Chapter CIX: Section 29 (29)

The Twelfth Census of the United States was taken between May
1 and November 1, 1900, with general results reported on the
latter date by the Director, William R. Merriam, as
follows:—The following statement … gives the population of the
United States in detail for each State and organized Territory
and for Alaska and Hawaii as finally revised. The figures
purporting to give the number of "persons in the service of
the United States stationed abroad" include an estimated
population of 14,400 for certain military organizations and
naval vessels stationed abroad, principally in the
Philippines, for which the returns have not yet been received.
The total population of the United States in 1900, as shown by
the accompanying statement, is 76,304,799, of which 74,610,523
persons are contained in the 45 States, representing the
population to be used for apportionment purposes. This
statement also shows a total of 134,158 Indians not taxed, of
which 44,617 are found in certain of the States and which are
to be deducted from the population of such States for the
purpose of determining the apportionment of Representatives.
The total population in 1890, with which the aggregate
population at the present census should be compared, is
63,069,756, comprising 62,622,250 persons enumerated in the
States and organized Territories at that census, 32,052
persons in Alaska, 180,182 Indians and other persons in the
Indian Territory, 145,282 Indians and other persons on Indian
reservations, etc., and 89,990 persons in Hawaii, this
last-named figure being derived from the census of the
Hawaiian Islands taken as of December 28, 1890. Taking this
population for 1890 as a basis, there has been a gain in
population of 13,235,043 during the ten years from 1890 to
1900, representing an increase of very nearly 21 per cent. No
provision was made by the census act for the enumeration of
the inhabitants of Porto Rico, but a census for that island,
taken as of October 16, 1899, under the direction of the War
Department, showed a population of 953,243.

STATES AND Indians not
TERRITORIES 1900 1890 taxed 1900

The United States. 76,304,799 63,009,756 134,158

STATES.

Alabama 1,828,697 1,513,017
Arkansas 1,311,564 1,128,179
California 1,485,053 1,208,130 1549
Colorado 539,700 412,198 597
Connecticut 908,355 746,258
Delaware 184,735 168,493
Florida 528,542 391,422
Georgia 2,216,331 1,837,353
Idaho 161,772 84,385 2,297
Illinois 4,821,550 3,826,351
Indiana 2,516,462 2,192,404
Iowa 2,231,853 1,911,896
Kansas 1,470,495 1,427,096
Kentucky 2,147,174 1,858,635
Louisiana l,381,625 1,118,587
Maine 694,466 661,086
Maryland 1,190,050 1,042,390
Massachusetts 2,805,346 2,238,943
Michigan 2,420,982 2,093,889
Minnesota 1,751,394 1,301,826 1,768
Mississippi 1,551,270 1,289,600
Missouri 3,106,665 2,679,184
Montana 243,329 132,159 10,746
Nebraska 1,068,539 1,058,910
Nevada 42,335 45,761 1,665
New Hampshire 411,588 376,530
New Jersey 1,883,669 1,444,933
New York 7,268,012 5,991,353 4,711
North Carolina 1,893,810 1,617,947
North Dakota 319,146 182,719 4,692
Ohio 4,157,145 3,672,316
Oregon 413,536 313,767
Pennsylvania 6,302,115 5,258,014
Rhode Island 428,556 345,506
South Carolina 1,340,316 1,151,149
South Dakota 401,570 328,808 10,932
Tennessee 2,020,616 1,767,518
Texas 3,048,710 2,235,523
Utah 276,749 207,905 1,472
Vermont 343,641 332,422
Virginia 1,854,184 1,655,980
Washington 518,103 349,390 2,531
West Virginia 958,800 762,704
Wisconsin 2,069,042 1,686,880 1,657
Wyoming 92,531 60,705

Total for
45 States 74,610,523 62,116,811 44,617

{646}

STATES AND TERRITORIES 1900 1890 Indians
not taxed 1900
TERRITORIES

Alaska 63,441 32,052
Arizona 122,931 59,620 24,644
District of Columbia 278,718 230,392
Hawaii 154,001 89,900
Indian Territory 391,960 180,182 56,033
New Mexico 195,310 153,593 2,937
Oklahoma 398,245 61,834 5,921

Total 1,604,606 807,663 89,541

Persons in the service
of the United States
stationed abroad 89,670

Indians, etc.,on
Indian reservations,
except Indian Territory 145,282

_Report of the Director of the Census,
November 1, 1900._

"By the twelfth census the center of population
in 1900 was in the following position:
Latitude 39° 9' 36"; longitude 85° 48' 54".

In ten years the center of population has moved westward 16'
1", or about fourteen miles, and southward 2' 20", or about
two and one half miles. It rests now in Southern Indiana, at a
point about six miles southeast of Columbus, the county seat
of Bartholomew county, Indiana. The center of population is
the center of gravity of the country, each individual being
assumed to have the same weight. … The center of area of the
United States, excluding Alaska and Hawaii and other recent
accessions, is in northern Kansas, in approximate latitude 39°
55', and approximate longitude 98° 50'. The center of
population is therefore about three-fourths of a degree south
and more than 13 degrees east of the center of area."

_United States, Twelfth Census,
Bulletin Number 62._

UNITED STATES: A. D. 1900 (May-November).
The Presidential election.
Party platforms and nominations.

