The Vermont watchman. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1883-1911, 1888-04-11
appointment has greatly impaired the pub

appointment has greatly impaired the pub
lie service.
" Fidh.-Mindful of the power for good or
evil of great corporations and of enormous
aggregations of capital in the form of trusts,
we favor such extension of the policy OF
public supervision, in state and nation, as
the public relations of the combination may
render advisable and which is already IN
successful operation in respect to railroads.
" Sirth.-Considering the rapid accumula-
ton of surplus in the treasury and the
consequent embarrassment to business by
the contraction of the currency resulting
from the failure of the executive to carry
out a law of congress authorizing the pur-
chase of bonds, which is but one OF many
instances of partisan perVersity, we insist
that laws should be enforced according to
the intention of congress and not accord
ing to the will and caprice of the executive.
"Sevenh.-The republican party will never
cease to be grateful to the soldiers and sail
ors who saved our country. Those who sur
viye have reached a period in life when
the effects of their hardships are rapidly
impairing their earning capacity and short
ening their lives. We favor generous pro-
visions for their comfort by way of pen
sions and soldiers homes. Such discharge
of just obligation will make the people no
poorer, for the money will go to the people,
and we should not forget that the presence
of these veterans among us during the last
twenty years, engaged in productive in
dustry but understanding war, has greatly
promoted the prosperity and absolutely pre-
served the peace of the country, thus saw
ing the expense of large standing army.
EighM.-Still believing that this country
should be an asylum for the oppressed OF
other lands, with whose struggles for free
dom we cordially sympathize, and believing
that the foreign contract labor law should
be so amended as to permit the engagement
abroad of a clergyman, professor or a
skilled artisan, we yet oppose the immigra-
ton of masses of people of those nation
alities which do not readily assimilate with
our own, and of eXpatrated paupers of any
race, and of criminals, anarchists, polyg-
amists and other enemies of social order.
Ninth.-As popular education is the chief
cornerstone of free government, and as the
nation, by its great acts of emancipation
and enfranchisement brought into the cleo
torate large numbers of men who were
illterate, we consider it the duty and in
terest of the general government to provide
means, TO some extent at least, for the edu-
cation of those men and their children so
far as it can be done without invading the
rights of the states.
=" Tenth.-True to its impulses, history and
traditions of liberty, equality and progress,
the republican party in Vermont will well
come women to an equal participation in
government whenever they give earnest of
their desire for enfranchisement in sufficient
numbers to indicate its practical success.
Decentralization thirty-fve years of pro-
hibition of the liquor traffic in Vermont,
notwithstanding many attractions of the
law, we have a new and temperate genera
ton, which testfes to the general efficacy
of this method of managing great evil.
We recommend such amendments as re-
cent decisions of the supreme court of the
United States may render desirable. We
look upon the saloon as an unmXed social
evil and political menace, and we believe
that the friends of temperance should work
together politically for the most restrictive
measures and their enforcement.
" TweQM.-The importance of selecting
the best possible candidates for public office
is obvious, but among many good men it is
less important who is president than it is
which party is in power. We invite the
people to study the records, the composition
and the tendencies of parties and to subor-
dinate personal preferences and grievances
even for the union of all forces, whatever
their present alliances or past differences
which favor freedom, protection, non.
political civil service, national dignity and
enterprise, the overthrow of sectionalism
patriotic and economical administration and
the social and moral progress of the people
In this sign and under the republican ban
ner we expect to conquer"
The adoption of the platform concluded
the business of the convention, which then
adjourned, after a session of less than three
hours duration.