San Antonio daily light. [volume] (San Antonio, Tex.) 1886-1907, 1886-09-14
THE STATE PLATFORM.
What a Prominent Republican Has 10
Say of the Party Platforms
in Texas.

in Texas.
! Shortly after the Waco convention the
LIGHT left a note on the table of the
| Hon. A. Z. Evans, OF this city, THAT gen.
tleman being out OF town. asking him
on his return to favor the LIGHT readers
with his views upon the platform. The
following has reached this office in re-
ply thereto.
You ask me what think OF the Waco
Republican platform. reply:
Ii could not have been better. In fact
ii is the first clean-cut republican plat
form that the republicans ofTeXss have
ever had. II the prohibitions find com.
fort in it, Ii is because Ii asserts anew
one OF the declarations OF the great bill
OF rights, which the confederate demOc-
raOy has so often, long and persistenlly
denied to their followers, that the idea,
when reasserted, seems new and start
ling. There is no squint in the dOcu-
ment at prohibition. The fact is that
the democratic party, in Texas, is
the prohibition party; demo-
cratic state convention having torn
upa republican personal liberty cOnsti-
tuition, and injected into the belly
Of their abortion" called Constitu-
ton, the principles of prohibition, there
by giving to 5Ol voters OF comfy
voting 1000 votes, the right TO say what
the other ~ voters shall have tO.drink-
whisky or water. Our platform asserts
the right in these 499 voters to petition
the legislature for an amendment to the
said prohibition" striking out prohi-
bitiOn.
This declaration in our platform, that
the people may apply for redress of
grievanCes'in the form OF submitting TO
them for their vote, constitutional
amendments ION any subject, is grand
and worthy of all praise.
Ii is a declaration In favor OF human
rights, and human liberties-it Is a
strong "kick" against the despotism of
the democratic party, that has time and
time again, in late years, said to the pub
lie, 1--WE are in power and have got your
hands tied by constitutional proVis-
IONS"
But the above plank in our platform Is
not its chief virtue. The browning glory
is found in those clauses that declare the
dignity of human labor.
1t is well known that the old regime
of slavery in the southern states, foster
ed and cultivated bitter hostility
to free or paid labor. Ii Is too
we'll known that the STAKEHOLDER
not only hates and detests
free labor in every form, but still more
hated and detested the wage worker
who desired or tried 10 live in the south;
and too well do we know that such ha-
tired exists largely, to-day, and that that
hatred is found in the hearts OF the old
democratic, confederate leaders, and
that they are the democratic party.
Hence comes our "clean cut" declara-
tiOns on the question of The dignity of
human labor. going back to the great
Lincoln for our text. This part OF our
platform is a boon contributed by that
splendid writer and noble re-
publican w. 5. Messmer, of the
San Antonio LIGHT, and will
bear repeating in every republican plat
form until every wage worker in
Texas shall vote the republican ticket
and our majority over the prOslaveTy
confederate democracy is great as our
minority is now.
Our declaration that the public work
(road working) shall be done by tax up
on property and not by tax upon labor
is a bold lick for freedom ana justice, and
must ring in the ears of the confederate
democracy until they are forced to the
wall and driven from power. why
should the poor man, without horse or
wagon TO travel the roads, pay as much
in labor to keep up the same as the man
of millions in lands, horses and car
riages, while the nonresident land
holder pays nought?
Our educational plank is superb. We
have on this point the support Of all the
seventy-six United States senators, ex-
cept seven hide-bound democratic OK
cart senators from the south, two from
Texas.
We declare, and we mean just what
we say, that our convicts shall stay in
side the walls, and labor at pursuits not
in conflict with wage labOrers.
There are other grand declarations in
our platform, but / have said too much.
As for the democratic platform may
safely say, they have not got one TO
speak Of. 1t has past into public pOliti-
cal history that the confederate demo-
cracy never made platform, state or
federal, whose pledges or principles
they ever carried or tried to carry out.
They do not make platforms to carry
out. They construct them to get votes
and offices by. Their late Galveston
platform is little more cautious than
common; in this they seemed to have
been avoiding the often repeated charge
of breaking their pledges by making
none, and yet saying something. Their
platform when boiled down reads:
an. h..