The issues on which the presidential election of 1900 would
naturally and logically have turned were those growing out of
the Spanish-American War, relative to principles and policy in
dealing with the colonial possessions that were taken from
Spain. But circumstances forced those most important political
questions into the background of consideration, so far as
concerned the opinion of a large part of the American people.
The monetary question, which might have been supposed to be
settled by the election of 1896 and by the Congressional
legislation of March, 1900, was brought forward again with a
persistency that caused uneasy feeling in the commercial and
industrial world. The party which had fought the battle for a
silver monetary standard in 1896, and been beaten, seemed
willing to abandon that "lost cause," but the candidate to
whose fortunes the party had become committed would not
consent. His will prevailed, and the old issue came into the
canvass again, with such confusing effects that the real
meaning of the votes that were cast, as an expression of the
judgment and will of the American people, can by no
possibility be known. Men dreaded a disturbance of the
conditions under which the business of the country was active
and prosperous. How far their wish to preserve those
conditions coincided, as a motive in voting, with their
judgment on other issues, and how far it overcame dispositions
that urged them contrariwise, are puzzling questions which the
election of 1900 has left behind.

UNITED STATES:
United Christian Party Platform and Nominations.

The first candidates to be set in the field of the
presidential campaign were put forward by a convention held at
Rock Island, Illinois, May 1, representing a small combination of
voters styled the United Christian Party. It named, in the
first instance, the Reverend S. C. Swallow, of Pennsylvania,
for President, and John G. Woolley, of Illinois, for Vice
President, both of whom declined the nomination. Jonah F. R.
Leonard, of Iowa, and David H. Martin, of Pennsylvania, were
subsequently made the candidates of the party, and received a
few hundred votes at the ensuing election, mostly, it would
seem, in Illinois. The "Declarations" of the United Christian
Party were as follows:

"We, the United Christian party, in National Convention
assembled in the city of Rock Island, Illinois, May 1 and 2,
1900, acknowledging Almighty God as the source of all power
and authority, the Lord Jesus Christ as the sovereign ruler of
nations, and the Bible as the standard by which to decide moral
issues in our political life, do make the following
declaration:

"We believe the time to have arrived when the eternal
principles of justice, mercy, and love, as exemplified in the
life and teachings of Jesus Christ should be embodied in the
Constitution of our nation, and applied in concrete form to
every function of our Government.

"We maintain that this statement is in harmony with the
fundamental principles of our National common law; our
Christian usages and customs; the declaration of the Supreme
Court of the United States that 'This is a Christian nation,'
and the accepted principle in judicial decisions that no law
should contravene the Divine law.

"We deprecate certain immoral laws which have grown out of the
failure of our nation to recognize these principles, notably
such as require the desecration of the Christian Sabbath,
authorize unscriptural marriage and divorce, and license the
manufacture and sale of intoxicating liquors as a beverage.

"The execution of these immoral laws above mentioned we hold
to be neither loyalty to our country nor honoring to God;
therefore it shall be our purpose to administer the
Government, so far as it shall be intrusted to us by the
suffrages of the people, in accordance with the principles
herein set forth, and, until amended, our oath of office shall
be to the Constitution and laws as herein explained, and to no
other, and we will look to Him who has all power in Heaven and
in earth to vindicate our purpose in seeking His glory and the
welfare of our beloved land.

"As an expression of consent or allegiance on the part of the
governed, in harmony with the above statements, we declare for
the adoption and use of the system of legislation known as the
'initiative and referendum,' together with 'proportionate
representation' and the 'imperative mandate.'

"We hold that an men and women are created free and with equal
rights, and declare for the establishment of such political,
industrial, and social conditions as shall guarantee to every
person civic equality, the full fruits of his or her honest
toil, and opportunity for the righteous enjoyment of the same;
and we especially condemn mob violence and outrages against
any individual or class of individuals in our country.

{647}

"We declare against war, and for the arbitration of all
National and international disputes.

"We hold that the legalized liquor traffic is the crowning
infamy of civilization, and we declare for the immediate
abolition of the manufacture and sale of intoxicating liquors
as a beverage.

"We are gratified to note the widespread agitation of the
cigarette question, and declare ourselves in favor of the
enactment of laws prohibiting the sale of cigarettes or
tobacco in any form to minors.

"We declare for the daily reading of the Bible in the public
schools and institutions of learning under control of the
State.

"We declare for the Government ownership of public utilities.

"We declare for the election of the President and
Vice-President and United States Senators by the direct vote
of the people.

"We declare for such amendment of the United States
Constitution as shall be necessary to give the principles
herein set forth an undeniable legal basis in the fundamental
law of our land.

"We invite into the United Christian party every honest man
and woman who believes in Christ and His golden rule and
standard of righteousness. We say especially to the sons of
toil: Jesus, the carpenter's son, is your true friend. In His
name and through the practice of His principles you may obtain
your rights long withheld and long outraged. You have the
votes necessary to enthrone Him. His love and principles,
politically applied, will lift you up and give you true civic
liberty forever."

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1900.
People's or Populist Party Platforms and Nominations.

The second of the political parties to appear in the field of
the national contest was the People's, known more commonly as
the Populist Party, the division in which, shown in 1896, had
become separation, complete. The two wings of the party held
distinct conventions, in different places, but on the same
day, May 10. Those known as the Middle-of-the-Road Populists
assembled at Cincinnati and named Wharton Barker, of
Pennsylvania, for President, with Ignatius Donnelly, of
Minnesota for Vice President. The convention representing
those who wished to act in co-operation with the Democratic
Party, and known as the Fusion wing, met at Sioux Falls, South
Dakota, and anticipated the action of the Democracy by
nominating William J. Bryan for President, with Charles A.
Towne, of Minnesota, for Vice President.

