reminiscence. In practice it is an organization for enriching those
who control its machinery. The frauds and jobbery which have been
brought to light in every department of the Government are sufficient
to have called for reform within the Republican party; yet those
in authority, made reckless by the long possession of power, have
succumbed to its corrupting influence, and have placed in nomination
a ticket against which the independent portion of the party are in
open revolt. Therefore a change is demanded. Such a change was alike
necessary in 1876, but the will of the people was then defeated by
a fraud which can never be forgotten nor condoned. Again, in 1880,
the change demanded by the people was defeated by the lavish use of
money contributed by unscrupulous contractors and shameless jobbers,
who had bargained for unlawful profits or high office. The Republican
party, during its legal, its stolen, and its bought tenures of power,
has steadily decayed in moral character and political capacity. Its
platform promises are now a list of its past failures. It demands the
restoration of our navy; it has squandered hundreds of millions to
create a navy that does not exist. It calls upon Congress to remove
the burdens under which American shipping has been depressed; it
imposed and has continued these burdens. It professes the policy of
reserving the public lands for small holdings by actual settlers;
it has given away the people’s heritage, till now a few railroads
and non-resident aliens, individual and corporate, possess a larger
area than that of all our farms between the two seas. It professes a
preference for free institutions; it organized and tried to legalize a
control of State elections by Federal troops. It professes a desire to
elevate labor; it subjected American working-men to the competition of
convict and imported contract labor. It professes gratitude to all who
were disabled or died in the war, leaving widows and orphans; it left
to a Democratic House of Representatives the first effort to equalize
both bounties and pensions. It professes a pledge to correct the
irregularities of our tariff; it created and has continued them. Its
own tariff commission confessed the need of more than twenty per cent.
reduction; its Congress gave a reduction of less than four per cent.
It professes the protection of American manufactures; it has subjected
them to an increasing flood of manufactured goods and a hopeless
competition with manufacturing nations, not one of which taxes raw
materials. It professes to protect all American industries; it has
impoverished many, to subsidize a few. It professes the protection of
American labor; it has depleted the returns of American agriculture,
an industry followed by half our people. It professes the equality
of all men before the law, attempting to fix the status of colored
citizens; the acts of its Congress were overset by the decisions
of its courts. It “accepts anew the duty of leading in the work of
progress and reform;” its caught criminals are permitted to escape
through contrived delays or actual connivance in the prosecution.
Honeycombed with corruption, outbreaking exposures no longer shock
its moral sense. Its honest members, its independent journals, no
longer maintain a successful contest for authority in its canvasses
or a veto upon bad nominations. That change is necessary is proved
by an existing surplus of more than $100,000,000, which has yearly
been collected from a suffering people. Unnecessary taxation is
unjust taxation. We denounce the Republican party for having failed
to relieve the people from crushing war taxes, which have paralyzed
business, crippled industry, and deprived labor of employment and of
just reward.
The Democracy pledges itself to purify the administration from
corruption, to restore economy, to revive respect for law, and to
reduce taxation to the lowest limit consistent with due regard to
the preservation of the faith of the nation to its creditors and
pensioners. Knowing full well, however, that legislation affecting
the occupations of the people should be cautious and conservative
in method, not in advance of public opinion, but responsive to its
demands, the Democratic party is pledged to revise the tariff in a
spirit of fairness to all interests. But, in making reduction in
taxes, it is not proposed to injure any domestic industries, but
rather to promote their healthy growth. From the foundation of this
Government, taxes collected at the custom house have been the chief
source of Federal revenue. Such they must continue to be. Moreover,
many industries have come to rely upon legislation for successful
continuance, so that any change of law must be at every step regardful
of the labor and capital thus involved. The process of reform must
be subject in the execution to this plain dictate of justice:
all taxation shall be limited to the requirements of economical
government. The necessary reduction in taxation can and must be
effected without depriving American labor of the ability to compete
successfully with foreign labor, and without imposing lower rates of
duty than will be ample to cover any increased cost of production
which may exist in consequence of the higher rate of wages prevailing
in this country. Sufficient revenue to pay all the expenses of the
Federal Government, economically administered, including pensions,
interest and principal of the public debt, can be got under our
present system of taxation from custom-house taxes on fewer imported
articles, bearing heaviest on articles of luxury, and bearing lightest
on articles of necessity. We therefore denounce the abuses of the
existing tariff; and, subject to the preceding limitations, we demand
that Federal taxation shall be exclusively for public purposes, and
shall not exceed the needs of the Government economically administered.
