cate the wanton partisanship of the dominant party in Congress. Hopes of currency legislation for the relief of the country are imperilled, if not destroyed. Laws in the interest of honest elections are clamorously marked for destruction. The great industrial interests of the country are put in jeopardy, and the laborer sees a great party ruthlessly bent on reducing his wages to the degrading scale of the labor of Europe and of the Oriental nations."

CURRENCY.-"We believe in the National bank system, one of the great results of the war, and in its extension and amendment. We are utterly opposed to the restoration of the State bank currency demanded by the Democratic party.'" PENSIONS.-"We have been assailed in the past by our party opponents on the ground that we were too liberal to the soldiers of the Union. We count such a charge from that source an unexampled honor. Surely, no such accusation will ever be made against them. Too cowardly to attempt the repeal of the pension laws, which they have denounced, they seek to accomplish by administration what they dare not do by legislation. They are striking hundreds of individual cases from the rolls. They take away the pensions of widows under the pretence that they will look into them afterward to see if they were honestly granted. They execute the pensioner first and try him afterward."

STATE MATTERS.-"The free school is the great bulwark of freedom. We will stand by it, no matter who shall assail it. Free public libraries, relief to the honest poor, succor to the unfortunate and helpless, the rescue of the wayward, the amelioration of the conditions of living among the toiling masses, all these shall have our constant support. We favor

every practical measure that shall diminish intemperance, disorder and crime. The Republican party will have no common interest with the saloon or the groggery. It will not recognize their right to dictate nominations or policies. We call for vigorous laws that shall bring penalties upon every offender against purity and honesty in elections." MASSACHUSETTS DEMOCRATIC,

1893.

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THE NATIONAL PLATFORM AND CLEVELAND ADMINISTRATION. "The Democratic party of Massachusetts, in convention assembled, reaffirms support of the National Democratic platform of 1892, and congratulates the country upon the restoration of the National Government in all its branches to Democratic control. The people have full confidence in President Cleveland and his Administration. Republican control of the Government has left behind it vicious laws and practices which the Democratic party has already attacked and is pledged to remedy."

THE "SHERMAN BILL."-"We heartily support President Cleveland and Secretary Carlisle in their firm attitude in favor of the immediate and unconditional repeal of the purchase clause of the Sher'man law, which was essentially a protection measure, which has brought financial and industrial disaster upon the country. We congratulate the House of Rep

resentatives upon its speedy and emphatic action in response to the President's message, and we call upon the Senate to follow the action of the House without undue delay or obstruction of the popular will."

A NEW BANKING SYSTEM.-"The experience of the last few months has demonstrated with great force the lack of elasticity in our present banking system and its incapacity under existing laws to adjust itself to the demands of trade. We demand, as the surest protection against the issue of fiat money by the Government, that either through the reorganization of the National bank system or the re-establishment of State banks of issue, under such Federal restrictions as will make their notes as good as those of the National banks, the people of all sections of the country be enabled to supply themselves with the banking facilities enjoyed by other civilized nations."

THE TARIFF.-"We congratulate the people upon the complete overthrow of the doctrine of McKinleyism and the election of a government pledged in all its branches to inaugurate a genuine reform of the tariff for the benefit of all classes of American citizens, and we look forward with confidence to the early passage of a wellconsidered bill in which we shall reduce the tariff to a revenue basis."

PENSIONS.-"We renew the declarations of former platforms in favor of a just and liberal pension system, including within its scope all needy and deserving veterans, but we recognize that Congress, and not the Pension Bureau, must define the conditions under which pensions are to be granted, and we commend the efforts of the present Administration to make the operation of the pension system conform to the plain terms of Congressional enactments and to purge the pension roll of fraud."

ELECTION OF UNITED STATES SENATORS AND CIVIL SERVICE. "We demand the election of United States Senators by direct popular vote. We favor the strict enforcement of the National Civil Service law and its further application to the public service."