See, also, (in this volume)
FARMERS' ALLIANCE.

The platform declarations of the two wings were substantially
the same on main questions; but those of the Fusionists
covered several subjects which the Cincinnati convention
passed by. They were as follows:

"The People's party of the United States, in convention
assembled, congratulating its supporters on the wide extension
of its principles in all directions, does hereby reaffirm its
adherence to the fundamental principles proclaimed in its two
prior platforms and calls upon all who desire to avert the
subversion of free institutions by corporate and imperialistic
power to unite with it in bringing the Government back to the
ideals of Washington, Jefferson, Jackson, and Lincoln. It
extends to its allies in the struggle for financial and
economic freedom, assurances of its loyalty to the principles
which animate the allied forces and the promise of honest and
hearty cooperation in every effort for their success. To the
people of the United States we offer the following platform as
the expression of our unalterable convictions:

"Resolved, That we denounce the act of March 14, 1900, as the
culmination of a long series of conspiracies to deprive the
people of their constitutional rights over the money of the
nation and relegate to a gigantic money trust the control of
the purse and hence of the people. We denounce this act,

First, for making all money obligations, domestic and foreign,
payable in gold coin or its equivalent, thus enormously
increasing the burdens of the debtors and enriching the
creditors.

Second—For refunding 'coin bonds' not to mature for years into
long-time gold bonds so as to make their payment improbable
and our debt perpetual.

Third—For taking from the Treasury over $50,000,000 in a time
of war and presenting it, as a premium, to bondholders to
accomplish the refunding of bonds not due.

Fourth—For doubling the capital of bankers by returning to
them the face value of their bonds in current money notes so
that they may draw one interest from the Government and
another from the people.

Fifth—For allowing banks to expand and contract their
circulation at pleasure, thus controlling prices of all
products.

Sixth—For authorizing the Secretary of the Treasury to issue
new gold bonds to an unlimited amount whenever he deems it
necessary to replenish the gold hoard, thus enabling usurers
to secure more bonds and more bank currency by drawing gold
from the Treasury, thereby creating an 'endless chain' for
perpetually adding to a perpetual debt.

Seventh—For striking down the green back in order to force the
people to borrow $346,000,000 more from the banks at an annual
cost of over $20,000,000. While barring out the money of the
Constitution this law opens the printing mints of the Treasury
to the free coinage of bank paper money, to enrich the few and
impoverish the many.

"We pledge anew the People's party never to cease the
agitation until this great financial conspiracy is blotted
from the statute books, the Lincoln greenback restored, the
bonds all paid, and all corporation money forever retired. We
affirm the demand for the reopening of the mints of the United
States for the free and unlimited coinage of silver and gold
at the present legal ratio of 16 to 1, the immediate increase
in the volume of silver coins and certificates thus created to
be substituted, dollar for dollar, for the banknotes issued by
private corporations under special privilege granted by law of
March 14, 1900, and prior National banking laws, the remaining
portion of the banknotes to be replaced with full legal-tender
Government paper money, and its volume so controlled as to
maintain at all times a stable money market and a stable price
level.

"We demand a graduated income and inheritance tax, to the end
that aggregated wealth shall bear its just proportion of
taxation.

"We demand that postal savings banks be established by the
Government for the safe deposit of the savings of the people
and to facilitate exchange.

{648}

"With Thomas Jefferson we declare the land, including all
natural sources of wealth, the inalienable heritage of the
people. Government should so act as to secure homes for the
people and prevent land monopoly. The original homestead
policy should be enforced, and future settlers upon the public
domain should be entitled to a free homestead, while all who
have paid an acreage price to the Government under existing
laws should have their homestead rights restored.

"Transportation being a means of exchange and a public
necessity, the Government should own and operate the railroads
in the interests of the people and on a non-partisan basis, to
the end that all may be accorded the same treatment in
transportation, and that the extortion, tyranny, and political
power now exercised by the great railroad corporations, which
result in the impairment, if not the destruction, of the
political rights and personal liberties of the citizen, may be
destroyed. Such ownership is to be accomplished in a manner
consistent with sound public policy.

"Trusts, the overshadowing evil of the age, are the result and
culmination of the private ownership and control of the three
great instruments of commerce—money, transportation, and the
means of transmission of information—which instruments of
commerce are public functions, and which our forefathers
declared in the Constitution should be controlled by the
people through their Congress for the public welfare. The one
remedy for the trusts is that the ownership and control be
assumed and exercised by the people. We further demand that
all tariffs on goods controlled by a trust shall be abolished.
To cope with the trust evil, the people must act directly
without the intervention of representatives who may be
controlled or influenced. We therefore demand direct
legislation, giving the people the lawmaking and veto power
under the initiative and referendum. A majority of the people
can never be corruptly influenced.

"Applauding the valor of our army and navy in the Spanish War,
we denounce the conduct of the Administration in changing a
war for humanity into a war of conquest. The action of the
Administration in the Philippines is in conflict with all the
precedents of our National life; at war with the Declaration
of Independence, the Constitution, and the plain precepts of
humanity. Murder and arson have been our response to the
appeals of the people who asked only to establish a free
government in their own land. We demand a stoppage of this war
of extermination by the assurance to the Philippines of
independence and protection under a stable government of their
own creation.

