Herald and news. [volume] (West Randolph, Vt.) 1878-1943, 1890-07-24
A Platform that is a Platform.


acceptance as the platform Of the par
ty. 1t is the best platform adopted
this year.
JUDGE POWERS SPEECH.
Mr.. President and Republicans of the
First Congressional District:
] sincerely thank you for the high
honor ! am informed that this conyen-
tion has conferred upon me. | value
this honor all the more from the fact
that my relation to the canvass now
ended has been that of drafted man.
| prize the honor all the more highly
because. if your action is ratified at the
polls, shall assume the trust delegated,
absolutely untrammelled by promise or
pledge of any kind to any man or set
of men whatever.
But, however, do now and here COW
enant with you and with those you rep
resent, that if elected as your repre-
sentative, / will endeavor with all my
might, mind and strength TO so dis
cherge the duties of the office as to win
your approval.
The amicable contest which has en-
gagged your attention for little time
past has been conducted on both sides,
so far as | am advised, along the lines
of temperate criticism and honorable
warfare. The worthy gentlemen whom
many Of you preferred as your candi-
date has been my longtime personal
friend, aud | indulge the hope that
nothing of late has transpired to make
him less so to-day. But | am remind
ed that conventions are assembled not
to do honor to men, but TO do homage
to principles and how much we may
honestly differ respecting the one we
have no disagreements whatever re-
specting the substantial dogmas ofthe
political creed we profess.
| am aware that this is an ''off year"
in politics, and that we are inclined to
lapse into sort of political lethargy
and imagine that our political zeal can
properly be inhamed once only in four
years. But, gentlemen, this grave
mistake. While we sleep the enemy
will sow tares. Already our adversary
is eloquent over the slogan that the
mission Of the Republican party is
ended that, with the abolition of
slavery and the settlement ofthe great
questions of reconstruction which have
agitated the public mind for quarter
Of century, it has no further work to
do.
But has the mission of your party
endeds When every citizen Of the
Republic, be he rich or poor, high or
low, white or black, can with unchal-
lenged right cast one vote for such men
and measures as his conscience approves
and when each vote so cast shall be
honestly counted in the tabulation of
results, then you may say the mission
of your party is approaching its end.
Its mission ended? When our tar
! if regulations shall be so framed as to
impose upon the people the lightest
practicable pressure, and along the
lines OF fostering partiality towards
American industries and upon a basis
that will not only divorce our wage
earners from hopeless competition
with the pauper labor of the old world,
but will give every workingman in the
land the chance to lift himself. with
the wife of his youth and his children
about him, to higher level and a
broader plane in the race of life; then
you may say the mission of your party
has neared an end.
Its mission ended! When every
soldier who wore the blue and the Wild
ows and orphans of those who fell in
defence of the flag against the assaults
of the Rebellion shall have been paid
that Just measure of public reward
which is rightfnlly due, and which our
government is rich enough, honest
enough, and proud enough to pay,
then you may say the mission of the
party is approaching its end.
Its mission ended When that rel
ic of barbarism, that foul blot upon the
civilization of the 18th century, that
cancer worm which is eating at the Vi
; tails of our religion, that stencil in the
nostrils of intelligent manhood, Nor
monism, shall have been by legal meth
DDS everlastingly cut up by the roots,
then you may say the mission of the
party is approaching its end.
Its mission ended. When every
anarchist who comes here from the
old world to stir up anarchy among
) our people, to overthrow our social in
stitutions and to undermine the foun-
. dations of the government itself, shall
E have been hanged to the highest tree
in the American forest, then you may
say the millennium has come.
: No, Mr.. President, the mission O
our party shall never end until all th'
r great industrial. social and poiitica