St. Johnsbury Caledonian. [volume] (St. Johnsbury, Vt.) 1867-1919, 1888-06-28
THE REPUBLICAN PLATFORM.

AAONAAA hoO IVA
ors the memory of Abraham Lincoln,
Grant, Arthur, Logan and Conkling,
and sur that of Sheridan sends
congratulation to our fellOw-Americans
of Brazil upon their act of emancipa-
ton; hopes for the necessary home
rule for Ireland reaffimrs devotion to
the constitution and the union and to
the personal right of every lawful citi-
zen to cast one free ballot in public
elections, and to have that ballot
counted demands the integrity and
purity of elections, and charges that
the democratic majority in congress
owe their existence to the suppression
of the ballot by a criminal notification
of the constitution and laws of the
United States.
We are uncompromisingly in favor
of the American system of protection
and protest against its destruction as
proposed by the President and his
party we denounce the Mills bill as
destructive to the general business, the
labor and the farming interest of the
country. We condemn the proposition
of the democratic party to place wool
on the free list, and insist that the
duties thereon shall be adjusted and
maintained SO as to furnish full pro-
lection to that industry.
The republican party would effect
all needed reduction of the national
revenue by repeating the taxes upon
tobacco, which are an annoyance and
burden to agriculture, and the tax up
on spirits used in the arts and for
mechanical purposes, and by such
revision of the tariff laws as will tend
to check imports of such articles as are
produced by our people, the produc-
ton of which gives employment to our
labor, and release from import duties
those articles of foreign production,
except luXuries, the like of which can
not be produced at home. If there
shall still remain a larger revenue than
is requisite for the wants of the gov
eminent, we favor the entire repeal of
internal taxes rather than the surren-
der of any part of u protective sys-
tenn, at the joint behest of the whiskey
trusts and the agents of foreign manu-
facturers. We declare our hostility to
the introduction into this country of
foreign contract labor and of Chinese
labor.
We declare our opposition to all
combinations of capital organized
in trusts, and approve the legislation
by congress to prevent alike unjust
burdens and unfair determinations
between the states.
We reaffirm the policy of appropriate
ing public lands to be hOmesteads for
American citizens and settlers. The
restoration of unearned railroad land
grants to the public domain for the
use of actual settlers, should be %contin-
ued. The platform denies that the
democratic party has ever restored n
acre to the people, and charges the
democratic administration with failure
to execute the laws.
The platform favOrs the immediate
admission of South Dakota into the
Union, favors the establishment of
state governments in Washington,
North Dakota and Montana territories
and pledges itself to facilitate the ad-
mission of New Mexico, Wyoming,
Idaho and Arizona to statehood as
soon as practicable.
The party pledges itself to stamp out
the w~ickedness of polygamy.
The republican party is in favor of
tho use of both gold and silver as mon
ey, and condemns the policy of the
democratic administration in its eff
forts to demonetize silver.
We demand the reduction of letter
postage, to one cent per ounce.
The party pledges itself to the sup
port of the free public school system /;
urges the passage of such laws as shall
rehabilitate the American merchant
marine and protests against the free
ship bill demands appropriations for
the early rebuilding of the navy for the
protection of our defenceless harbOrs
and cities for the payment of just
pensions to our soldiers for necessary
works of national Importance in the
improvement of harbors and the chan
nels of internal, coastwise and foreign
commerce (; for the encouragement of
the shipping interests of the Atlantic,
gulf and Pacific states, as well as for
the payment of the maturing public
debt.
The present administration is con-
demned for it's conduct of foreign af-
fairs and arraigned for its weak and
unpatriOtic treatment of the fisheries
question, and it's pussillanimous sui
render of the essential privileges to
which our fishing vessels are entitled
in Canadian ports, and it's policy to-
ward our fisheries declared u~nfriendly
and cO~nspicuOusly unpatriotic, and as
tending to destroy a valuable national
industry and an indispensable resource
of defence against a foreign enemy.
The men who abandoned the repub-
lican party in 1884, and continue to ad-
here to the democratic party, have de-
serted not only the cause of honest
government, of sound finance, of free
dom, of purity of the ballot, but espec-
tally have deserted the cause of reform
in the civil service. We will not fail
to keep u pledges because they have
broken theirs, or because their candi-
date has broken his. We, therefore,
repeat our declaration of 1884, to wit
"The reform of the civil service auspi-
ciOusly begun under the republican ad-
ministration should be completed by
the further extension of the reform sys-
tenn already established by law, to all
the grades of the service to which it is
The gratitude of the nation to the
defenders of the Union cannot be meas
ured by laws. The legislation of Con-
gress should conform to the pledge
made by a loyal people, and be so en-
the possibility that any man
who honorably wore the federal uni
form shall become an inmate of an
or dependent upon private
In the presence of an over
treasury it would be public
scandal to do less for those whose val
orous service preserved the govern
ment. We depounce the hostile spirit
shown by President Cleveland in his