"The Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, and the
American flag are one and inseparable. The island of Porto
Rico is a part of the territory of the United States, and by
levying special and extraordinary customs duties on the
commerce of that island the Administration has violated the
Constitution, abandoned the fundamental principles of American
liberty, and has striven to give the lie to the contention of
our forefathers that there should be no taxation without
representation.

"Out of the imperialism which would force an undesired
domination on the people of the Philippines springs the
un-American cry for a large standing army. Nothing in the
character or purposes of our people justifies us in ignoring
the plain lesson of history and putting our liberties in
jeopardy by assuming the burden of militarism, which is
crushing the people of the Old World. We denounce the
Administration for its sinister efforts to substitute a
standing army for the citizen soldiery, which is the best
safeguard of the Republic.

"We extend to the brave Boers of South Africa our sympathy and
moral support in their patriotic struggle for the right of
self-government, and we are unalterably opposed to any
alliance, open or covert, between the United States and any
other nation that will tend to the destruction of liberty.

"And a further manifestation of imperialism is to be found in
the mining districts of Idaho. In the Cœur d'Alene soldiers
have been used to overawe miners striving for a greater
measure of industrial independence. And we denounce the State
Government of Idaho and the Federal Government for employing
the military arm of the Government to abridge the civil rights
of the people, and to enforce an infamous permit system which
denies to laborers their inherent liberty and compels them to
forswear their manhood and their right before being permitted
to seek employment.

"The importation of Japanese and other laborers under contract
to serve monopolistic corporations is a notorious and flagrant
violation of the immigration laws. We demand that the Federal
Government shall take cognizance of this menacing evil and
repress it under existing laws. We further pledge ourselves to
strive for the enactment of more stringent laws for the
exclusion of Mongolian and Malayan immigration.

"We indorse municipal ownership of public utilities, and
declare that the advantages which have accrued to the public
under that system would be multiplied a hundredfold by its
extension to natural interstate monopolies.

"We denounce the practice of issuing injunctions in the cases
of dispute between employers and employés, making criminal
acts by organizations which are not criminal when performed by
individuals, and demand legislation to restrain the evil.

"We demand that United States Senators and all other officials
as far as practicable be elected by direct vote of the people,
believing that the elective franchise and untrammelled ballot
are essential to a government for and by the people.

"The People's party condemns the wholesale system of
disfranchisement by coercion and intimidation, adopted in some
States, as un-republican and un-democratic. And we declare it
to be the duty of the several State Legislatures to take such
action as will secure a full, free, and fair ballot, and an
honest count.

"We favor home rule in the Territories and the District of
Columbia, and the early admission of the Territories as
States.

"We denounce the expensive red-tape system, political
favoritism, cruel and unnecessary delay and criminal evasion
of the statutes in the management of the Pension Office, and
demand the simple and honest execution of the law, and the
fulfilment by the nation of its pledges of service pension to
all its honorably discharged veterans."

{649}

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1900.
Socialist Labor Party Platform and Nominations.

The convention of the Populists was followed next by that of
the Socialist Labor Party, which met in New York City, on the
2d of June, and put in nomination Joseph P. Maloney, of
Massachusetts, and Valentine Remmel, of Pennsylvania. Its
Platform was as follows:

"The Socialist Labor party of the United States, in convention
assembled, reasserts the inalienable right of all men to life,
liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

"With the founders of the American Republic we hold that the
purpose of government is to secure every citizen in the
enjoyment of this right; but in the light of our social
conditions we hold, furthermore, that no such right can be
exercised under a system of economic inequality, essentially
destructive of life, of liberty, and of happiness.

"With the founders of this Republic we hold that the true
theory of politics is that the machinery of government must be
owned and controlled by the whole people; but in the light of
our industrial development we hold, furthermore, that the true
theory of economics is that the machinery of production must
likewise belong to the people in common.

"To the obvious fact that our despotic system of economics is
the direct opposite of our democratic system of politics can
plainly be traced the existence of a privileged class, the
corruption of government by that class, the alienation of
public property, public franchises, and public functions to
that class, and the abject dependence of the mightiest of
nations upon that class.

"Again, through the perversion of democracy to the ends of
plutocracy, labor is robbed of the wealth which it alone
produces, is denied the means of self-employment, and, by
compulsory idleness in wage slavery, is even deprived of the
necessaries of life. Human power and natural forces are thus
wasted, that the plutocracy may rule. Ignorance and misery,
with all their concomitant evils, are perpetuated, that the
people may be kept in bondage. Science and invention are
diverted from their humane purpose to the enslavement of women
and children.

"Against such a system the Socialist Labor party once more
enters its protest. Once more it reiterates its fundamental
declaration that private property in the natural sources of
production and in the instruments of labor is the obvious
cause of all economic servitude and political dependence.

"The time is fast coming when, in the natural course of social
evolution, this system, through the destructive action of its
failures and crises on the one hand, and the constructive
tendencies of its trusts and other capitalistic combinations
on the other hand, shall have worked out its own downfall.

"We, therefore, call upon the wage workers of the United
States, and upon all other honest citizens, to organize under
the banner of the Socialist Labor party into a class-conscious
body, aware of its rights and determined to conquer them by
taking possession of the public powers; so that, held together
by an indomitable spirit of solidarity under the most trying
conditions of the present class struggle, we may put a summary
end to that barbarous struggle by the abolition of classes, the
restoration of the land and of all the means of production,
transportation, and distribution to the people as a collective
body, and the substitution of the Cooperative Commonwealth for
the present state of planless production, industrial war, and
social disorder—a commonwealth in which every worker shall
have the free exercise and full benefit of his faculties,
multiplied by all the modern factors of civilization."

