The Democratic advocate. [volume] (Westminster, Md.) 1865-1972, 1896-07-11
DEMOCRATIC
CONVENTIONl |.
AN ENTHUSIASTIC GATHERING
Great Display Of 0ratory |!
THE BIMETLALIST HAVE TWO
THIRDS MAJORITY.
A RINGING PLATFORM |

GERS. and presented the name OF Senator
David b. Hill, of New York. Senator Hill
is single gold standard man, until bimetal
ism can be established by inuernat' onal agree
ment, and the bimetallists placed in nominal
ton Senator John w. Daniel, of Virginia.
roll call showed $50 votes for Daniel to 349
for Hill. Maryland delegates cast four votes
for Daniel and twelve for Hill. This ballot
was a great triumph for the bimetallists, but
not their full strength, as some wanted to
stand by the usual custom of permitting the
National Committee to name the temporary
officers.
Senator Daniel upon taking the chair made
one of the strongest and ablest speeches OF his
life and aroused enthusiasm as is seldom wit
messed One of the greatest outbursts OF APP
plause occurred when he said
1.-THE majority of this convention-l have
the honor here TO represent it-maintain that
this great American nation, with natural
base of fixed empire, the greatest ever estab-
lished by man, with more territory and more
productive energy than Great Britain, France
and Germany combined, without dependence
upon European nations for anything that they
produce, and with European nations Deepen
dent upon much that we produce, is fully
capable of restoring this constitutional money
system of gold and silver at equality with each
other Applause.1 And as our fathers IN
1T76 declared our national independence OF
all the world, so today has the great Demo-
cratic party, founded by Thomas jefferson,
the auihor Of that declaration, appeared here
in Chicago to declare the financial indepen-
dence of the United States fall other nations
and to invoke all true Americans to assert 1t
by their suffrages at the polls that our country
may be placed where she by right belongs, as
the freest, as the foremost. as the most pros,
porous and happy nation that ever blessed
the life of mankind upon this globe.
The second day the convention was oecu-
pied in effecting permanent organization.
Senator White. of California, was made per-
manent chairman, after the contests from
Nebraska and Michigan were settled, and
during the long wait for the credentials COM
mittee to report the convention was RECALLED
with oratory by number of distinguished
speakes. including q free silver speech by
Elk Congressman Williams, of Massachusetts,.
On Thursday the committee on resolutions
adopted the following platform by vote OF
62S to 301:
THE PLATFORM.
We, the Democrats of the United States, in
national convention assembled, do reafiirm
our allegiance to those great essential prin-
ciples Of Justice and liberty upon which our
institution are founded, and which the Dem
ocratic party has advocated from Jefferson
time TO our own-freedom of speech, free
dom of the press, freedom of conscience, the
preservation of personal rights, the equality
OF all citizens before the law and the faithful
observance of constitutional limitations.
GENERALIZATION OF POWER.
During all these years the Democratic
party has resisted the tendency of selfish in
terests to the Capitalization of governmental
power and steadfastly maintained the integ-
rity of the dual scheme of government es-
tablished by the founders of this republic of
republics. Under its guidance and teachings
the great principle of local self-government
has found its best expression in the mainten-
ance of the rights of the States and in ii an
assertion of the necessity of combining. the
general government to the exercise of the
United States.
MONEY.
Recognizing that the money question is
paramount to all others at this time. we invite
attention TO the fact that the federal consti-
tuition names silver and gold together as the
money metals of the United States and that
the first coinage law passed by Congress I'M
der the constitution made the silver dollar
the monetary unit and admitted gold to free
coinage at a ratio based upon the silver-dol-
lar unit.
We declare that the act Of 1878 demonetiz-
ing silver without the knowledge or approval
of the American people has resulted in the
appreciation of gold and a corresponding fall
in the prices of commodities produced by the
people; heavy increase in the burden of
taxation and of all debts, public and private;
the enrichment of the money-lending class at
home and abroad; prostration of industry
and impoyerishment of the people.
OPPOSED TO NoxoMErALLIsM.
We are unalterably opposed to monometal-
lism which has locked fast the prosperity of
an industrial people in the paralysis of hard
times. Gold recommendation is a British pol
icy and its adoption has brought other nations
into financial servitude to London. It is not
only un-American, but anti-Ameriean and it
can be fastened on the United States only by
the sitting of that spirit and love of liberty
which proclaimed our political independence
in l776 and won it in the war of the revolu-
ton.
FREE COINAGE OF COLD AND SILVER.
We demand the free and unlimited coinage
of both gold and silver at the present legal
ratio of 16 to l without waiting for the aid or
consent of any other nation. We demand
that the standard silver dollar shall be full
legal tender equally with gold for all debts,
public and private, and we favor such legis-
lation as will prevent for the future the de-
monetization Of any kind of legal-tender
money by private contract
NO BONDS IN TINE OF PEACE.
We are opposed to the policy and practice
of surrendering to the holders of the obliga-
tons of the United States the option reserved
by law to the government of redeeming such
obligations in either silver coin or gold coin.
We are opposed to the issuing of interest
bearing bonds of the United States in time of
peace and condemn the trafficing with bank
ing syndicates, which, in exchange for bonds
and at an enormous profit to themselves, sup
ply the federal treasury with gold to maintain
the policy of gold recommendation.
AGAINST NATIONAL BANK NOTES.
Congress alone has power to coin and issue
money, and President jackson declared that
this power could not be delegated to corpora
tions or individuals. We therefore demand
that the power to issue notes to circulate as
money be taken from the national banks and
that all paper money shall be issued directly
by the Treasury Department, be redeemable
IN coin and receivable for all debts, public
and private.
TARIFF AND lNCOME TAN.
We hold that the tariff duties should be
levied for purposes of revenue, such duties to
be so adjusted as to operate equally throughout
the country and not discriminate between
class or section, and that taxation should be
limited by the needs of the government, hon,
estly and economically administered. We
denounce as disturbing to business the Repub-
hcan threat to restore the Mckinley law, which
has been twice condemned by the people in
national elections. and which, enacted under
the false plea of protection to home industry,
proved prolific breeder of trusts and mon
opolies, enriched the few at the expense of
the many, restricted trade and deprived the
producers of the great American staples of
access to their natural markets. Until the
money question is settled, we are opposed to
any agitation for further changes in our tariff
laws, except as are necessary to make the
deficit in revenue caused by the adverse de-
cision of the Supreme Court on the income
tax. But for this decision by the Supreme
Court there would be no deficit in the rev.
enue under the law passed by Democratic
Congress in strict pursuance of the uniform
decisions of that court for nearly one hun
bred years, that court having under that de-
cision sustained constitutional objections to
its enactment which had been overrnled nv