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a solemn warning to all Socialists to avoid the Republican, Democratic and Populist parties, with their snares of protection, free trade, free silver and gold standard.

PROHIBITION.

May 6, 1896.-The platform adopted was a sweeping document. After acknowledging allegiance to God and enmity toward rum, it declared the traffic in intoxicating drinks the prime evil of the day,' " demanded its total suppression by law, to the end that men may not be led into temptation, and that this "great promoter of unhappiness and poverty may cease to oppress our people." After expressing confidence in the stability of the Prohibition party, the platform declared for women's suffrage and civil service for all branches of the Government. The Democratic party of New-Jersey was arraigned because of its flagrant advocacy of the liquor traffic, and the Republican party because of its continued duplicity to the temperance people. Church members who vote in favor of any party which recognizes, advocates or upholds the license system are jointly held responsible for the evil results of the liquor traffic with those who are directly engaged in the business. The platform concluded by declaring for the referendum.

NEW-MEXICO. DEMOCRATIC.

June 15, 1896.-The platform favored free coinage of silver at 16 to 1 and an income tax, and indorsed Richard P. Bland for the Presidency.

NEW-YORK.

REPUBLICAN.

March 24, 1896.-"The Republicans of New-York, in convention assembled, again declare their firm and unyielding adherence to the doctrine of protection to American industries, protection to the products of the American farm, and protection to American labor. We are in favor of a tariff which, while providing an income sufficient to meet the expenses of government honestly and economically administered, at the same time secures home labor and home capital from unequal foreign competition. We believe in a reciprocity with other nations which shall give our producers and manufacturers an opportunity to dispose of their surplus products and to obtain articles we desire from those countries on the most advantageous

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"The agitation for the free coinage of silver at the ratio of 16 to 1 seriously disturbs all industrial interests, and calls for a clear statement of the Republican party's attitude upon this question, to the end that the trade of this country at home and abroad may again be placed upon a sound and stable foundation. recognize in the movement for the free coinage of silver an attempt to degrade the long-established standard of our monetary system, and hence a blow to public and private credit at once costly to the National Government and harmful to our domestic and foreign commerce. Until there is a prospect of international agreement as to silver coinage, and while gold remains the standard of the United States

and of the civilized world, the Republican party of New-York declares itself in favor of the firm and honorable maintenance of that standard.

"We believe in a business administration of the Government by business men on business principles, for the benefit of the suffering business inferests or this great people. For nearly four years the material progress of the Nation has been blocked; all branches of trade have suffered, and the workmen have been deprived of reasonable and living wages by the utter lack of business common sense among our Democratic rulers. It is the duty and privilege of the Republican party to promptly mend this unhappy state of affairs by nominating and electing a business man for the Presidency, and we ask the aid of thoughtful Republicans everywhere in this great and meritorious work. On this platform we present Governor Levi Parsons Morton as New-York's Republican candidate for President. He is in every way fit for the high honor, and he is peculiarly the man for the hour. He has been a business man with business

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men. He would prove a business President for the good of all interests of the people. He has been Representative in Congress, Minister to France, Vice-President of the United States, Governor of New-York, and each of these positions he has filled with an ability which has never been surpassed, with lasting credit himself and great benefit to his State and to his country. His grasp of public affairs was never so clear and comprehensive as it is to-day, and his ability to labor earnestly for the welfare of the Nation was never so distinctly marked as now. Governor Morton's long and varied public career offers proof positive that he is a sincere and earnest Republican, and that fidelity to the principles of his party is with him a second nature. He stands for honesty in public office. There is no shadow of doubt as to the high esteem in which he is held at home. Two years since he polled over 156,000 more votes than the most popular Democrat in the State, receiving by far the greatest majority ever given a Republican candidate for Governor. Governor Morton's long and honorable public service, his spotless character, his great executive ability, his devotion to his party and its principles, eminently fit him for the Presidency, and entitle him to our hearty and enthusiastic support. Therefore we instruct our delegates to the St. Louis Convention to present him as our candidate for President, and urge upon them to use every honorable means to secure his nomination."

