St. Paul daily globe. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn.) 1884-1896, 1888-07-05
PAST PLATFORMS.
The Record of the Two Parties in
Minnesota for Ten Years.

The Democratic party of the North
west for ten years past has been the
consistent advocate of tariff reform and
tax reduction. In the same period the
Republican party has taken at least
three different courses and lain itself
open to the charge of the rankest kind
of inconsistency. To prove this is easy
by comparison of the platforms on
which the two parties have gone to the
people since 1878. The demonstration
is that the Democracy by its eonven-
ton pledges and the action of Judges
Wilson and Macdonald and Edmund
Rice in the present congress has re-
deemed all that it promised and kept
unSwervingly to one faith. On the
other hand the Republican party of
Minnesota since 1878 has first pledged
itself to protection, then to tariff re-
vision and protection, then to tariff re-
duction and is now back to protection,
while Senator Davis and John Lind
have champiOned protection and Knute
Nelson denounced it, at the same time
saying that The was not in sympathy
with his party"
Excerpts in substantial proof of the
courageous course of the Democracy
and the vacillating and dishonest one of
the Republican party in Minnesota are
herewith submitted:
Republican state platform of Sept. 4,
1878:
1t has been demonstrated by legisla-
lures and in courts that no constitu-
tiOnal right inheres i'll the government
to protect the people against mOnopolies
from the powerful, arbitrary and rapa-
ciOuS.
Democratic state platform of Sept. 5,
1873:
Resolved, That we are opposed to any
further contraction of the currency, to
tariff for protection, to class legisla-
ton and SUMMARY laws, to monOpolies
of all kinds, to any increase of the bond
ed debt, to the sale of bonds for the pur-
chase of coin for redemption purposes.
Resolved, The interests of the indus
trial wealth is the paramount interest of
the people of the United States. Those
whose labor and enterprise produce
wealth should be secured in its employ
ment. Our warmeSt sympathy is eX-
tended to the laboring classes. who have
been thrown out of employment by the
ruinOus financial policy and unjust leg
islation of the Republican party, and
all pledges of the Democratic party are
to the revisal of that policy and the
restoration of all rights they are entitled
to upon its ascendancy to power.
Gen. Sibley's letter of acceptance of
the Democratic nomination for congress
in the Third district Sept. II, 1886:
If elected, | shall deem it my duty to
resist to the utmost any violation of the
public faith, and any attempt by con-
gress to interfere with the constitutional
amendments, or with the legislation for
their enforcement, and emphatically
| any. recognition of Southern claims
| growing out of the war of the rebellion.
| | would oppose congressional tinkering
| with the finances of the country when
| they shall have been fixed upon safe
| and sound basis, but | would favor such
| a revision of the tariff as would elimi
| nate from it the feature of protection OF
| class interests, and reduce 1t to one of
| revenue only. upon articles of luxury
| and not of necessity.
| Especially do L regard it to be the
| duty of congress to strike from the
| statute book the legislation which has
! sunk this nation from leading rank
| among the commercial powers of the
| world to comparatively insignificant
| position. When our government was
| under Democratic control our merchant
| ships were found in every sea bearing
the commerce of our people, but under
| Republican rule the carrying trade to
| and from foreign ports has been trans
ferred to the vessels of competing ma
| tions, and the benefits which should ac-
| crue to our own citizens are enjoyed by
! aliens. Such condition of affairs is
humiliating to our national pride and
congress should apply speedy remedy.
| Democratic state platform of Aug. 2,
1888:
We, the Democracy of Minnesota, in
| convention assembled, reaffirm our de-
| votion to the time-hOnOred maxims of
the Democratic party, that that govern
ment is best which governs least; which
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