The system of direct taxation, known as the “internal revenue,” is
a war tax, and, so long as the law continues, the money derived
therefrom should be sacredly devoted to the relief of the people from
the remaining burdens of the war, and be made a fund to defray the
expenses of the care and comfort of worthy soldiers disabled in the
line of duty in the wars of the Republic, and for the payment of such
pensions as Congress may from time to time grant to such soldiers,
a like fund for the sailors having been already provided; and any
surplus should be paid into the Treasury.
We favor an American continental policy, based upon more intimate
commercial and political relations with the fifteen sister republics
of North, Central, and South America, but entangling alliances with
none.
We believe in honest money, the gold and silver coinage of the
Constitution, and a circulating medium convertible into such money
without loss.
Asserting the equality of all men before the law, we hold that it is
the duty of the Government, in its dealings with the people, to mete
out equal and exact justice to all citizens, of whatever nativity,
race, color, or persuasion, religious or political.
We believe in a free ballot and a fair count; and we recall to
the memory of our people the noble struggle of the Democrats in
the Forty-fifth and Forty-sixth Congresses, by which a reluctant
Republican opposition was compelled to assent to legislation making
everywhere illegal the presence of troops at the polls as the
conclusive proof that a Democratic administration will preserve
liberty, with order.
The selection of Federal officers for the Territories should be
restricted to citizens previously resident therein.
We oppose sumptuary laws, which vex the citizens and interfere with
individual liberty.
We favor honest civil service reforms and the compensation of all
United States officers by fixed salaries, the separation of Church
and State, and the diffusion of free education by common schools, so
that every child in the land may be taught the rights and duties of
citizenship.
While we favor all legislation which will tend to the equitable
distribution of property, to the prevention of monopoly, and to the
strict enforcement of individual rights against corporate abuses, we
hold that the welfare of society depends upon a scrupulous regard for
the rights of property as defined by law.
We believe that labor is best rewarded where it is freest and most
enlightened. It should, therefore, be fostered and cherished. We favor
the repeal of all laws restricting the free action of labor, and the
enactment of laws by which labor organizations may be incorporated,
and of such legislation as will tend to enlighten the people as to the
true relation of capital and labor.
We believe that the public land ought, as far as possible, to be kept
as homesteads for actual settlers; that all unearned lands heretofore
improvidently granted to railroad corporations by the action of the
Republican party should be restored to the public domain, and that no
more grants of land shall be made to corporations or be allowed to
fall into the ownership of alien absentees.
We are opposed to all propositions which, upon any pretext, would
convert the General Government into a machine for collecting taxes to
be distributed among the States or the citizens thereof.
In reaffirming the declaration of the Democratic platform of 1856,
that “the liberal principles embodied by Jefferson in the Declaration
of Independence, and sanctioned in the Constitution, which makes ours
the land of liberty and the asylum of the oppressed of every nation,
have ever been cardinal principles in the Democratic faith,” we
nevertheless do not sanction the importation of foreign labor or the
admission of servile races, unfitted by habits, training, religion, or
kindred, for absorption into the great body of our people, or for the
citizenship which our laws confer. American civilization demands that
against the immigration or importation of Mongolians to these shores
our gates be closed.
The Democratic party insists that it is the duty of this Government to
protect with equal fidelity and vigilance the rights of its citizens,
native and naturalized, at home and abroad; and, to the end that this
protection may be assured, United States papers of naturalization,
issued by courts of competent jurisdiction, must be respected by
the executive and legislative departments of our own Government and
by all foreign powers. It is an imperative duty of this Government
to efficiently protect all the rights of persons and property of
every American citizen in foreign lands, and demand and enforce full
reparation for any invasion thereof. An American citizen is only
responsible to his own Government for any act done in his own country
or under her flag, and can only be tried therefor on her own soil
and according to her laws; and no power exists in this Government to
expatriate an American citizen to be tried in any foreign land for any
such act.