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1900.
Republican Party Platform and Nominations.

On the 19th of June the national convention of the Republican
Party began its session at Philadelphia; adopted its platform
on the following day, and nominated President William McKinley
for re-election ou the 21st, naming Theodore Roosevelt, then
Governor of New York, for Vice President, in opposition to his
earnestly expressed wish. The adopted platform of principles
was as follows:

"The Republicans of the United States, through their chosen
representatives, met in National Convention, looking back upon
an unsurpassed record of achievement and looking forward to a
great field of duty and opportunity, and appealing to the
judgment of their countrymen, make these declarations:

"The expectation in which the American people, turning from
the Democratic party, intrusted power four years ago to a
Republican Chief Magistrate and a Republican Congress, has
been met and satisfied. When the people then assembled at the
polls, after a term of Democratic legislation and
administration, business was dead, industry paralyzed, and the
National credit disastrously impaired. The country's capital
was hidden away and its labor distressed and unemployed. The
Democrats had no other plan with which to improve the ruinous
conditions which they had themselves produced than to coin
silver at the ratio of 16 to 1. The Republican Party,
denouncing this plan as sure to produce conditions even worse
than those from which relief was sought, promised to restore
prosperity by means of two legislative measures—a protective
tariff and a law making gold the standard of value.

"The people, by great majorities, issued to the Republican
party a commission to enact these laws. This commission has
been executed, and the Republican promise is redeemed.
Prosperity more general and more abundant than we have ever
known has followed these enactments. There is no longer
controversy as to the value of any government obligations.
Every American dollar is a gold dollar, or its assured
equivalent, and American credit stands higher than that of any
nation. Capital is fully employed, and labor everywhere is
profitably occupied. No single fact can more strikingly tell
the story of what Republican government means to the country
than this—that while during the whole period of 107 years from
1790 to 1897 there was an excess of exports over imports of
only $383,028,497, there has been in the short three years of
the present Republican Administration an excess of exports
over imports in the enormous sum of $1,483,537,094.

{650}

"And while the American people, sustained by this Republican
legislation, have been achieving these splendid triumphs in
their business and commerce, they have conducted and in
victory concluded a war for liberty and human rights. No
thought of National aggrandizement tarnished the high purpose
with which American standards were unfurled. It was a war
unsought and patiently resisted, but when it came the American
Government was ready. Its fleets were cleared for action, its
armies were in the field, and the quick and signal triumph of
its forces on land and sea bore equal tribute to the courage
of American soldiers and sailors and to the skill and
foresight of Republican statesmanship. To ten millions of the
human race there was given 'a new birth of freedom,' and to
the American people a new and noble responsibility.

"'We indorse the Administration of William McKinley. Its acts
have been established in wisdom and in patriotism, and at home
and abroad it has distinctly elevated and extended the
influence of the American nation. Walking untried paths and
facing unforeseen responsibilities, President McKinley has
been in every situation the true American patriot and the
upright statesman, clear in vision, strong in judgment, firm
in action, always inspiring and deserving the confidence of
his countrymen. In asking the American people to indorse this
Republican record and to renew their commission to the
Republican party, we remind them of the fact that the menace
to their prosperity has always resided in Democratic
principles, and no less in the general incapacity of the
Democratic party to conduct public affairs. The prime
essential of business prosperity is public confidence in the
good sense of the Government, and in its ability to deal
intelligently with each new problem of administration and
legislation. That confidence the Democratic party has never
earned. It is hopelessly inadequate, and the country's
prosperity when Democratic success at the polls is announced
halts and ceases in mere anticipation of Democratic blunders
and failures.

"We renew our allegiance to the principle of the gold
standard, and declare our confidence in the wisdom of the
legislation of the Fifty-sixth Congress by which the parity of
all our money and the stability of our currency upon a gold
basis has been secured.

"We recognize that interest rates are potent factors in
production and business activity, and for the purpose of
further equalizing and of further lowering the rates of
interest, we favor such monetary legislation as will enable
the varying needs of the seasons and of all sections to be
promptly met in order that trade may be evenly sustained,
labor steadily employed, and commerce enlarged. The volume of
money in circulation was never so great per capita as it is
to-day.

"We declare our steadfast opposition to the free and unlimited
coinage of silver. No measure to that end could be considered
which was without the support of the leading commercial
countries of the world. However firmly Republican legislation
may seem to have secured the country against the peril of base
and discredited currency, the election of a Democratic
President could not fail to impair the country's credit and to
bring once more into question the intention of the American
people to maintain upon the gold standard the parity of their
money circulation. The Democratic party must be convinced that
the American people will never tolerate the Chicago platform.

"We recognize the necessity and propriety of the honest
cooperation of capital to meet new business conditions, and
especially to extend our rapidly increasing foreign trade, but
we condemn all conspiracies and combinations intended to
restrict business, to create monopolies, to limit production,
or to control prices, and favor such legislation as will
effectively restrain and prevent all such abuses, protect and
promote competition, and secure the rights of producers,
laborers, and all who are engaged in industry and commerce.

"We renew our faith in the policy of protection to American
labor. In that policy our industries have been established,
diversified, and maintained. By protecting the home market
competition has been stimulated and production cheapened.
Opportunity to the inventive genius of our people has been
secured and wages in every department of labor maintained at
high rates, higher now than ever before, and always
distinguishing our working people in their better conditions
of life from those of any competing country. Enjoying the
blessings of the American common school, secure in the right
of self-government, and protected in the occupancy of their
own markets, their constantly increasing knowledge and skill
have enabled them finally to enter the markets of the world.

