The weekly intelligencer. [volume] (Lexington, Mo.) 1891-1901, 1892-07-23
DEMOCRATIC PLATFORM.

and exemplilied by the long and illus.
trious line of his successors in Demo.
cratic leadership, from Madison tc
Cleveland; we believe the public welfare
demands that these principles be applied
to the conduct of the Federal Govern,
ment through the accession to power OF
the party that advocates them; and we
solemnly declare that the need of a re-
turn to these fundamental principles OF
free popular government, based on home
rule and individual liberty, was never
more neededthanno when the tenden-
cy to centralize all power at the Federal
capital has become a menace to the
reserved rights of the States that strikes
ut the very roots of our Government un-
der the Constitution as framed by the
fathers of the Republic.
FEDERAL CONTROL OF ELECTIONS
We warn the people of our common
country, jealous for the preservation of
their free institutions, that the policy
of Federal control of elections to which
the Republican party has committed it.
self is fraught with the gravest dangers,
scarcely less mOmentous than would re-
suit from a revolution practically estab-
fishing monarchy on the ruins of the
Republic. 1t strikes at the North as
we'll as theSOuth, and Injuries the colOred
citizen more than the white; it means a
horde of deputy. marshals at every polling
place armed with Federal power, return
ing boards appointed and controlled by
Federal authority, the outrage of the
electoral right of the people in several
states, thel subjugation Of the colored
people to the party in power and the re-
viving of race antagonisms, now happi-
ly abated, of the utmost peril to the
safety and happiness of all; a measure
deliberately and justly described by a
leading Republican Senator as 1.-THE
most infamous bill that aver crossed the
threshold of the Senate.n Such a pol
icy, if sanctioned by law, would mean
the dominance of self-perpetuating
oligarchy of of1iceholders, and the party
first intrusted with its machinery could
be dislodged from power only by an ap-
peal to the reserved right of the people
to resist oppression which is inherent
iii all se%lf-governing communities.
Two years ago this revolutionary policy
was emphatically condemned by the peo-
pie at the polls, but in contempt of that
verdict the Republican party has defiant
ly declared in its latest authoritative
utterance that its success in the coming
elections will mean the enactment Of
the force bill and the ursurpation of
despotic control yer elections in all the
states.
Believing that the preservation of
republican government in the United
States is dependent upon the defeat of
this policy of legalized force and fraud,
we invite the support of all citizens who
desire to see the Constitution main
tanned in its integrity with the laws pur-
suant thereto which have given our
country a hundred years of unexampled
prosperity; and W pledge the Demo-
cratic party, if it be intrusted with
power, not only the defeat of the force
bill, but also to relentless opposition to
the Republican policy of prohigate ex-
penditure which, in the short space of
two years, s~quandered an enormous sur
plus and emptied an overlooking Treas
ury, after piling new burdens of taxa
ton upon the already overtaxed labor
of the country.
PROTECTION DENOUNCED.
We denounce Republican protection
as a fraud; a robbery of the great ma
jority of the American people for the
benefit of a few. We declare it to be a
fundamental principle of the Democrat
ic party that the Federal Government
has no constitutional power to impose
and collect tariff duties except for the
purpose of revenue tax only, and we de-
mand that the collection of such taxes
shall be limited to the necessities of the
Government when honestly and econom-
ically administered.
We denounce the Mckinley tariff law
enacted by the Fifty-frst Congress as
the eliminating atrocity of class legisla-
ton; we indorse the efforts made by the
Democrats Of the present Congress to
modify its most oppressive features in
the direction of free raw materials and
cheaper manufactured goods that enter
into general consumption, and we prom
Use its repeal as II of the beneficent re-
suits that will follow the action Of the
people i'm intrusting the power to the
Democratic party. Since the Mckinley
tariff went into operation there has been
ten reductions of the wages of laboring
menIto one increase. We deny that there
has been any increase of prosperity to
the country since that tariff went into
operation, and we point to the dizziness
and distress. the wage reductions and
strikes in the iron trade, as the best pos
sible evidence that no such prosperity
has resulted from the Mckinley act.
We call the attention of thoughtful
Americans to the fact that after thirty
years of restrictive taxes against the i'm
~portation of foreign wealth, in exchange
for our agricultural surplus, the homes
and farms of the country have become
burdeued with a real estate mortgage
debt of over $500, 000. 900, exclusive of
all other forms of Indebtedness; that in
n of the chief agricultural states of
the West there appears a real estate
mortgage debt averaging $l65 per capita
of the total population; and that similar
conditions and tendencies are shown to
exist in other agricultural exporting
states. We denounce a policy which
fosters no industry so much as it does
that of the sheriff.
TRADE RECIPROCITY.
Trade interchange on the basis of re-
ciprocal advantages to the countries par
ticipating is a time honOred doctrine of
democratic faith, but we denounce the
sham reciprocity which juggles with the
peoples desire for enlarged foreign mar
kets and freer exchanges by pretending
to establish closer trade relations for a
country whose articles of export are al
most exclusively agricultural products
with other countries that are also agri-
cultural while erecting a custom house
barrier of prohibitive tariff taxes against
the richest countries of the world that
stand ready to take u entire surplus of
of products and to exchange therefor
which are necessaries and
comforts of life among u own people.