August 25, 1896.-The principal features of the platform were:

SILVER.-"The allied Democratic and success Populist parties say that their will lead at once to the free coinage of silver. The Republican party says that the present gold standard must be maintained, and that the way to recover our lost prosperity is to return to the wise industrial policy by which, under Republican rule, prosperity was achieved. attempt to make an ounce of gold equal in value to only sixteen ounces of silver when it is now worth thirty ounces is hopeless and absurd. The United States could neither take nor use one-half the

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silver that a free-coinage law would bring to its mints. This fact is so plain to the world of commerce and business that the mere announcement of the success of the Democratic ticket would send gold at once to a premium, drive debtors into cruel liquidation and cause a further withdrawal of capital from investment and a further suspension of industry. injury could be inflicted upon trade and commerce, no fraud perpetrated upon labor, no shame visited upon the National reputation, more hurtful than would be the enactment of a law compelling the people to accept in the payment of debts a coin for $1 which they could spend for not much more than half that sum. allege that our stock of money is not now sufficient for the transaction of business is mere assertion, but, if it were true, the evil it implies would not be cured by a law the first and instantaneous effect of which would be to drive out of circulation our entire supply of gold money, more than one-third of the whole. The employment of all the minting resources of the Government in the coinage of silver dollars only could not in a period of fifteen years make up for the deficiency of circulation that would result from the retirement of gold. The currency per capita is to-day greater than it ever has been. The people can take no more money than they can buy with their labor, and what they can buy is value and not mere denomination. To the maintenance of a pure circulation of dollars of full and equal value the Republican party is resolutely pledged, and for the firm establishment of that policy it asks the support of every citizen who wishes neither to cheat nor to be cheated."

TARIFF.-"It must be constantly borne in mind that the conditions out of which this agitation for free silver has arisen were created by the Democratic assault on the country's manufacturing industries. If there had been no interruption of the protective policy there would have been no interruption of business, no failure of revenue and no lack of profitable employment for the people. The increase

of $262,315,400 to the face of the bonded debt, which four years of Democratic rule has compelled, while in some measure due to the attacks in Congress upon the public credit by the pressure of free-silver bills, had its origin in a tariff act which converted a monthly surplus of revenue into a monthly deficit, and exposed domestic production to unjust competition. The Republican party is wedded to no set of rates and schedules, but its cardinal principle is the protection of American industry. A tariff must be enacted which will provide revenues sufficient to meet the ordinary and necessary expenses of the Government, and so adjusted as to place American labor, without the sacrifice of our high wage-system, on at least equal terms in our own market with the labor of other lands."

The platform and the ticket of the National Convention was emphatically indorsed; the administration of Governor Morton, and also the Legislature of 1896, were commended; the Raines Excise law was praised as a law in the interest of the taxpayer, and equally to the interest

of morality, temperance and good government; a plank favored the improvement of the highways and the construction of good roads; and a plank reaffirmed the faith of the Republican party in the great benefits to result from the law establishing the municipality of the Greater NewYork.

DEMOCRATIC.

June 24, 1896.-"It would be folly to ignore and impossible to exaggerate the gravity of the conditions under which this convention assembles. Most of the other States of the Union have selected and commissioned their delegates to the National Democratic Convention. By a movement evidently concerted, but, as we believe, ill-advised and ill-considered, instructions have been given to the delegations of a large number of States having for their aim and purpose the adoption of a new policy and a new platform for the Democratic party. No opportunity for a fair and deliberate consideration of such policy and platform has been afforded the Democracy of the State of New-York. Upon such new matter thus proposed to be incorporated among the tenets of the party it becomes the duty of the Democrats of New-York, representing their people, to speak in no equivocal terms

"Gold and silver, the money of the Constitution and of our fathers-each at a parity with the other in purchasing power

has been the platform of principles proclaimed by every National Democratic Convention which has thus adopted and reaffirmed in each declaration of party faith for a century the wisdom of Thomas Jefferson, who said: "The monetary unit must stand on both metals.' The action of a Republican Congress and a Republican President deprived silver of its equality with gold for the money and currency of the Nation. From this act (for which the Democratic party was in nowise responsible), and from the action of other nations following in the same course, it has resulted that silver has greatly declined in commercial value, and there now exists a wide departure of the two metals from the coinage standard of value-bringing disturbance to the financial systems of European countries as well as to our own, and awakening there, as here, the earnest apprehension of statesmen and financiers. The restoration of the equilibrium of the two metals thus disturbed is a problem the solution of which is of the greatest consequence to the prosperity of both this country and of Europe, but is wholly beyond our power without the co-operation of other nations. Such co-operation, by the united efforts of statesmen and wage-earners here and elsewhere, is believed to be near at hand, and to be possible to secure by earnest and well-directed effort. Free coinage of silver by the United States alone can have no other effect than to change our present standard to one of silver-now a depreciated coin-and to retard, perhaps destroy forever, the success of the movement now general throughout civilized countries for the restoration of free bimetallic coinage in the principal mints of the world. The

proposition to separate ourselves from the great nations of the world and adopt the monetary standard of Mexico and China does not comport with the pride and financial dignity of the State of NewYork or the United States. It should be resisted with the fervor of both partisanship and patriotism by Democrats everywhere, when the adoption of such a course threatens, as it does, untold evils to our Nation's commerce and industry.'