"We favor the associated policy of reciprocity so directed as
to open our markets on favorable terms for what we do not
ourselves produce in return for free foreign markets.

"In the further interest of American workmen we favor a more
effective restriction of the immigration of cheap labor from
foreign lands, the extension of opportunities of education for
working children, the raising of the age limit for child
labor, the protection of free labor as against contract
convict labor, and an effective system of labor insurance.

"Our present dependence upon foreign shipping for nine-tenths
of our foreign carrying is a great loss to the industry of
this country. It is also a serious danger to our trade, for
its sudden withdrawal in the event of European war would
seriously cripple our expanding foreign commerce. The National
defence and naval efficiency of this country, moreover, supply
a compelling reason for legislation which will enable us to
recover our former place among the trade carrying fleets of
the world.

"The nation owes a debt of profound gratitude to the soldiers
and sailors who have fought its battles, and it is the
Government's duty to provide for the survivors and for the
widows and orphans of those who have fallen in the country's
wars. The pension laws, founded in this just sentiment, should
be liberal, and should be liberally administered, and
preference should be given wherever practicable with respect
to employment in the public service to soldiers and sailors
and to their widows and orphans.

"We commend the policy of the Republican party in maintaining
the efficiency of the Civil Service. The Administration has
acted wisely in its effort to secure for public service in
Cuba, Porto Rico, Hawaii and the Philippine Islands only those
whose fitness has been determined by training and experience.
We believe that employment in the public service in these
territories should be confined as far as practicable to their
inhabitants.

"It was the plain purpose of the Fifteenth Amendment to the
Constitution to prevent discrimination on account of race or
color in regulating the elective franchise. Devices of State
governments, whether by statutory or constitutional enactment
to avoid the purpose of this amendment are revolutionary and
should be condemned.

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"Public movements looking to a permanent improvement of the
roads and highways of the country meet with our cordial
approval and we recommend this subject to the earnest
consideration of the people and of the Legislatures of the
several States. We favor the extension of the rural free
delivery service wherever its extension may be justified.

"In further pursuance of the constant policy of the Republican
party to provide free homes on the public domain, we recommend
adequate National legislation to reclaim the arid lands of the
United States, reserving control of the distribution of water for
irrigation to the respective States and Territories.

"We favor home rule for and the early admission to Statehood
of the Territories of New Mexico, Arizona and Oklahoma.

"The Dingley act, amended to provide sufficient revenue for
the conduct of the war, has so well performed its work that it
has been possible to reduce the war debt in the sum of
$40,000,000. So ample are the Government's revenues and so
great is the public confidence in the integrity of its
obligations that its newly funded 2 per cent bonds sell at a
premium. The country is now justified in expecting, and it
will be the policy of the Republican party to bring about, a
reduction of the war taxes.

"We favor the construction, ownership, control and protection
of an isthmian canal by the Government of the United States.

"New markets are necessary for the increasing surplus of our
farm products. Every effort should be made to open and obtain
new markets, especially in the Orient, and the Administration
is warmly to be commended for its successful effort to commit
all trading and colonizing nations to the policy of the open
door in China.

"In the interest of our expanding commerce we recommend that
Congress create a department of commerce and industries in the
charge of a secretary with a seat in the Cabinet. The United
States consular system should be reorganized under the
supervision of this new department, upon such a basis of
appointment and tenure as will render it still more
serviceable to the Nation's increasing trade. The American
Government must protect the person and property of every
citizen wherever they are wrongfully violated or placed in
peril.

"We congratulate the women of America upon their splendid
record of public service in the volunteer aid association, and
as nurses in camp and hospital during the recent campaigns of
our armies in the Eastern and Western Indies, and we
appreciate their faithful co-operation in all works of
education and industry.

"President McKinley has conducted the foreign affairs of the
United States with distinguished credit to the American
people. In releasing us from the vexatious conditions of a
European alliance for the government of Samoa his course is
especially to be commended. By securing to our undivided
control the most important island of the Samoan group and the
best harbor in the Southern Pacific, every American interest
has been safeguarded. We approve the annexation of the
Hawaiian Islands to the United States. We commend the part
taken by our Government in the Peace Conference at The Hague.
We assert our steadfast adherence to the policy announced in
the Monroe Doctrine. The provisions of The Hague Convention
were wisely regarded when President McKinley tendered his
friendly offices in the interest of peace between Great
Britain and the South African republics. While the American
Government must continue the policy prescribed by Washington,
affirmed by every succeeding President and imposed upon us by
The Hague Treaty, of non-intervention in European
controversies, the American people earnestly hope that a way
may soon be found, honorable alike to both contending parties,
to terminate the strife between them.

"In accepting by the Treaty of Paris the just responsibility
of our victories in the Spanish war the President and the
Senate won the undoubted approval of the American people. No
other course was possible than to destroy Spain's sovereignty
throughout the West Indies and in the Philippine Islands. That
course created our responsibility before the world, and with
the unorganized population whom our intervention had freed
from Spain, to provide for the maintenance of law and order,
and for the establishment of good government and for the
performance of international obligations. Our authority could
not be less than our responsibility, and wherever sovereign
rights were extended it became the high duty of the Government
to maintain its authority, to put down armed insurrection and
to confer the blessings of liberty and civilization upon all
the rescued peoples. The largest measure of self-government
consistent with their welfare and our duties shall be secured
to them by law.

