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UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 



Republican Convention. The Republican Na- 

 tional Convention assembled at St. Louis, Mo., on 

 June 16. 1896, and continued for three days. The 

 proceedings were opened by Thomas H. Carter. 

 chairman of the Republican National Committee. 

 Prayer was offered by Rabbi Samuel Sale. Secre- 

 tary Manley read the call for the convention. The 

 choice of the committee for temporary chairman 

 was Charles W. Fairbanks, of Indiana. This 

 selection was approved. Senator Thurston, of 

 Nebraska, was cnpsen permanent chairman. The 

 platform, containing a gold plank, was read by 

 ex-Gov. Foraker, in charge of the majority re- 

 port. It was as follows : 



The Kepublicans of the United States, assembled by 

 their representatives in National Convention, appealing 

 for the popular and historical justification of their claims 

 to the matchless achievements of thirty years of Re- 

 publican rule, earnestly and confidently address them- 

 selves Jo the awakened intelligence, experience, and con- 

 science of their countrymen in the following declaration 

 of facts and principles : 



Administration. for the first time since the civil war 

 the American people have witnessed the calamitous con- 

 sequences of full and unrestricted Democratic control ot 

 the Government. It has been a record of unparalleled 

 incapacity, dishonor, and disaster. In administrative 

 management it has ruthlessly sacrificed indispensable 

 revenue, entailed an unceasing deficit, eked out ordinary 

 current expenses with borrowed money, piled up the 

 public debt by $262,000,000 in time of peace, forced an 

 adverse balance of trade, kept a perpetual menace hang- 

 ing over the redemption fund, pawned American credit 

 to alien syndicates, ami reversed all the measures and 

 results of successful Republican rule. In the broad 

 effect of its policy it has precipitated panic, blighted 

 industry and trade with prolonged depression, closed 

 factories, reduced work anil wages, halted enterprise, 

 and crippled American production while stimulatimr 

 foreign production for the American market. Every 

 consideration of public safety and individual interest 

 demands that the Government shall be rescued from the 

 hands of those who have shown themselves incapable to 

 conduct it without disaster at home and dishonor abroad, 

 and shall be restored to the party which for thirty years 

 administered it with unequaled success and prosperity. 

 And in this connection we heartily indorse the wisdom, 

 patriotism, and the success of the administration ot 

 President Harrison. 



Tariff. We renew and emphasize our allegiance to 

 the policy of Protection as the bulwark of American 

 industrial independence and the foundation of American 

 development and prosperity. This true American policy 

 taxes foreign products and encourages home industry : it 

 puts the burden of revenue on foreign goods; it secures 

 the American market for the American producer ; it up- 

 holds the American standard of wages for the American 

 workingman ; it puts the factory by the side of the farm, 

 and makes the American farmer less dependent on for- 

 eign demand and price ; it diffuses general thrift, and 

 founds the strength of all on the strength of each. In 

 its reasonable application it is just, fair, and impar- 

 tial, equally opposed to foreign control and domestic 

 monopoly, to sectional discrimination and individual 

 favoritism. 



We denounce the present Democratic tariff as sec- 

 tional, injurious to the public credit, and destructive to 

 business enterprise. We demand such an equitable 

 tariff on foreign imports which come into competition 

 with American products as will not only furnish adequate 

 revenue for the necessary expenses of the Government, 

 but will protect American labor from degradation to the 

 wage level of other lands. We are not pledged to any 

 particular schedules. The question of rates is a practical 

 question, to be governed by the conditions of the time 

 and of production ; the ruling and uncompromising prin- 

 ciple is the protection and development of American 

 labor and industry. The country demands a right settle- 

 ment, and then it wants rest. 



Reciprocity and Protection. We believe the repeal ot 

 the reciprocity arrangements negotiated by the last Re- 

 publican administration was a national calamity, and 

 we demand their renewal and extension on such terms 

 as will equalize our trade with other nations, remove the 

 restrictions which now obstruct the sale of American 



products in the ports of other countries, and secure 

 enlarged markets for the products of our farms, forests, 

 and factories. 



