Ottumwa semi-weekly courier. [volume] (Ottumwa, Iowa) 1899-1903, 1902-09-04
Lengthy Review of General DEM
ocratic Principles.
REPUBLICANS ARE CONGRATULATED
Platform Declares for Many Changes
Would Gust the Trusts-contains
Lengthy Plank Arraigning Admins
tration With Conduct of War.

Des Moines, Sept. 1.-The Tesolu-
tions committee, which has been de-
layed in its caucus, did not report to
the convention yesterday afternoon
until all the nominations had been
made Many of the delegates had
gone to the bail game and many more
We're anxious to set away and chafed
considerably at the delay
The Platform.
The following is the platform agreed
upon by the committee and endorsed
by the democrats OF Iowa in conven-
ton assembled:
We, the chosen representatives of
the democratic party in Iowa, in dele
gate convention assembled, hereby de-
clare anew our faith in the fundamen-
tai principles of the democratic party
and renew our allegiance thereto.
I'VE find much IN the domestic af-
fairs of the nation that ought to be
changed The tariff policy originally
adopted for the avowed purpose of
raising revenue to meet the enormous
burdens of the civil war, has been turn
ed TO use of individual and class inter-
ests until it has become the creator of
shelter Of huge combinations OF capital
organized in the form of trusts, which
are strangling competition iH many of
our industries, destroying individual
/ efforts, crushing ambition largely in
tevery5 line OF Industry and already ae-
iquiring a power which enables them to
dictate in their own interests the
prices of labor and raw material and
,n Of M or nd Of
ished products.
'We affirm the power and declare it
to be the duty of the government to
character, and by laws which can
neither be evaded nor defied drive
| them from every inch of American
soil
I'VE assert that an immediate reduc-
ton OF our tariff system to a revenue
basis is one absolutely essential rem
edy for these overshadowing evils,
without which they can never be over
come.
Republicans Are Congratulated.
We congratulate our republican
friends in Iowa who have become able
to realize that protective tariff may
| be made so high as to become a shell
ter to monopolies; but regret that their
brief reference TO the subject in their
| platform is a matter of severe criti-
| cism on the part of leading members
of their party throughout the country
and openly repudiated by many of
their own delegates in congress from
| this and other states.
That the republican part as now or
! ganized is powerless to revise the tar
| iff downwards or curb the monstrous
trusts it shelters is, as we believe,
| clearly and conclusively shown by
the present attitude OF its national
| Headers. We therefore appeal to ev-
cry citizen Of the state whose judg-
ment leads him to believe such revl-
sion necessary, to come to our aid and
help us to demonstrate to the world
that Iowa, at least, will no longer sub
nit to conditions which the conscience
of the vast majority of her people, as
We believe, does not approve.
! We charge that discrimination in
| freights by common carriers is the
handmaid of an eXorbitant protective
tariff. in fostering the gigantic trusts
that have become menace to the well
! fare of the masses, and we demand
| such changes in our interstate COM
| lISICe ACT dS may DC AtGSSSdty 10 Sc
cure the speedy punishment by i'm
prisonment of any officer or agent of
corporation engaged in interstate com
merce, who is guilty of such discrimina-
ton, and the enactment of further pro-
visions that shall make such discrim-
ination ground for prohibiting the Of
Tending corporation from transacting
the business of common carrier in
the business of interstate commerce.
We are especially proud of the fact
that our party in state and nation
alike is loyal to the principles enun-
ciated in that immortal chart of hui
man liberty, the Declaration of Ameri-
can Independence, and today with un-
shaken faith in its wisdom and JUS
tice alike We reaffirm its central and
ever enduring truth, that govern
ments derive their just power from
the consent of the governed
We charge that the republican party
in its recent administration of the af-
fairs of the nation has wonderfully vi
olated this fundamental principle of
our government upon which it's most
beneficent institutions We're built. and
must continue to rest, il their bless
ings are to be preserved for genera
tions to come.
To sustain this indictment we point
| to the fact that in the recent death
struggle of the Boer republics. in