MONEY.-For these reasons, and with these convictions, the Democrats of NewYork, in convention assembled, make the following declaration of their principles and appeal to the Democrats of other States to join with them in incorporating these principles in the party platform to be adopted at Chicago:

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"1. We are in favor of gold and silver as the standard money of the country. We are opposed, as a permanent financial policy, to gold monometallism on the one hand, or to silver monometallism on the other hand. The pledge contained in the repeal of the Sherman law, which repealing act was passed by a Democratic Congress and approved by a Democratic President, should be faithfully carried out. wherein it was declared that 'the efforts of the Government should steadily directed to the establishment of such a safe system of bimetallism as will maintain at all times the equal power of every dollar coined or issued by the United States in the markets and in the payment of debts.' We believe that such bimetallism, to which the Nation is solemnly pledged, can only be safely secured and permanently maintained through the concurrent action of the leading nations of the world. Neither this country, nor any other country, independent and alone, is able to maintain it, and it would be folly to attempt it. Being so convinced, we are opposed to the free and unlimited coinage of silver in the absence of the cooperation of other great nations. We declare our belief that any attempt upon the part of the United States alone to enter upon the experiment of free-silver coinage would not only prove disastrous to our finances, but would retard, or entirely prevent, the establishment of international bimetallism. Until international co-operation for bimetallism can be secured-to which end all our efforts as a Government and as a people should be in good faith directed-we favor the rigid maintenance of the present gold standard as essential to the preservation of our National credit, the redemption of our public pledges, and the keeping inviolate of our country's honor. We insist that all our paper and silver currency shall be kept absolutely at a parity with gold.

2. The Democratic party has ever been and still is the hard-money party, and it will preserve that record. It is opposed to legal-tender paper money as a part of our permanent financial system, and it refuses to sanction any paper currency inconvertible with coin. The United States notes and Treasury notes being, in fact, debts of the Government, should be gradually paid off, retired and cancelled. This should and must be done in such a manner as to cause no contraction of the circulating money of the country. So

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long as such paper currency exists, however, and is permitted to circulate as money, it should be redeemable at all times upon demand in the standard money of the country. The Democratic party is pledged to the resolute maintenance of the public credit at all times and under all circumstances, and it is therefore opposed to the repeal of any existing statute which enables the Secretary of the Treasury, by the issue of bonds or otherwise, to provide adequate funds for the demption in gold of our paper obligations whenever necessary."

TARIFF.-"We

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reiterate our adherence to the principle of a tariff for revenue only. We are opposed to Government partnership with protected

monopolies, and we demand that import duties, like other taxes, should be impartially laid and their imposition limited to the necessities of the Government economically administered. Federal taxations should not be imposed to benefit individual interests at the expense of the general welfare. We repudiate the doctrine that it is the province of the Government, by the exercise or abuse of the power of taxation, to build up one man's business at the expense of another's, or to impose burdens upon one class of citizens for the benefit of other classes, and we insist that 'no public taxation except for public purposes' is the true theory upon which our system of government is based, and upon which it should be honestly and impartially administered. Upon this principle of revenue reform the Democratic party takes no step backward."

Other planks indorsed the Administration of President Cleveland; appealed to the Democrats of the South "to avert the possibility of a Force bill by uniting with the Democrats of the East and the West in framing a platform on which all Democrats can stand and the united support of which will lead to a glorious Democratic victory"; also sympathizing with the Cubans in their struggles to achieve their freedom and independence.

September 17, 1896.-The first plank read: "The Democratic party of the State of New-York, in convention assembled, unreservedly indorses the platform adopted by the Democratic party at the National Convention held in Chicago on July 7, 1896, cordially approves the nomination there made, pledges to William J. Bryan and Arthur Sewall its hearty and active support, and declares as its deliberate judgment that never in the history of the Democratic party has a platform been written which embodied more completely the interests of the whole people, as distingu'shed from those who seek legislation for private benefit, than that given to the country by the National Democratic Convention of 1896."

The platform also denounced the Raines Liquor law and pledged the representatives, if elected, "to enact a just and reasonable excise law, restoring the principle of local supervision and regulation," etc.; it arraigned the administration of Governor Morton and the Republican Legislatures; charged that "the administration of the office of Superintendent of Public Works by the present incumbent has been notoriously extravagant, corrupt, regard

less of law and defiant of public decency''; reaffirmed adherence to the principle of home rule for municipalities; demanded the strict and honest enforcement of the laws relative to the employment of the war veterans; recommended the building and maintenance of a uniform system of good roads throughout the State; and recommended such a modification and revision of the Employers' Liability and Anti-Conspiracy laws as will offer equal opportunity and secure exact justice to employes and employers.