"To Cuba independence and self-government were assured in the
same voice by which war was declared, and to the letter this
pledge will be performed.

"The Republican party upon its history, and upon this
declaration of its principles and policies, confidently
invokes the considerate and approving judgment of the American
people."

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1900
Prohibition Party Platform and Nominations.

In the next week after the meeting of the Republican national
convention, that of the Prohibition Party was held at Chicago,
opening on the 27th of June. It chose Mr. John G. Woolley, of
Chicago (already named by the United Christian Party for Vice
President—see above) to be its candidate for President, with
Mr. Henry B. Metcalfe, of Rhode Island, for Vice President.
Setting aside all political issues save those connected with
the liquor traffic, its declarations were confined to that
subject alone, and were as follows:

"The National Prohibition party, in convention represented at
Chicago, June 27 and 28, 1900, acknowledged Almighty God as
the supreme source of all just government. Realizing that this
Republic was founded upon Christian principles, and can endure
only as it embodies justice and righteousness, and asserting
that all authority should seek the best good of all the
governed, to this end wisely prohibiting what is wrong and
permitting only what is right, hereby records and proclaims:

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"First.—We accept and assert the definition given by Edward
Burke, that a party is 'a body of men joined together for the
purpose of protecting by their joint endeavor the National
interest upon some particular principle upon which they are
all agreed.'

"We declare that there is no principle now advocated, by any
other party, which could be made a fact in government with
such beneficent moral and material results as the principle of
prohibition applied to the beverage liquor traffic; that the
National interest could be promoted in no other way so surely
and widely as by its adoption and assertion through a National
policy and a cooperation therein by every State, forbidding
the manufacture, sale, exportation, importation, and
transportation of intoxicating liquors for beverage purposes;
that we stand for this as the only principle proposed by any
party anywhere for the settlement of a question greater and
graver than any other before the American people, and
involving more profoundly than any other their moral future
and financial welfare; and that all the patriotic citizenship
of this country agreed upon this principle, however much
disagreement there may be as to minor considerations and
issues, should stand together at the ballot-box from this time
forward until prohibition is the established policy of the
United States, with a party in power to enforce it and to
insure its moral and material benefits.

"We insist that such a party agreed upon this principle and
policy, having sober leadership, without any obligation for
success to the saloon vote and to those demoralizing political
combinations, can successfully cope with all other and lesser
problems of government, in legislative halls and in the
executive chair, and that it is useless for any party to make
declarations in its platform as to any questions concerning
which there may be serious differences of opinion in its own
membership and as to which, because of such differences, the
party could legislate only on a basis of mutual concessions
when coming into power.

"We submit that the Democratic and Republican parties are
alike insincere in their assumed hostility to trusts and
monopolies. They dare not and do not attack the most dangerous
of them all, the liquor power. So long as the saloon debauches
the citizen and breeds the purchasable voter, money will
continue to buy its way to power. Break down this traffic,
elevate manhood, and a sober citizenship will find a way to
control dangerous combinations of capital. We purpose, as a
first step in the financial problem of the nation, to save
more than a billion of dollars every year, now annually
expended to support the liquor traffic and to demoralize our
people. When that is accomplished, conditions will have so
improved that with a clearer atmosphere the country can
address itself to the questions as to the kind and quantity of
currency needed.

"Second.—We reaffirm as true indisputably the declaration of
William Windom, when Secretary of the Treasury in the Cabinet
of President Arthur, that 'considered socially, financially,
politically, or morally, the licensed liquor traffic is or
ought to be the overwhelming issue in American politics, and
that the destruction of this iniquity stands next on the
calendar of the world's progress.' We hold that the existence
of our party presents this issue squarely to the American
people, and lays upon them the responsibility of choice
between liquor parties, dominated by distillers and brewers,
with their policy of saloon perpetuation breeding waste,
wickedness, woe, pauperism, taxation, corruption, and crime,
and our one party of patriotic and moral principle, with a
policy which defends it from domination by corrupt bosses, and
which insures it forever against the blighting control of
saloon politics.

"We face with sorrow, shame, and fear the awful fact that this
liquor traffic has a grip on our Government, municipal, State,
and National, through the revenue system and a saloon
sovereignty, which no other party dare to dispute; a grip
which dominates the party now in power, from caucus to
Congress, from policemen to President, from the rum shop to
the White House; a grip which compels the Executive to consent
that law shall be nullified in behalf of the brewer, that the
canteen shall curse our army and spread intemperance across
the seas, and that our flag shall wave as the symbol of
partnership, at home and abroad, between this Government and
the men who defy and defile it for their unholy gain.

