The Birmingham age-herald., 1904-06-22
REPUBLICAN CONVENTION HAS
 A SMOOTH COURSE 0F SAILING
(continue- from First Paae)
The Postal SerVIce.

trators have been indicted and are being actively prosecuted
 The Postal Service.
 ''The postal service has been extended and improved. Its revenues have in- creased from $76.o00,Oo GOO in 1895 to S95, ,OOo,oo in 1899. and $144,0000OO in 1904. In dealing with these vast sums few cases or spec ulation, tri1ing in amount and by SUI bordinate officers, have occurred there as they occur in every business. Neither fear nor favor nor political or personal influence has availed to protect the wrongdoers. Their acts have been ue- tected, investigated, laid bare; they nave been dismissed from their places prose cuted criminally. indicted, many or them tried, and many of them convicted. me abuses in the carriage of secoha-class mall matter have been remedleo. lne rural free delivery has been widely ex- tended. It Is wholly the creation of re- publican administration. The last dem ocratic postmaster. general declared 1t im- practicable The first administration or Mckinley proved the contrary. At the beginning of the fiscal year 1899 there were about 200 routes In operation. There are now more than 25.000 routes, bringing a daily mail service to more than l2'OVo'- 900 of our people in rural communities enlarging the circulation of the news paper and the magazine, increasing com munication, and relieving the isolation or life on the farm.
 "The department of agriculture has been brought to a point of efficiency ana practical benefit never before known
 "The systematic collection and pubh- cation of information regarding the mag nltude and conditions of our crops IS mitigating the injury done by speculation to the farmers market.
 ITO increase the profit of the farmers toll to protect the farmers product and extend his market, and to improve the conditions of the farmers life to ad- vance the time when America shall raise within her own limits every product of the soil consumed by her people, as she makes within her own limits every nec- essary product of manufacture-these have been cardinal objects of republican administration; and we show record or practical things done toward the accom- plishment of these objects never before approached.
 Island of Cuba.
 -Four years ago we held the Island Of Cuba by military occupation The oppo- sition charged, and the people of Cuba believed, that we did not intend to keep the pledge of April 20, 1898, that when the pacification of Cuba was accomplished we should leave the government and con- trol of the island to its people. The new policy towards Cuba which should follow the fulfllment of that pledge was un- formed. During the four years it has been worked out in detail and has re- ceived effect It was communicated by IA .N,. It was embodied in the act of congress known as the Platt amendment. It was accepted by the Cuban constitutional con- vention on the 12th of October, 1901. It secured to Cuba her liberty and her in- dependence, but 1t required her to main tain them. It forbade her ever to use the freedom we had earned for her by so great a sacrifice of blood and treasure, to give the island to any other power; 1t re- quired her to maintain a government ad- equate for the protection of life and and liberty, and should she fail, it gave us the right to intervene for the of such government. And it gave us the right to naval stations upon her coast for the protection and de- fense alike of Cuba and the United States.
 "on the goth of May, 1902. under con stitution which embodied these stipu- lations the government and control of Cuba were surrendered to the President and congress elected by her people, and the American army sailed away.
 The Philippines.
 When the last national convention met the Philippines also were under military rule. The insurrectos from the mountains spread terror among tho peaceful people by midnight foray and secret assassina- tion. Aguinaldo bided his time In se- cret retreat. Over seventy thousand American soldiers. from more than five hundred stations. held still vigorous en- emy in check. The Philippine commission had not yet begun it's work.
 "The last vestge of insurrection has been swept away. With their work ac- over 55,000 American troops have been brought back across the Pa- rifc. Civil government has been estab- ished throughout the Archipelago. Peace and order and justice prevail. The Phil ppine commission, guided at first by ex- ecutive order and then by the wise leg slation of congress in the Philippine gov arnment act of July 1, 1902 have estab- ished and conducted a government which nas been a credit to their country and blessing to the people of the islands. The body of laws which they have enacted upon careful and intelligent study of the needs of the country challenges compar- son with the statutes of any country.
 lsthmlan Canal.
 "In 1900 the project of an isthmian canal stood where 1t was left by the Bulwer treaty of 1850. For half a century 1t had halted, with Great Britain resting upon a joint right of control, and the great undertaking of de Lesseps struggling against the doom of failure imposed by extravaganza and cor ruption. On the 18th of Novemoer, 1901, the Hay -Paunceforte treaty with Great Britain relieved the enterprise of the right of British control and left that right ex- in the United States. Then fol- lowed swiftly the negotiations and pro- tocols with Nicaragua; the isthmian canal act of June 2S, 1902; the just agree ment with the French Canal company to pay them the value of the work they had done: the negotiation and ratifica- tion of the treaty with Columbia; the rejection of that treaty by Columbia in violation of our rights and the worlds rights to the passage of the isthmus; the seizure of Panama of the opportuni- ty to renew her oft-repeated effort to throw off the hateful and oppressive yoke of Columbia and resume the independence which once had been hers, and of which she had been deprived by fraud and force; the success of the revolution; our recognition of the new republic followed by recognition from substantially all the civilized powers of the world; the treaty with Panama recognizing and confirming our right to construct the canal: the rat ification of the treaty by the senate; confirmatory legislation by congress; the payment of the $50,000000 to the French