This country has never had a well-defined and executed foreign policy,
save under Democratic administration. That policy has ever been in
regard to foreign nations, so long as they do no act detrimental to
the interests of the country, or hurtful to our citizens, to let them
alone. As the result of this policy, we recall the acquisition of
Louisiana, Florida, California and the adjacent Mexican Territory by
purchase alone, and contrast these grand acquisitions of Democratic
statesmanship with the purchase of Alaska, the sole fruit of a
Republican administration of nearly a quarter of a century.
The Federal Government should care for and improve the Mississippi
River and other great waterways of the Republic, so as to secure for
the interior States easy and cheap transportation to tide water.
Under a long period of Democratic rule and policy, our merchant
marine was fast overtaking and on the point of outstripping that of
Great Britain. Under twenty years of Republican rule and policy, our
commerce has been left to British bottoms, and the American flag
has almost been swept off the high seas. Instead of the Republican
party’s British policy, we demand for the people of the United States
an American policy. Under Democratic rule and policy, our merchants
and sailors, flying the Stars and Stripes in every port, successfully
searched out a market for the various products of American industry;
under a quarter of a century of Republican rule and policy, despite
our manifest advantages over all other nations, in high paid labor,
favorable climates, and teeming soils; despite freedom of trade among
all these United States; despite their population by the foremost
races of men, and an annual immigration of the young, thrifty,
and adventurous of all nations; despite our freedom here from the
inherited burdens of life and industry in Old World monarchies, their
costly war navies, their vast tax-consuming, non-producing standing
armies; despite twenty years of peace—that Republican rule and policy
have managed to surrender to Great Britain, along with our commerce,
the control of the markets of the world. Instead of the Republican
party’s British policy, we demand, in behalf of the American
Democracy, an American policy. Instead of the Republican party’s
discredited scheme and false pretence of friendship for American
labor, expressed by imposing taxes, we demand, in behalf of the
Democracy, freedom for American labor by reducing taxes, to the end
that these United States may compete with unhindered powers for the
primacy among nations in all the arts of peace and fruits of liberty.
With profound regret we have been apprised by the venerable statesman,
through whose person was struck that blow at the vital principles
of republics, acquiescence in the will of the majority, that he
cannot permit us again to place in his hands the leadership of the
Democratic hosts, for the reason that the achievement of reform in the
administration of the Federal Government is an undertaking now too
heavy for his age and failing strength. Rejoicing that his life has
been prolonged until the general judgment of our fellow-countrymen is
united in the wish that that wrong were righted in his person, for
the Democracy of the United States we offer to him, in his withdrawal
from public cares, not only our respectful sympathy and esteem, but
also that best of homage of freemen—the pledge of our devotion to
the principles and the cause now inseparable in the history of this
Republic from the labors and the name of Samuel J. Tilden.
With this statement of the hopes, principles and purposes of
the Democratic party, the great issue of reform and change in
administration is submitted to the people, in calm confidence that
the popular voice will pronounce in favor of new men and new and more
favorable conditions for the growth of industry, the extension of
trade and employment and due reward of labor and of capital, and the
general welfare of the whole country.
The campaign of 1884 gave birth to the Anti-Monopoly party, that
held its national convention at Chicago on the 14th of May, with
John F. Henry as permanent president. General Benjamin F. Butler, of
Massachusetts, was nominated as the candidate for President on the 1st
ballot, receiving 122 votes to 7 for Allen G. Thurman, of Ohio, and 1
for Solon Chase, of Maine. No nomination for Vice-President was made.
The National Committee later nominated A. M. West, of Mississippi, for
that office. The following platform was adopted by a vote of 85 to 29:
The Anti-Monopoly organization of the United States, in convention
assembled, declares:
1. That labor and capital should be allies; and we demand justice for
both by protecting the rights of all against privileges for the few.
2. That corporations, the creatures of law, should be controlled by
law.
3. That we propose the greatest reduction practicable in public
expenses.
4. That in the enactment and vigorous execution of just laws, equality
of rights, equality of burdens, equality of privileges, and equality
of powers in all citizens, will be secured. To this end we declare:
5. That it is the duty of the Government to immediately exercise its
constitutional prerogative to regulate commerce among the States.