SOUND MONEY DEMOCRATS.

August 31, 1896.-The platform repudiated the platform and ticket of the National Democratic Convention at Chicago, and on the nomination of William J.

Bryan it said:

"Its candidate for President stands as such upon the Populist platform, with its demands for unlimited paper money, distributed direct to the people, and its Socialistic and anti-American demands for the extension of paternal government, as he does upon the platform adopted at Chicago.

partial repudiation of that public debt, the validity of which the Constitution declares 'shall not be questioned.' It reaches a climax of arbitrary interference with individual rights when it seeks to force its debased money upon the public by forbidding contracts which provide for payment in any medium more valuable than the depreciated legal tender which it proposes to establish.

"We repudiate the Chicago platform because it proposes to substitute for our present standard of value, which is equal to the best in the world, an unstable and depreciated standard, which has been rejected by every civilized and prosperous and commercial nation, and which would put us on a monetary level with China, Mexico and other countries where labor is notoriously underpaid. The Chicago platform declares against gold monometallism and advocates legislation which must inevitably lead to silver monometallism; it advocates a monetary system which would offer an unlimited field of speculation to the capitalist, but would materially reduce the purchasing power of every dollar paid

the wage-earner, and punish honest thrift by depreciating the value of every savings-bank deposit and every life insurance policy. It advocates liberal pensions, and at the same time seeks to impair the value of every pension paid by the Government; it condemns the only method provided for keeping inviolate the National credit and favors a policy which must result in partial repudiation of the public debt; it disapproves of the issue of National bank notes secured by the pledge of Government bonds, and suggests no substitute therefor except unlimited paper money, redeemable in debased and fluctuating coin. It covertly attacks the existing Civil Service laws, upon the preservation and extension of which the efficiency of the public service depends. It contemptuously omits all reference to the Administration of the only Democrat who in this generation has had the Presidential office and whose integrity of purpose and firm determination to maintain the National honor have been acknowledged by all classes of his fellow-citizens."

to He actively sought the Populist nomination. Having obtained it, he has never rejected it, and he has never repudiated the declarations of the Populist platform. More than all we deplore the outburst of sectional hate which attended the adoption of the Chicago platform, and the detestable attempt to divide a Democratic people, all standing with equal rights and opportunities before the law, into rich and poor, and under the stimulus of the class prejudices thus aroused to treat with reckless contempt the views of the large and earnest minority in the Convention who sought to confine its utterance to a declaration of Democratic principles. This platform is accepted by the Presidential nominee of the Convention in the spirit in which it was adopted. Every speech he delivers is fired with inflammatory appeals to the poor against the rich in a base, un-American effort to obtain votes by creating and stimulating a passionate class hatred among our people. We appeal to our Democratic fellow-citizens seriously to consider this, which is the gravest feature of the pending elections. How long can our Democratic institutions endure if this assault upon them succeeds?"

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As to the Chicago platform, it said: "The Chicago platform attacks the Constitution both in its letter and spirit. threatens to overcome decisions of the Supreme Court displeasing to the party caucus by packing the court through an increase of the number of judges, thus striking a deadly blow at the vital constitutional principle of the independence of the judiciary. Under the guise of resenting Federal interference in local affairs. it impliedly condemns the exercise of the constitutional powers of the Federal Executive to protect the transportation of the mails, to insure freedom of commerce among the several States and to enforce the decrees of the Federal courts when resisted by force and riot. In proposing to open the mints of the United States to the free coinage of silver at the ratio of 16 to 1, when the relative market values of silver and gold are now in the proportion of 32 to 1, the Chicago platform threatens a

On money, the platform said:

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"We hold that it is the duty of the Government of the United States in the exercise of its constitutional functions in respect to coinage and currency to follow and not to force the preferences of the people. The gold standard is a monetary fact which cannot be changed by act of Congress. the face of the long-continued existence of that standard in the United States and the unmistakable worldwide selection of gold in preference to silver as a monetary standard, any attempt to tamper with that standard is vicious in principle, dishonest in practice, destructive of confidence and thoroughly undemocratic. We are, therefore, in favor of a firm and unvarying maintenance of the present gold standard of value so long as that standard continues to be a monetary fact. We believe that the Federal Government should be directly divorced from the business of banking, and therefore demand the repeal of all laws authorizing the issue of legal-tender or Treasury notes by the Government, or the reissuing of such notes when they have only been redeemed

