The news & observer. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 1894-current, 1896-06-21
THE REPUBLICAN PLATFORM.

a
There is but one plank in the plat
form adopted at st. Louis that attracts
special interest, for the people have
decreed that there shall be but one
issue in this campaign. There are
seventeen planks in the platform
touching upon questions as wide aparr
as temperance and suffering Cuba. but
not one voter in a hundred thou
sand will care to read any dec
laration except the one on the money
question. So deep was the interest,"
centered in that declaration that Mr.
Foraker was permitted to put in al
the platitudes he and Mckinley desired
about everything else. They were
even allowed to let protection, reel
prosity and merchant marine take
precedence in the platform to the cur
rency plank, to humor Mr.. Mckinley
hallucination that protection is the
great issue in the campaign. The golC
plank, is as follows:
The Republican party is unre-
seryedly for sound money. 1t
caused the enactment of the law
providing for the resumption of
specie payment in 1879; since then
every dollar has been as good as
gold.
We are unalterably opposed to
every measure calculated to de
base our currency or impair the
credit of the country. We are,
therefore, opposed to the free
coinage of silver, except by inter-
national agreement with the lead
ing commercial nations of the
world, which we pledge ourselves
to promote; and, until such agree
ment can be obtained, the existing
gold standard must be preserved.
All our silver and paper currency
must be maintained at parity with
gold, and we favor all measures
designed to maintain inyiolable
the obligations of the United
States and all our money, whether
coin or paper, at the present stand
ard, the standard of tine laost en-
lightened nations of the earth
A demand + made for protection
that will brir prosperity, fill The
Treasury, and. or the expectation o
gold, whereas ldee The operations o
the Mckinley It q surplus was con
verted into a aficit, $120,000,000 o
gold exported, and bonds engraved t.
secure money to meet the extrava
gance of the billion dollar Congress
Protection destroyed our merchan
marine, and yet there is demand foi
restoring it by discriminating duties.
Big pensinos are promised, there il
sympathy for the Armenians, endorse
ment of the Monroe Doctrine, tn,
building of the Nicaragua Canal ap
proved, this country's good Office
promised to secure peace to Cuba,
better navy favored, the immigration
of foreigners who cannot read or writ
opposed, the enforcement and exten
sion civil service, enacted by the Re
publican party, promised watch j
Wiley weep y, a free ballot demanded
lynchings denounced, arbitration op
posed, free homestead measure prom
Used. the admission of new territorie
and home rule therein declared to b
among the legislation that will be en-
acted, temperance is commended, ant
those women who are hostile to Dem
ocrats and Populists patted on tn
back.
There is an entire absence of any Wig
orous demand for warlike policy
such as Lodge and Boutelle have beer
demanding. The Cuban resolution il
in keeping with the policy of the Pres
ident, and is carefully worded so as t.
avoid any committal of the recogni
ton even of belligerent rights of thu
Cubans. Their '1reathes no fire ever
when Hawaii referred to, and tn
proposition to annex it to the Unitet
States, so ardently advocated by Re
publicans two years ago, IS abandoned
and declaration that Mr.. Cleyelant
would approve, to-wit: "The Hawaii
an islands should be controlled by thu
United States and no foreign Powe
be permitted to interfere with them
is the only statement that remains o
the iingoism that stirred the Republi
can orators in 1894. The peaceful ton'
of the platform, as distinguished from
Republican action and speeches for TIN
past three years, is easily explained
The gold standard men want peace
with or without honor. A party tina
is dominated by the gold men, loses it
sympathy with the oppressed abroad
a well as at home.
WHO HOBART is.