishing thp
paper during the long hot dull
months of the summer has been
quite heavy and has run us into
debt. The mothly expense of
publishing tho Monitor cXcceds
one hundred and seventy dollars.
Now don't make us last iu paying
out your money. The amount' it*
small to you, but in the aggregate',
it is large to us. We ask you,
each and all, to come forward and
settle up, and show your appre-
ciation of a sound Democratic
newspaper.
C'atb & Tbaoakdkn,
Publishers.
Use Dr. Taylor's Sura Chill Care for
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The Mineola Monitor (Mineola, Tex.), Vol. 11, No. 52, Ed. 1 Saturday, September 22, 1888, newspaper, September 22, 1888; Mineola, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth254251/m1/1/: accessed April 25, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting Mineola Memorial Library.