"Third.—We charge upon President McKinley, who was elected to
his high office by appeal to Christian sentiment and
patriotism almost unprecedented and by a combination of moral
influences never before seen in this country, that by his
conspicuous example as a wine-drinker at public banquets and
as a wine-serving host in the White House, he has done more to
encourage the liquor business, to demoralize the temperance
habits of young men, and to bring Christian practices and
requirements into disrepute than any other President this
Republic has had. "We further charge upon President McKinley
responsibility for the Army canteen, with all its dire brood
of disease, immorality, sin and death, in this country, in
Cuba, in Porto Rico and the Philippines; and we insist that by
his attitude concerning the canteen, and his apparent contempt
for the vast number of petitions and petitioners protesting
against it, he has outraged and insulted the moral sentiment
of this country in such a manner and to such a degree as calls
for its righteous uprising and his indignant and effective
rebuke. We challenge denial of the fact that our Chief
Executive, as commander in chief of the military forces of the
United States, at any time prior to or since March 2, 1899,
could have closed every Army saloon, called a canteen, by
executive order, as President Hayes in effect did before him,
and should have closed them, for the same reason that actuated
President Hayes; we assert that the act of Congress passed
March 2, 1899, forbidding the sale of liquor, 'in any post
exchange or canteen,' by any 'officer or private soldier' or
by 'any other person on any premises used for military
purposes in the United States,' was and is as explicit an act
of prohibition as the English language can frame; we declare
our solemn belief that the Attorney-General of the United
States in his interpretation of that law, and the Secretary of
War in his acceptance of that interpretation and his refusal
to enforce the law, were and are guilty of treasonable
nullification thereof, and that President McKinley, through
his assent to and indorsement of such interpretation and
refusal on the part of officials appointed by and responsible
to him, shares responsibility in their guilt; and we record
our conviction that a new and serious peril confronts our
country, in the fact that its President, at the behest of the
beer power, dare and does abrogate a law of Congress, through
subordinates removable at will by him and whose acts become
his, and thus virtually confesses that laws are to be
administered or to be nullified in the interest of a
law-defying business, by an Administration under mortgage to
such business for support.

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"Fourth.-We deplore the fact that an Administration of this
Republic claiming the right and power to carry our flag across
seas, and to conquer and annex new territory, should admit its
lack of power to prohibit the American saloon on subjugated
soil, or should openly confess itself subject to liquor
sovereignty under that flag. We are humiliated, exasperated
and grieved by the evidence painfully abundant that this
Administration's policy of expansion is bearing so rapidly its
first fruits of drunkenness, insanity and crime under the
hothouse sun of the tropics; and when the president of the
first Philippine Commission says 'It was unfortunate that we
introduced and established the saloon there, to corrupt the
natives and to exhibit the vices of our race,' we charge the
inhumanity and un-Christianity of this act upon the
Administration of William McKinley and upon the party which
elected and would perpetuate the same.

"Fifth.—We declare that the only policy which the Government
of the United States can of right uphold as to the liquor
traffic under the National Constitution upon any territory
under the military or civil control of that Government is the
policy of prohibition; that 'to establish justice, insure
domestic tranquillity, provide for the common defence, promote
the general welfare, and insure the blessings of liberty to
ourselves and our posterity,' as the Constitution provides,
the liquor traffic must neither be sanctioned nor tolerated,
and that the revenue policy, which makes our Government a
partner with distillers and brewers and barkeepers, is a
disgrace to our civilization, an outrage upon humanity, and a
crime against God.

"We condemn the present Administration at Washington because
it has repealed the prohibitory law in Alaska, and has given
over the partly civilized tribes there to be the prey of the
American grogshop, and because it has entered upon a license
policy in our new possessions by incorporating the same in the
revenue act of Congress in the code of laws for the government
of the Hawaiian Islands.

"We call general attention to the fearful fact that
exportation of liquors from the United States to the
Philippine Islands increased from $337 in 1898 to $167,198 in
the first ten months of the fiscal year ended June 30, 1900;
and that while our exportations of liquor to Cuba never
reached $30,000 a year previous to American occupation of that
island, our exports of such liquors to Cuba during the fiscal
year of 1899 reached the sum of $629,655.

"Sixth.—One great religious body (the Baptist) having truly
declared of the liquor traffic 'that it has no defensible
right to exist, that it can never be reformed, that it stands
condemned by its unrighteous fruits as a thing unchristian,
un-American, and perilous utterly to every interest in life';
another great religious body (the Methodist) having as truly
asserted and reiterated that 'no political party has the right
to expect, nor should it receive, the votes of Christian men
so long as it stands committed to the license system or
refuses to put itself on record in an attitude of open
hostility to the saloons'; other great religious bodies having
made similar deliverances, in language plain and unequivocal,
as to the liquor traffic and the duty of Christian citizenship
in opposition thereto, and the fact being plain and undeniable
that the Democratic party stands for license, the saloon, and
the canteen, while the Republican party, in policy and
administration, stands for the canteen, the saloon, and
revenue therefrom, we declare ourselves justified in expecting
that Christian voters everywhere shall cease their complicity
with the liquor curse by refusing to uphold a liquor party,
and shall unite themselves with the only party which upholds
the prohibition policy, and which for nearly thirty years has
been the faithful defender of the church, the State, the home,
and the school against the saloon, its expanders and
perpetuators, their actual and persistent foes.

"We insist that no differences of belief, as to any other
question or concern of government, should stand in the way of
such a union of moral and Christian citizenship as we hereby
invite for the speedy settlement of this paramount moral,
industrial, financial, and political issue which our party
presents; and we refrain from declaring ourselves upon all
minor matters as to which differences of opinion may exist
that hereby we may offer to the American people a platform so
broad that all can stand upon it who desire to see sober
citizenship actually sovereign over the allied hosts of evil,
sin, and crime in a government of the people, by the people,
and for the people.

"We declare that there are but two real parties to-day
concerning the liquor traffic—Perpetuationists and
Prohibitionists—and that patriotism, Christianity, and every
interest of genuine republicanism and of pure democracy,
besides the loyal demands of our common humanity, require the
speedy union, in one solid phalanx at the ballot-box, of all
who oppose the liquor traffic's perpetuation, and who covet
endurance for this Republic."

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1900.
Democratic Party Platform and Nominations.