Barbour County index. [volume] (Medicine Lodge, Kan.) 1880-current, 1904-07-20
petite for national prestige" and ais

the dead and hateful race and sectional
animosities in any part of our common
country means confusion, distraction or
business and the reopening OF wounds
now happily healed. North. south, east
and west have but recently stood together
in line of battle from the walls of Pekin
TO the hills of Santiago and as sharers
OF a common glory and common des-
tiny We should share fraternally the COM
mon burdens. We therefore deprecate
and condemn the Bourbon-like selfish
and narrow spirit of the recent repub-
ican convention at Chicago which sought
to kindle anew the enbers of racial and
sectional strife, and we appeal from 1t to
the sober common sense and patriotic
spirit of the American people.
The existing republican administration
has been spasmodic, erratic, sensational,
spectacular and arbitrary. 1t has made
itself satire upon the congress, the
courts and upon the settled practices and
usages of national and International law.
1t summoned the congress into hasty
and futile extra session and virtually adj
Journed 1t, leaving behind its flight from
Washington uncalled calendars and I'M
accomplished tasks. 1t made war, which
Is the sole power of congress, without
its authority, thereby usurping one of its
fundamental prerogatives. 1t violated
plain statute of the United States as
well as plain treaty obligations, interna-
tional usages, and constitutional law; and
has done so under pretense of executing
great public policy which could have
been more easily effected lawfully, con-
stitutionally and with honor 1t forced
strained and unnatural constructions
upon statutes, usurping judicial inter-
probation and substituting congressional
enactment by decree. 1t withdrew from
congress it's customary duties of inveSti-
cation which have heretofore made the
representatives of the people and the
states the terror of evildoerS. 1t con-
Quoted a secretive investigation of its
own and boosted of a few sample con-
victs while it threw broad coverlet over
the bureaus which had been their chosen
field of operative abuses and kept in
power the superior officers under whose
administration the crimes had been COM
mitted. 1t ordered assault upon some
monopolieS. but paraylZed by its first vic
tory, it flung out the flag of truce and
cried out that it would not run amuck'
leaving its future purposes beclouded by
Its vacillations.
The democracy when entrusted with
power will construct the Panama canal
speedily, honestly and economically,
thereby giving to our people what demo-
Gratis have always contended for a great
interoceanic canal, furnishing shorter and
cheaper lines of transportation and
broader and less trammeled trade rela-
lions with the other peoples of the world.
We favor liberal trade arrangements
with Canada and with peoples of other
countries where they can be entered into
with benefit to the American agriculture,
manufactures, mining and commerce.
We favor the admission of the terrific
rieS of Oklahoma and the Indian terri
tory. We also favor the immediate ad-
mission of Arizona and New Mexico as
separate states and territorial govern
ment for Alaska and Porto Rico We
hold that the officials appointed to ad-
miniser the government of any territory,
as we'll as with the District of Alaska,
should be bona fide residents at the time
of their appointment of the territory or
district in which their duties are to be
performed.
We favor the maintenance of the Mon
roe doctrine in its full integrity.
We favor the reduction of the army and
of army expenditure to the point his
tor1cally demonstrated to be safe and
sufficient
The democracy would secure to the sur
viving soldiers and sailors and their de-
pendents generous pensions, not by an
arbitrary executive order, but by legis-
lation which a grateful people stand
ready to enact. Our soldiers and sailors
who defend with their lives the consti-
tuition and the laws have a sacred inter-
est In their just administration. They
must therefore share with us the humilia-
ton with which we have witnessed the
eXaltatfon Of court favorites, without dis
tinguished service, over the SCARED he
roeS of many battles; or aggrandized by
executive appropriations out of the treas
ur1eS of a PROSTATE people, in violation
of the act of congress which fixes the
compensation and allowances Of the mil
itary officers.
We denounce the ship subsidy bill re-
Gently passed by the United States sem
ate as an Ubiquitous appropriation of
public funds for private purposes and
a wasteful, illogical and useless attempt
n nNyn INV ,I1-fl,
raised by republican legislation to the
growth and development of American
/ commerce on the sea.
We favor the upbuildfhg of a merchant
marine without new additional bur-
dens upon the people and without boun-
ties from the public treasury
The democratic party stands commit
ted to the principles of civil service re-
form and we demand the honest lust
and impartial enforcement We denounce
the republican party for its continuous
and sinister encroachments upon the
spirit and operation of civil service rules,
whereby it has arbitrarily dispensed with
examinations for Office in the interests of
favorites, and employed all manner of
devices to over-reach and set aside the
principles upon which the civil service
was established.
We demand the determination of polyg-
amy within the Jurisdiction of the United
states and the complete separation Of
church and state in political affairs.
We congratulate our western citizens
upon the passage of the measure known
as the Newlands irrigation act for the
irrigation and reclamation of the arid
lands or the west-a non-partisan vote
and passed in the house against the op-
position of almost all the republican
leaders by vote the majority of which
was democratic We call attention to this
great democratic measure broad and
comprehensive as 1t is, working automat-
1caily throughout all time without fur
Their action of congress, until the re-
clamation OF all the lands in the arid west
capable of reclamation is accomplished.
reserving the lands reclaimed for home
seekers in small tracts, and rigidly guard
| ing against land monopoly. as an evidence
OF the policy of domestic development
| contemplated by the democratic party.
| should it be placed in power
We favor the preservation, so far as
| We can, of an open door for the worlds
| commerce in the orient without unnec-
essary ENHANCEMENT in oriental and