The Irish standard., 1900-06-30
THE PHILADELPHIA PLATFORM.

1t is admitted on all hands that the
Republican platform adopted at Phila-
delphia last week is the biggest hodge
podge that ever cmanated from any po-
litical party during the existence of the
American republic. 1t pleases nobody,
even those who drafted it. Congress
man Grosvenor, of Ohio, close friend
of President Mckinley and his cham
pion on all OCCASIONS, contributed a
plank to the platform. He says it was
not inserted as he wrote it, and the
meaning has been changed in the
phraseology. Congressman Quigg, of
New York. denies the allegation and
defes the alligator from Ohio. Martin
B. Madden, of Illinois, cries "peccavi"
and admits that as member OF the
subcommittee on platform be changed
the word "Nicaraguan" to "isthmian +"
Commenting on the controversy the
Minneapolis Journal says:
There isn't anything in the platform
that can be quoted with any effect in the
campaign. AS piece OF literature, Wig
orous, strong and impressive, it is about
the poorest specimen ever put UP by the
Republican party 1t remains for Nc
Kinley and Roosevelt, in their letter OF
acceptance, to enunciate Republican
principles and Republican ideas in a
way that will make these principles and
these ideas stick to the minds of those
who read them. There is nothing in the
platform that anybody can or would
care to remember in the form in which
it is written"
If a Democratic paper had expressed
the foregoing opinion OF the Philadel-
phia platform our lingo contemporary
would be the first to raise the cry of
partisan prejudice, but as the Journal
scornfully pronounces it "the poorest
specimen ever put up by the Republican
party so far as the composition is
concerned, it must be very poor indeed.
The subcommittee that prepared the
draft consisted of six United States sem
ators, including our own oratorical
Cushman K. Davis, a congressman,
newspaper man, and Chicago alder
man. The congressman and alderman
seem to have had more to do with it
than the newspaper man or the sena-
tors, and that may account for the slip
slop style in which the platform is con-
structed in English cas- she is spoke"
But leaving the composition aside,
what are the principles enunciated in
the platform adopted in the cradle of
liberty? According to its trainers there
are two kinds Of trusts, one OF which is
condemned and the other favored Moth
ing is said OF an amendment to the
constitution to restrain the harmful
trusts, after all the pow-wow in con-
gress few weeks ago. 1t declares that
the existing laws are sufficient to protect
the people from their ravages. But
what good are existing laws if they are
not enforced? McKinley's attorney
general, Griggs, of New Jersey, has re-
peatedly declared that the laws cannot
be enforced, and he folds his arms and
allows the trusts to prey on the people
without attempting to check them The
Dingley protective tariff, the mother
of trusts" according to Havemeyer OF
the sugar trust, is eulogized in the plat
form. The plank on trusts is therefore
dishonest and insincere, and is intended
to bamboozle the voters in the approach
ing campaign.
A labor plank is inserted in the plat
form. It advocates such legislation as
will secure the greatest amount of en-
pleyment at the highest wages, and ia
vors some plan of arbitration on labor
disputes. When disputes have arisen
between capital and labor during Nc
Kinley's administration in the Idaho
mines the government took the side of
the mine owners against their employees.
Labor need expect but scant courtesy
from the Republicans, except at cleo