The great instruments by which this commerce is carried on are
transportation, money, and the transmission of intelligence. They are
now mercilessly controlled by giant monopolies, to the impoverishment
of labor, the crushing out of healthful competition, and the
destruction of business security. We hold it, therefore, to be the
imperative and immediate duty of Congress to pass all needful laws
for the control and regulation of these great agents of commerce, in
accordance with the oft-repeated decisions of the Supreme Court of the
United States.
6. That these monopolies, which have exacted from enterprise such
heavy tribute, have also inflicted countless wrongs upon the toiling
millions of the United States; and no system of reform should commend
itself to the support of the people which does not protect the man who
earns his bread by the sweat of his face. Bureaus of labor statistics
must be established, both State and national; arbitration take the
place of brute force in the settlement of disputes between employer
and employed; the national eight-hour law be honestly enforced; the
importation of foreign labor under contract be made illegal; and
whatever practical reforms may be necessary for the protection of
united labor must be granted, to the end that unto the toiler shall
be given that proportion of the profits of the thing or value created
which his labor bears to the cost of production.
7. That we approve and favor the passage of an interstate commerce
bill. Navigable waters should be improved by the Government, and be
free.
8. We demand the payment of the bonded debt as it falls due; the
election of United States Senators by the direct vote of the people
of their respective States; a graduated income tax; and a tariff,
which is a tax upon the people, that shall be so levied as to bear as
lightly as possible upon necessaries. We denounce the present tariff
as being largely in the interest of monopoly, and demand that it be
speedily and radically reformed in the interest of labor, instead of
capital.
9. That no further grants of public lands shall be made to
corporations. All enactments granting lands to corporations should be
strictly construed, and all land grants should be forfeited where the
terms upon which the grants were made have not been strictly complied
with. The lands must be held for homes for actual settlers, and must
not be subject to purchase or control by non-resident foreigners or
other speculators.
10. That we deprecate the discrimination of American legislation
against the greatest of American industries—agriculture, by which it
has been deprived of nearly all beneficial legislation, while forced
to bear the brunt of taxation; and we demand for it the fostering
care of Government, and the just recognition of its importance in the
development and advancement of our land; and we appeal to the American
farmer to co-operate with us in our endeavors to advance the national
interests of the country and the overthrow of monopoly in every shape,
whenever and wherever found.
The National party, that was the legatee of the Greenback party, held
its national convention at Indianapolis, on the 28th of May, with
James B. Weaver, of Iowa, its president. General Benjamin F. Butler,
of Massachusetts, was nominated for President on the 1st ballot, as
follows:
Benjamin F. Butler, Mass. 322
Jesse Harper, Ill. 99
Solon Chase, Me. 2
Edward P. Allis, Wis. 1
David Davis, Ill. 1
General Butler was then declared the choice of the convention, but the
motion to make it unanimous called out hisses from a portion of the
delegates. A. M. West, of Mississippi, was nominated for Vice-President
by acclamation. The following platform was adopted:
Eight years ago our young party met in this city for the first time,
and proclaimed to the world its immortal principles, and placed
before the American people as a Presidential candidate that great
philanthropist and spotless statesman, Peter Cooper. Since that
convention our party has organized all over the Union, and through
discussion and agitation has been educating the people to a sense of
their rights and duties to themselves and their country. These labors
have accomplished wonders. We now have a great, harmonious party, and
thousands who believe in our principles in the ranks of other parties.
“We point with pride to our history.” We forced the remonetization
of the silver dollar; prevented the refunding of the public debt
into long-time bonds; secured the payment of the bonds, until “the
best banking system the world ever saw,” for robbing the producer,
now totters because of its contracting foundation; we have stopped
the wholesale destruction of the greenback currency, and secured
a decision of the Supreme Court of the United States establishing
forever the right of the people to issue their own money.
Notwithstanding all this, never in our history have the banks,
land-grant railroads, and other monopolies been more insolent in their
demands for further privileges—still more class legislation. In this
emergency the dominant parties are arrayed against the people, and are
the abject tools of the corporate monopolies.
In the last Congress, they repealed over twelve million dollars of
annual taxes for the banks, throwing the burden upon the people to
pay, or pay interest thereon.