MICHIGAN REPUBLICAN,

April 14, 1892.

Indorses Republican principles and achievements, and continues: "We most heartily indorse the glorious work of the Republican majority in the LIst Congress of the United States, and will do all in our power to upbuild and sustain the victories already won for the grand triple policy of protection, reciprocity and honest money. In the language of the Republican National platform of 1888, we demand effective legislation by Congress to secure the integrity and purity of National elections, and that our Representatives in the United States Congress do all in their power to secure a law which will give to every elector a free ballot and to every voter a fair count."

MICHIGAN REPUBLICAN,

July 21, 1892.

Indorses Minneapolis platform and nominees; condemns the present State Democratic Administration for its subserviency

to the exactions of political demagogues who have forced upon Michigan the nefarious Miner law, a measure which every fair-minded citizen condemns, and which Democratic leaders favor only in a State where there is a Republican majority; calls attention to Democratic theft of the Senate during its last session by unlawfully and corruptly seating two usurpers In that body by the action of less than a constitutional quorum, thus making it possible to enact the Miner law; to the unscrupulous gerrymander of Congressional, Senatorial and Representative districts, and much other legislation which is a disgrace to any civilized people.

MICHIGAN DEMOCRATIC,

May 4, 1892.

TARIFF.-"We call upon all friends of good government to unite in a National campaign upon the supreme and overshadowing issue of tariff reform. We believe that the siege begun four years ago must be continued on the same stronghold of the enemy, fortified by the spoils of an oppressive tariff, and upon the same lines of battle until victory shall crown our assaults. We think it not wise or safe to

change materially the plan under which that campaign was fought. We are confident we were right then, and the right is always the same. We have full faith in the mind that conceived and the hands that executed the details of that contest. We believe most implicitly in the wisdom, the honesty and the heroic courage of him who led us in that assault; and now refreshed, revived, united and fearless in our faith, we demand to be led against the enemy again under the leadership of the same great captain. We therefore instruct our delegates to the National Convention, this date chosen, to vote in that convention as one man for the nomination of Grover Cleveland to the Presidency of the United States."

FREE WATERWAYS.-"The commerce of the great lakes for the season of navigation of but 225 days exceeds that entering and leaving the ports of London and Liverpool combined for the entire year, and the saving by our lake navigation to consumers and producers in terminal charges and overrates by railroad transportation is over $130,000,000 per annum. Terminal charges and the cost of changing bulk in the carrying of products of our farms and manufactures to the markets are a tax upon production. The cost of a ship canal from the lakes to the tidewater can be saved to the Northwest in less than two seasons of navigation, and we therefore demand in behalf of our people at the hands of the National Government a free waterway to the ocean.'

MICHIGAN DEMOCRATIC,
August 17, 1892.

Declares that the civil authorities of the State are the constitutional conservators of the peace, and that the military should only be called into requisition in cases of great emergency, and then only as aids and subordinates of the civil authorities; denounces Pinkertonism and demands laws for its suppression; denounces the McKinley tariff as the culminating atrocity of class legislation; condemns the Republican party for demonetizing silver;

commends to Congress the fact that a large majority of the people of the State are in favor of restoring silver to its rightful place as the coin of the Nation, equal with gold; declares that it is the duty of the State Legislature to establish a proper tribunal with power to summon defendants before it, adjust all disputes and enforce its judgments by proper process; pledges the Michigan Democracy to the establishment of a labor tribunal; favors election of mine inspectors by direct vote of the people; recommends a commission to devise means for the improvement of country roads; denounces convict labor, and recommends laws to change the present system under which prisoners are employed in constructing the State highways.

MICHIGAN PROHIBITION,

March 18, 1892.

