720 



UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 



Wo urge the voters not to be deceived by the 

 pica that the money question has been finally set- 

 tled. The specific reiteration of the demand for 

 the free coinage of silver at the ratio of 1(5 to 1 

 by the Kansas City convention and the history 

 known of all men in connection therewith empha- 

 >i/.o the danger of this demand. We indorse the 

 action of Congress in passing a bill embodying the 

 gold standard as a step in the right direction. We 

 tcel it would be dangerous to elevate to executive 

 power any one hostile to the maintenance and en- 

 forcement of this law." 



A convention of the Anti-Imperialist League 

 mot in Indianapolis, Ind., approved the nomina- 

 tion of William J. Bryan for the presidency, and 

 on Aug. Hi adopted the following platform: 



" This Liberty Congress of Anti-Imperialists 

 recognizes a great national crisis which menaces 

 tho republic, upon whose future depends in such 

 large measure the hope of freedom throughout the 

 world. For the first time in our country's his- 

 tory the President has undertaken to subjugate 

 a foreign people and to rule them by despotic 

 power. He has thrown the protection of the flag 

 over slavery and polygamy in the Sulu Islands. 

 He has arrogated to himself the power to impose 

 upon the inhabitants of the Philippines govern- 

 ment without their consent and taxation without 

 representation. He is waging war upon them for 

 aborting the very principles for the maintenance 

 of which our forefathers pledged their lives, their 

 fortunes, and their sacred honor. He claims for 

 himself and Congress authority to govern the Ter- 

 ritories of the United States without constitu- 

 tional restraint. 



" We believe in the Declaration of Independence. 

 Its truths, not less self-evident to-day than when 

 first announced by our fathers, are of universal 

 application, and can not be abandoned while gov- 

 ernment by the people endures. We believe in 

 the Constitution of the United States. It gives 

 the President and Congress certain limited powers, 

 and secures to every man within the jurisdiction 

 of our Government certain essential rights. We 

 deny that either the President or Congress can 

 govern any person anywhere outside the Consti- 

 tution. We are absolutely opposed to the policy 

 of President McKinlcy which proposes to govern 

 millions of men without their consent, which in 

 Porto Rico establishes taxation without represen- 

 tajion and government by the arbitrary will of 

 a legislature unfettered by constitutional re- 

 st raint, and in the Philippines prosecutes a war 

 of conquest, and demands unconditional surrender 

 fiom a people who are of right free and independ- 

 ent. The struggle of men for freedom has ever 

 been a struggle for constitutional liberty. There 

 is no lil>erty if the citizen has no right which the 

 l.oizi-laturc may not invade, if "he may be taxed 

 l>\ the legislature in which he is not represented, 

 or if he is not protected by fundamental law 

 against the arbitrary action of executive power. 

 The policy of the President offers the inhabitants 

 <it 1'iirto Kieo, Hawaii, and the Philippines no 

 hope ot independence, no prospect of American 

 citizenship, no constitutional protection, no repre- 

 w ntation in the Congress Avhieh taxes them. This 

 i- the government of men by arbitrary power 

 without their consent : this is imperialism. There 

 is no room under the free flag ot America for sub- 

 jects. The President and < 'oiigrc-s. who derive all 

 their powers from the Constitution, can govern no 

 man without regard to its limitations. We be- 

 lieve the greatc-t at'cguard of liberty is a free 

 '',"'."? a . n( l we ''"'"""i" 1 that the censorship in the 

 Philippines, which keeps from the American peo- 

 ple the knowledge of what is done in their name, 



be abolished. We are entitled to know the truth, 

 and we insist that the powers which the President 

 holds in trust for us shall be not used to suppress 

 it. Because we thus believe we oppose the re- 

 election of Mr. McKinley. The supreme purpose 

 of the people in this momentous campaign should 

 tie to stamp with their final disapproval his at- 

 tempt to gra.sp imperial power. A self-governing 

 people can have no more imperative duty than to 

 drive from public life a Chief Magistrate who. 

 whether in weakness or of wicked purpose, lias 

 used his temporary authority to subvert the char- 

 acter of their Government and to destroy their 

 national ideals. We, therefore, in the belief that 

 it is essential at this crisis for the American peo- 

 ple again to declare their faith in the universal 

 application of the Declaration of independence 

 and to reassert their will that their servants shall 

 not have or exercise any powers whatever other 

 than those conferred by the Constitution, ear- 

 nestly make the following recommendations to 

 our countrymen: 



" First, that, Avithout regard to their views on 

 minor questions of domestic policy, they withhold 

 their votes from Mr. McKinley, in order to stamp 

 with their disapproval what he has done. Second, 

 that they vote for those candidates -for Congress 

 in their respective districts who will oppose the 

 policy of imperialism. Third, while we welcome 

 any other method of opposing the re-election of 

 Mr. McKinley, we advise direct support of Mr. 

 Bryan as the most effective means of crushing 

 imperialism. 



" We are convinced of Mr. Bryan's sincerity and 

 of his earnest purpose to secure to the Filipinos 

 their independence. His position and the declara- 

 tions contained in the platform of his party on 

 the vital issue of the campaign meet our unquali- 

 fied approval. We recommend that the executive 

 committees of the American Anti-Imperialist 

 League and its allied leagues continue and extend 

 their organizations, preserving the independence of 

 the movement, and that they take the most active 

 possible part in the pending political campaign. 

 Until now the policy which has turned the Fili- 

 pinos from warm friends to bitter enemies, which 

 has slaughtered thousands of them and laid waste 

 their country, has been the policy of the President. 

 After the next election it becomes the policy of 

 every man who votes to re-elect him, and who 

 thus becomes with him responsible for every drop 

 of blood thereafter shed. Resolved, that in declar- 

 ing that the principles of the Declaration of Inde- 

 pendence apply to all men, this Congress means to 

 include the negro race in America as well as tin- 

 Filipinos. We deprecate all efforts, whether in the 

 South or in the North, to deprive the negro of his 

 rights as a citizen under the Declaration of Inde- 

 pendence and the Constitution of the United 

 States." 



About one hundred volunteer delegates from 

 several States met in Carnegie Hall, New York 

 city, Sept. 5, and nominated Senator Done! son 

 Caffery, of Louisiana, for President, and Archi- 

 bald Murray Howe, of Cambridge. Mass., for Vice-- 

 President. The Committee on Platform, com- 

 posed of Prof. Francis P. Nash, of Hobart Col- 

 lege; Louis D. Lacroix, of Oxford, N. C. : Prof. 

 Kdward G. Bourne, of Yale; W. F. Lloyd, of New 

 York city; and Kdward Waldo Kmerson, of Con- 

 cord, Mass.. presented the following platform. 

 which was adopted : 



" Wo. citizens of the United States of America, 

 assembled for the purpose of defending the wise 

 and conseivative principles which underlie our 

 Government, thus declare our aims anil purposes; 

 Wo find our country threatened with alternative 