Both old parties in the present Congress vie with each other in their
efforts to further repeal taxes in order to stop the payment of the
public debt and save the banks whose charters they have renewed for
twenty years. Notwithstanding the distress of business, the shrinkage
of wages, and panic, they persist in locking up, on various pretexts,
four hundred million dollars of money, every dollar of which the
people pay interest upon, and need, and most of which should be
promptly applied to pay bonds now payable.
The old parties are united—as they cannot agree what taxes to
repeal—in efforts to squander the income of the Government upon every
pretext rather than pay the debt.
A bill has already passed the United States Senate making the banks a
present of over fifty million dollars more of the people’s money, in
order to enable them to levy a still greater burden of interest taxes.
A joint effort is being made by the old party leaders to overthrow
the sovereign constitutional power of the people to control their own
financial affairs, and issue their own money, in order to forever
enslave the masses to bankers and other business. The House of
Representatives has passed bills reclaiming nearly one hundred million
acres of land granted to and forfeited by railroad companies. These
bills have gone to the Senate, a body composed largely of aristocratic
millionaires, who, according to their own party papers, generally
purchased their elections in order to protect great monopolies which
they represent. This body has thus far defied the people and the
House, and refused to act upon these bills in the interest of the
people.
Therefore we, the National party of the United States, in national
convention assembled, this twenty-ninth day of May, A.D., 1884,
declare:
1. That we hold the late decision of the Supreme Court on the legal
tender question to be a full vindication of the theory which our
party has always advocated on the right and authority of Congress
over the issue of legal tender notes, and we hereby pledge ourselves
to uphold said decision, and to defend the Constitution against
alterations or amendments intended to deprive the people of any rights
or privileges conferred by that instrument. We demand the issue of
such money in sufficient quantities to supply the actual demand of
trade and commerce, in accordance with the increase of population
and the development of our industries. We demand the substitution
of greenbacks for national bank notes, and the prompt payment of
the public debt. We want that money which saved our country in time
of war, and which has given it prosperity and happiness in peace.
We condemn the retirement of the fractional currency and the small
denomination of greenbacks, and demand their restoration. We demand
the issue of the hoards of money now locked up in the United States
Treasury, by applying them to the payment of the public debt now due.
2. We denounce, as dangerous to our republican institutions, those
methods and policies of the Democratic and Republican parties which
have sanctioned or permitted the establishment of land, railroad,
money, and other gigantic corporate monopolies; and we demand such
governmental action as may be necessary to take from such monopolies
the powers they have so corruptly and unjustly usurped, and restore
them to the people, to whom they belong.
3. The public lands being the natural inheritance of the people, we
denounce that policy which has granted to corporations vast tracts of
land, and we demand that immediate and vigorous measures be taken to
reclaim from such corporations, for the people’s use and benefit, all
such land grants as have been forfeited by reason of non-fulfilment
of contract, or that may have been wrongfully acquired by corrupt
legislation, and that such reclaimed lands and other public domain
be henceforth held as a sacred trust, to be granted only to actual
settlers in limited quantities; and we also demand that the alien
ownership of land, individual or corporate, be prohibited.
4. We demand Congressional regulation of interstate commerce. We
denounce “pooling,” stock watering, and discrimination in rates and
charges, and demand that Congress shall correct these abuses, even, if
necessary, by the construction of national railroads. We also demand
the establishment of a Government postal telegraph system.
5. All private property, all forms of money and obligations to pay
money, should bear their just proportion of the public taxes. We
demand a graduated income tax.
6. We demand the amelioration of the condition of labor, by enforcing
the sanitary laws in industrial establishments, by the abolition
of the convict labor system, by a rigid inspection of mines and
factories, by a reduction of the hours of labor in industrial
establishments, by fostering educational institutions, and by
abolishing child labor.
7. We condemn all importations of contracted labor, made with a view
of reducing to starvation wages the workingmen of this country, and
demand laws for its prevention.
8. We insist upon a constitutional amendment reducing the terms of
United States Senators.
9. We demand such rules for the government of Congress as shall place
all representatives of the people upon an equal footing, and take away
from committees a veto power greater than that of the President.