in gold. We favor the enactment by Congress of such legislation as will permit the establishment of a banking currency ample in volume for the needs of business, readily adjusting itself to such needs, absolutely secure in every contingency and at all times redeemable in gold. The silver agitation began in the efforts of the producers of silver to obtain a higher price for their product, and they have as much right to seek the interference of the Government in their behalf (however fruitless it may be) as have the manufacturers of steel or cottons. The Bland-Allison act of 1878 and the socalled Sherman act of 1890 were measures largely designed to afford protection to the producers of silver, and the latter act, under which from 1890 to 1893 the Government of the United States purchased monthly 4,500,000 ounces of silver -nearly six tons daily-and issued Treasury notes therefor, so threatened the National credit and produced such distrust of the power of the Government to maintain the standard of value that to it far more than to any other influence is due the business depression of the last three years, and the consequent free-silver agitation which finds in that depression its only hope of success."

The platform opposed Republican Protection, adding: "We recognize in Protection, by which the Federal power of taxation on imports is exercised for the benefit of a class, the mainstay of trusts, the monopoly, parent of the fruitful source of the present political dangers which threaten the Nation."

The Cleveland Administration was declared to have been "efficient, honorable and economical"; Civil Service was commended, and it was declared that it was impossible to "indorse candidates nominated at Chicago, nor the champion of Republican prohibitory protection nominated at St. Louis."'

POPULISTS.

September 2, 1896.-The platform was the Omaha platform of 1892 in condensed form. It favored the free and unlimited coinage of silver at the ratio of 16 to 1; indorsed Bryan and Watson; condemned the sentence of Eugene V. Debs; favored an income tax, Government ownership of railways, abolishment of National banks, distribution of money by the Government, and the referendum.

PROHIBITION.

August 19, 1896.-The platform condemned the Raines Liquor Tax law passed by the Legislature in the 1896 session, (1) "because it tends to make the liquor traffic respectable, and in doing so seeks to undo all that temperance people have done; (2) because it seeks to protect and perpetuate and not destroy this traflic, which both Church and State declare to be inimical to the best interests of the commonwealth; (3) because by its hightax features it appeals to the cupidity of the people. instead of to their sense of justice and right; (4) because for the first time in New-York State it legalizes the sale of liquor for beverage purposes on Sunday."

The woman suffragists, who did not succeed in getting their plank into the

platform, were mollified by a resolution in which woman suffrage was favorably passed upon. An attempt was made by several Populist-Prohibitionists to introduce a plank condemning trusts and monopolies, but they did not succeed.

NORTH CAROLINA.

REPUBLICAN.

May 15, 1896.-The money plank of the platform was as follows: "We favor the use of gold and silver as standard money, and the restoration of silver to its function and dignity as a money metal. We are opposed to retiring greenbacks, the money of the people, the money favored by Lincoln. We are opposed to the issue of interest-bearing bonds in time of peace, and we condemn the policy of Cleveland and Carlisle in contracting the sale of Government bonds to a foreign syndicate on such terms as to enable it to realize the enormous profit of $10,000,000 at the expense of the people. We reaffirm our allegiance to the principles of Republicanism, and pledge our united support to the nominees of the National Republican Convention."

The platform also denounced "the policy of the Democratic party in placing on the free list the great bulk of raw materials for the South and agricultural products of the country;" it favored such a rate of duty on raw materials and agricultural products as will insure ample protection to the American people; it favored such protection to shipowners as would revive the shipping and cause American freights to be paid to America.

DEMOCRATIC.

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June 25, 1896.-MONEY.-"That Constitution recognizes gold and silver as the primary or redemption money of these States, and that, in the words of the National Democratic platform of 1884, 'we believe in honest money, the gold and silver coinage of the Constitution, and a circulating medium convertible into such money without loss.' We favor, independently of other nations, the free and unlimited coinage of silver and gold, without discrimination against either, at the present legal ratio of 16 to 1, and we condemn the system which in time of peace, with millions of silver bullion lying idle in the Treasury, has forced the Government within two years to issue nearly $212,000,000 in bonds. We condemn the action of the Secretary of the Treasury in following the Republican precedent of paying the obligations of the Government in gold, which were specifically made payable in coin. We hereby instruct our delegates to the National Convention, both as to platform and candidates, to advocate and vote as a unit unflinchingly and at all hazards for the restoration of silver and otherwise, in obedience to the letter and spirit of the principles herein enunciated."

TARIFF.-"We warn the people against the combined evils of the gold standard and the McKinley tariff. These twin monsters go hand in hand in their mission of destruction, drawing the very sustenance from the body of the people and concentrating all wealth and power

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