Litchfield enquirer., 1873-02-13
THE PlATFoR RIM.

Commencing with resolutions of con-
 graduation over past victories and over
 successes in diplomacy and in domestic
 administration, the platform denounces
 corruption in high places and demands
 the punishment of the guilty and the puri-
 fication of the party. It proposes to hold
 our railroads strictly to the responsibili-
 ties and duties contemplated in their
 charters, and favors such further legisla-
 tion as may be required to remove inteBn- perance and promote sobriety. Special
 resolutions were added demanding the
 restoration of usury law and opposing
 any increase in the pay of Congressmen.
 The platform is good one, ,as platforms
 got the resolution against corruption
 in high places" being especially timely. The hint, to railroad corporations may mean 8 good deal, or rvery little, according to circumstances. The time will come, we imagine, when Republican conventions must speak more decisiyely on that point. Opposition was made, we notice, to the nomination of MT. Hall, as Secretary of State, on account of his alleged miscon-. duct as chairman of the railroad commit tee. That he was anyway cognizant of the resolution-stealing, which invariably followed the passage by House or Senate during the past session of resolutions of inquiry into railroad matters, we do not believe. That after such thefts had hap pened the railroad committee should have suffered investigation to be delayed by them, to the extent it certainly was, we always considered discreditable to that committee, and particularly to it's chair man. The attack on him by MT. Naples had personal look, however, and will hardly injure MT. Hall more with the peo- pie than it did with the convention. --
 Exactly what the resolution means that congratulates the country on ''the passing away of the revolutionary necessity of any interference with the local affairs of the States" we are at loss to see. Probably it should read, "the necessity of any revolu- tionary interference" No one but Frank Blair and the extreme Democrats have ever proposed that. That some constitu- tiOnGt action is necessary to prevent Lou isiana sham-elections, and to check the robbing of Southern tax payers, is what we have maintained, and what we believe the Republican party will yet see the necessity of maintaining
 The usury resolution, passed to quiet New Haven clamor, we consider a weak blunder. The law is right as it now stands and should not be hastily chang ed.
 The temperance resolution does not strike us favorably. It is so worded as to imply the power on the part of the leg islature to remove intemperance. We do not believe it has any such power. Fur thermore, the present law, so amended in few particulars as to render it more effective, seems to us the best measure practicable. For present, indeed, both extremes of temperance opinion and prac- tica have tactitly combined to render it ineffective, but this is a state of things that cannot last. A real union of the better clements of the community forfts thorough enforcement would certainly be successful, and does not the opposition to such a union come chiefly from the tenn perance people themselves?
 The resolution for protecting women and children from being over-worked in factories is good one and should bear fruit in appropriate Legislation. Some body's suggestion that poor woman with a large family ought to be allowed to work fifteen hours a day if she wished, applies equally to men with large families, and yet has never hindered their Ten and Eight Hour laws. s- lt-. '..