Protection and reciprocity are twin measures of Re- 

 publican policy, and go hand in hand. Democratic rule 

 has recklessly struck down both, and both must be re- 

 established. Protection for what we produce; free 

 admission for the necessaries of life which we do not 

 produce : reciprocal agreements of mutual interests. 

 which gain open markets for us in return for our open 

 market toothers. Protection builds up domestic indus- 

 try and trade and secures our own market for ourselves; 

 reciprocity builds up foreign trade and finds an outlet 

 for our surplus. 



Protection for Sugar Growers. -We condemn the 

 present administration for not keeping faith witli the 

 sugar producers of this country. The Republican party 

 favors such protection as will lead to the production on 

 American soil of all the sugar which the American 

 people use, and for which they pay other countries more 

 than $100,000,000 annually. 



Wool and Woolens. To all our products to those ot 

 the mine and the field as well as those of the shop and 

 the factory to hemp, to wool, the product of the great 

 industry of sheep husbandry, as well as to the finished 

 woolens of the mills, we promise the most ample pro- 

 tection. 



Merchant Marine. We favor restoring the early 

 American policy of discriminating duties for the up- 

 building of our merchant marine and the protection of 

 our shipping in the foreign carrying trade, so that 

 American *hips- -the product of American labor em- 

 ployed in American shipyards, sailing under the stars 

 and stripes, and manned, officered, and owned by Ameri- 

 cansmay regain the carrying of our foreign commerce. 



Currency. The Republican party is unreservedly for 

 sound money. It caused the enactment of the law pro- 

 viding for the resumption of specie payments in 1879; 

 si nee then every dollar has been as good as gold. We 

 arc unalterably opposed to every measure calculated to 

 debase our currency or impair the credit of our country. 

 We are therefore opposed to the free coinage of silver 

 except by international agreement with the leading com- 

 mercial nations of the world, which we pledge ourselves 

 to promote, and until such agreement can be obtained 

 the existing gold standard must be preserved. All our 

 silver and paper currency must be maintained at parity 

 with gold, and we favor all measures designed to main- 

 tain inviolably the obligations of the United States, and 

 all our money, whether coin or paper, at the present 

 standard, the standard of the most enlightened nations- 

 of the earth. 



Pension*. The veterans of the Union armies deserve 

 and should receive fair treatment and generous recogni- 

 tion. Whenever practicable, they should be given the 

 preference in the matter of employment, and they are 

 entitled to the enactment of such laws as are best cal- 

 culated to secure the fulfillment of the pledges made to- 

 them in the dark days of the country's peril. We de- 

 nounce the practice in the Pension Bureau, so recklessly 

 and unjustly carried on by the present. Administration, 

 of reducing pensions and arbitrarily dropping names 

 from the rolls, as deserving the severest condemnation 

 of the American people. 



Foreign Relations. Our foreign policy should be at 

 all times firm, vigorous, and dignified, ancl all our inter- 

 ests in the Western hemisphere carefully watched and 

 guarded. The Hawaiian Islands should be controlled 

 by the United States, and no foreign power should be 

 permitted to interfere with them ; the Nicaraguan Canal 

 should be built, owned, and operated by the United 

 States, and by the purchase of the Danish Islands we 

 would secure a proper and much-needed naval station 

 in the West Indies. 



Armenian Massacres. The massacres in Armenia have 

 aroused the deep sympathy and just indignation of the 

 American people, and we believe that the United States 

 should exercise all the influence it can properly exert to- 

 bring these atrocities to an end. In Turkey, American 

 residents have been exposed to the gravest dangers and 

 American property destroyed. There and everywhere 

 American citizens and American property must be abso- 

 lutely protected at all hazards and at any cost. 



Monroe Doctrine. We reassert the Monroe Doctrine 

 in its full extent, and we reaffirm the right of the United 

 States to give the doctrine effect by responding to the 

 appeal of any American States for friendly intervention 