Asks that the sale and manufacture of liquor be made a public crime; demands equal suffrage regardless of sex; that gold, silver and paper all be made full legal tender, and that none but the Government issue money; that trusts and combinations be prohibited by law; that farmers and industrial parties be invited to co-operate for the overthrow of class legislation; that the tariff be revised on business principles by experts, on a revenue basis only; that railroads, telegraph, telephone and express companies be owned by the Government; that pauper and criminal immigrants be excluded and foreigners not permitted to vote until one year after taking out papers; avers that Prohibition party cannot entertain any proposition to co-operate with a reform party which does not antagonize the liquor traffic as earnestly as it does any other monopoly and vicious legislation; urges that individual and corporate ownership of land be limited; and favors a per diem pension law.

MINNESOTA REPUBLICAN,

TRUSTS.-Opposes trusts, favors legislation to eradicate and repress the evil, and refers with pride to the establishment at the State Prison at Stillwater of the manufacture of binding twine, thus protecting and defending farmers against one of the great monopolies.

LABOR.-Favors suitable laws to protect the health, life and limb of all employes of transportation, mining and manufacturing companies while engaged in the service of such companies; boards or tribunals of conciliation and arbitration for the peaceful settlement of all disputes between capital and labor touching wages, hours of labor and questions pertaining to the safety and physical and

moral well-being of the laborer; the exclusion of all foreign paupers, criminals, contract labor and other dangerous classes; and the preservation of the public domain for actual and bona fide settlers under the Homestead law.

OPEN MARKETS.-Favors such laws as will give farmers cheap, safe and easily obtainable elevator and warehouse facilities, and furnish them promptly and without discrimination, at fair and reasonable rates, proper transportation facilities to all accessible markets.

CORPORATIONS. — Favors laws compelling railroad, telegraph and telephone companies and all corporations or individuals charged with and performing any public service or employment to render the best and most approved service at a fair and reasonable rate without discrimination.

SILVER.-"We hold, in acordance with the traditional policy of our party, to the use of both gold and silver, and that the sole coinage function of the Government is to examine the relative values of the metals of coinage as established by the commercial world, and if there has been a sufficient fluctuation in the value of either to make the existing ratios unequal, then to readjust the ratios so that the number of grains of either metal in the unit of coinage, the dollar, shall be equivalent in value, and then to permit the free, unrestricted coinage of both metals. We join the Democracy of NewYork in demanding the repeal of the Sherman silver coinage act. We condemn that act as an attempt to distract the friends of honest bimetallism and denounce it as calculated to debase our currency, contract the circulating medium, and wreck the confidence and safety of the business world."

MISSISSIPPI DEMOCRATIC,

cated the wisdom and statesmanship of its framers.

CURRENCY.-"We commend the policy of the Republican party in maintaining an honest currency; we not only favor legislation that will maintain our gold, silver and paper money on a parity in value, but also favor an international monetary system as the only safe solution of the silver question."

TRUSTS.-"Monopolies and trusts, oppressing the people or unfairly discriminating against local interests, are wrong in principle, and should be prohibited by law, rigidly enforced, by the authorities of the State and Nation."

FAIR ELECTIONS.-Favors free ballot and fair count and condemns that feature of the election laws of Missouri whereby the Recorder of Voters is empowered to appoint not only the judges and clerks of election for the Democratic party, but for the Republican party also, and insists that the executive committee of each party should have the right to name for judges and clerks of election those who are known to be strictly party men, sincere and honest in their convictions and alone anxious for the success of their party nominees and not those of its opponents; demands immediate steps purge the registration books now in use of the hundreds and thousands of names of dead men and non-resident voters that are carried thereon purposely year after year and voted under the protection of the party in power in larger cities and towns; requests the State Legislature to take necessary action and denounces the Democratic Legislature for having SO framed the Australian ballot law as practically to disfranchise independent voters not identified with either the Demccratic or Republican party.

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MISCELLANEOUS. Demands equal taxation, reaching corporations as well as individuals, the valuation of the property of corporations on the same ratio as the property of individuals; denounces the Democratic Legislature for its gerrymander of the Congressional districts so as to disfranchise 236,000 Republican voters, and of the judicial circuits, thereby identifying the judiciary with party politics; favors liberal pension policy, and rigid enforcement of contract labor law.

