In this State, one of the first acts of the Republican party was of vast
importance and general benefit to workingmen. The Wyandotte
Constitutional Convention, which assembled early in 1859, was the first
distinctively Republican official body ever assembled in Kansas; and one
of its most notable actions—and as novel and beneficent as it was
notable—was to adopt a constitutional provision exempting from forced
sale, under any process of law, the homestead of every citizen. Years
ago, too—long before labor questions were much discussed—Republican
Legislatures of Kansas enacted laws protecting the wages of the laborer,
laws providing for a mechanics’ lien broad enough to fully secure all
demands for work or materials, and laws making liberal exemptions from
taxation to small manufacturers and dealers. And these beneficent acts
have been supplemented, during later years, with laws authorizing the
incorporation of associations of workingmen, and providing for the
safety and health of miners; while during the legislative sessions of
1885 and 1886, an act establishing a Bureau of Labor Statistics, charged
with the duty of collecting facts and statistics concerning the moral,
financial and educational condition of the laboring masses, and a law
providing for the legal arbitration of all differences between employers
and employés, were enacted.
Thus from its first accession to power down to the present time, the
Republican party of Kansas has been enacting laws to protect workingmen
against the encroachments of capital, and to provide remedies for wrongs
done them, or threatened to them. The statute books of no other State of
the Union contain so many laws designed especially to protect
workingmen, and to secure justice for them. Claims for labor take
precedence, under our laws, over all others. No contractor can, in
Kansas, cheat a mechanic out of the wages he has earned, for his wages
constitute a first lien on any structure he has aided in building. Every
home in Kansas, no matter how humble, is protected by the constitution
against forced seizure or sale for debt, and any body of workingmen
believing themselves aggrieved, can now appeal to any judge in the State
for the appointment of a board of arbitration to consider and adjust
such grievances. In brief, the Republicans of Kansas have, for a quarter
of a century past, been enacting law after law to protect the
laboring-man, to shield him against wrong or injustice, and to secure
for him a just proportion of the proceeds of his work. Such a record of
steadfast devotion to the interests and rights of workingmen is the best
pledge of justice for the future. But the platform of the party, adopted
in July last, speaks on this question with an earnestness and frankness
that leave no room for question or doubt. It does more than this. It
draws a wide distinction between the honest, law-respecting, intelligent
workingmen of this country, and those noisy, turbulent and vicious
demagogues and loafers who muster under the red flag of the anarchist
and communist. To the interests and rights of the real workingmen, no
matter how poor or humble they may be, the Republican party of Kansas
pledges its constant and unfaltering support, while to the doctrines and
aims of the anarchist and communist it pledges unalterable hostility.