The Colfax chronicle. [volume] (Colfax, Grant Parish, La.) 1877-1981, 1892-07-02
The Democratic Platform.
Continued from First Page.)


debtedness; that in one of the
chief agricultural States of the
West there appears a real estate
mortgage debt averaging $165 per
capita Of the total population, and
that similar conditions are shown
to exist in the other agricultural
exporting States. We denounce a
policy which fosters no industry SO
much as it does that of the sheriff.
4. Trade in the exchange of pro-
ducts, on the basis of reciprocal
advantages to the countries partic-
ipating, is a time-honored doctrine
of the Democratic faith, but we de-
nounce the sham reciprocity which
juggles against the peoples desire
for enlarged foreign markets and
freer exchange by pretending to es-
tablish closer trade relations for a
country whose articles of export are
almost exclusively agricultural pro-
ducts with other countries that are
also agricultural, while erecting a
custom house barrier of prohibi-
tive tariff taxes against the richest
countries Of the world, that stand
ready to take our entire surplus Of
products and to exchange them for
commodities which are necessaries
and comforts of life among our own
people.
5. We recognize in the trusts and
combinations which are designed
to enable capital to secure more
than its just share of the joint pro-
duct of capital and labor the natu-
raj consequence of the prohibitive
taxes which prevent the free COM
petition which is the life of honest
trade, but we believe the worst
evils can be abated by law, and we
demand the rigid enforcement of
the laws made to prevent and con-
troll them, together with such fur
ther Legislation in restraint of their
abuses as experience may show to
be necessary.
6. The Republican party. while
processing the policy of reserving
the public land for small holdings
by actual settlers, has given away
the peoples heritage till now few
railroads and nonresident aliens,
individual and corporate, possess a
larger area than that allowed farms
between the two seas. The last
Democratic administration revers-
ed the improvident and unwise
policy of the Republican party
touching the public domain and re-
claimed from corporations and syn
dicates, alien and domestic, and re-
stored to the people nearly one hun
bred million acres of valuable land,
to be sacredly held as homesteads
for our citizens, and we pledge our
selves to continue this policy until
every acre of land so unlawfully
held shall be reclaimed and restor-
cd to the people.
Z. We denounce the Republican
legislation known as the Sherman
act of 1890 as a cowardly make
shift, fraught with possibilities of
danger in the future which should
make all of its supporters, as we'll
rs its author, anxious for its speedy
repeal. We hold to the use of both
gold and silver AZ the standard
money of the country, and to tie
coinage of both gold and silver
without discriminating against
either metal or charge for minkage,
but the dollar unit of coinage of
both metals must be of equal in
trinsic and exchageable value, or
be adjusted through international
agreement or by such safeguards
of legislation as shall assure the
maintenance of the parity of the
two metals, and the equal power of
every dollar at all times in the
markets and in the payment of
debts, and we demand that all pa
per currency shall be kept at par
with and redeemable in such coin.
We insist upon this policy as es-
pecially necessary for protection
of the farmers and laboring classes,
the first and most defenseless vic
Tins of unstable money and o
huctuating currency.
8. We recommend that the pro-
hibitory 10 per cent tax on State
bank issues be repealed.
9. We reaffirm the declaration of
the Democratic National Conven-
ton of 1876 for the reform of the
civil service, and we call for the
honest enforcement of all laws rep-