MISSOURI DEMOCRATIC,

May 11, 1892.

Denounces the McKinley bill, the "Force bill," the "Billion Congress' and arraigns Benjamin Harrison, President of the United States, as instigator and defender of all these crimes against the public welfare.

SILVER.-"We demand the repeal of the Sherman bullion-storage act, which makes of silver a commodity, and the National Treasury a partner in Wall Street speculation; that demoralizes trade, deranges values and debases the currency. We hold to the use of both gold and silver as the money of the country, and maintain that the sole function of the Federal Government is to ascertain the relative value of the money metals, and, in case there has been a sufficient fluctuation in the relative value of the two metals to make the existing coinage ratio unequal, we hold that it is the duty

the gallant Governor of Ohio in the battle which he is making in his own State for the principles of true Republicanism, and will be prepared to exult with him over the victory soon to be achieved."

PENSIONS.-"The Republican party will never forget the bravery displayed and hardships endured by the brave boys in blue in fighting une battles which preserved our common country, and we de nounce the arbitrary and unpatriotic ac tion of Grover Cleveland and Hoke Smith in cutting off pensions of disabled soldiers without cause and without a hearing.'

THE TARIFF.-"We charge the Democratic party and Independent party as responsible for the financial depression of the country and that they mean further to destroy public confidence and to further paralyze industries by their threatened attack upon the tariff system and the revenues of the Nation, and we look upon threatened free trade legislation as little less hurtful than the fact and a challenge to the manufacturing industries to a fight of extermination; and we appeal to all fair-minded people to join with the Republican party in restoring confidence and in the protection of public revenues and the protective policy of the country which has heretofore created and maintained unexampled prosperity to the people and made the United States the greatest producing, commercial and manufacturing Nation in the world."

GOLD AND SILVER.-"The American people from tradition and interest favor bimetallism and the Republican party demand the use of both gold and silver as such restrictions standard money with

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NATIONAL ISSUES.-"We declare our devotion to the fundamental principles of the Democratic party, as set forth and embodied in the platform of our party adopted by its National Convention Chicago in 1892. We believe that as soon as the Sherman act is repealed Congress should carry out the various other pledges made in that platform; and so believing we commend the promptness with which the Democratic Congress is preparing to revise our tariff laws so that, in harmony with the doctrines of our party, they will take no more money from the people than is needed in the economical adminand we istration of our Government; commend the action of Congress in the endeavor to promptly repeal the Federal election laws."

ANTI-SECTIONALISM.-"We denounce the seditious and inflammatory language used by public speakers of recent days, and their efforts to stir up strife and dissension and create jealousy and distrust in the different parts of our common country as un-American and unpatriotic, and fraught with danger to our institutions. The Democracy of Nebraska declares that it recognizes in commercial and financial affairs no North, no South, no East, no West; that the inter-independence of the States as one people orCains the closest identity of interests without regard to section or locality, and that all teachings to the contrary, by whomsoever disseminated, are false and pernicious."'

PENSIONS.-"While we favor liberal pensions to the deserving veterans, we also commend the worthy efforts of Commis sioner Lochren in his endeavor to purge the list of those not entitled to pensions, and to make it what it should be, a roll of honor."

SCHOOL ISSUES.-"We reaffirm the time-honored doctrine of the Democratic party, enunciated in the first Democratic platform on which Thomas Jefferson was elected President, that we are opposed to the union of Church and State in any form or under any pretext whatever; that the freedom of speech and of the press and the enjoyment of religious liberty shall ever be maintained; that there shall be no religious test in office; and we declare our opposition to all secret or open the country political organizations in based on religious prejudices to the trary spirit and genius of our institutions, thoroughly un-Ameribreed discan and calculated cord, contention and unseemly strife We comin our polity. American mend our public school system as a means of popular education, and we are opposed to any division of the public school funds

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