Bismarck daily tribune. [volume] (Bismarck, Dakota [N.D.]) 1881-1916, 1910-10-27
IEMBER OF ASSOCIATED PRESS.
THE FARMER AND THE REPUB
llCANS,


LlcANs.
In the farming districts through
out the north and west the demo
Gratis intend to wage an aggressive
fight against the republican party
from this time onward till election
day." So says a Washington dis
patch in New York democratic
paper. Here's richness says the
St. Louis Globe-Democrat What can
the democratic party say for itself
if it carries it's propaganda into the
farming districts? In the platform Of
1856, the first ever drawn up by the
republican party, it was set forth to
be the right and the duty of con-
gress to prohibit in the territories
those twin relics of barbarism, polyg-
amy and slavery" At that moment
the democratic party was exerting all
its power to introduce debasing slave
labor into Kansas and Nebraska, pre-
paratory to extending it into all the
rest of the territories. In the same
platform the republicans demanded
that Kansas "be Immediately admit
ted as state of the Union, with her
present free constitution but the
democratic party attempted to erect
it into a slave state What will the
democratic orators say for their party
when they carry their fight against
yhe republicans into Kansas?
The platform of 1860, on which
;Lincoln stood in his first campaign,
demanded 1.-The passage by congress
of the complete and satisfactory
homestead measure which has al.
ready passed the house" The repub.
lican house in 1860 had passed free
homes bill This was antagonized in
the democratic senate, which propos-
ed substitute Of its own that went
only a short distance towards meet
ing the popular aspiration for free
lands to actual settlers. The repub-
licans. on the "hall-loaf" principle,
accepted the substitute, intending to
pass an honest free-homes bill when
their party gained control of the gov
eminent. Buchanan, however, vetoed
the substitute on the ground that it
OF f., 40
Unjust to the older states and that
it would go far toward demoralizing
the people, The real reason why
the democrats opposed the republican
idea was that free homes would peo-
pie the territories, would add largely
to the number Of the free states,
and would thus block the democratic
plot to extend slavery over the gov
,ernments unoccupied lands Of the
west. Although they had gigantic
democratic rebellion to suppress, the
republicans, shortly after they en-. !
tered into power in 1861. passed !;
Lfree-homes bill, which was signed by
t4incoln. and under its operation ;
many millions We're soon added to i,
the population OF the west. A repub-
-lican congress and president in 1902
enacted the national irrigation law,
which supplemented the republican :
free-homes law of forty years earlier, !
and which is abOlishing the last rem |
nant of the Great American Desert"
What answer will a democratic stump
speaker in the farming regions make
when somebody asks him why his
party few decades earlier fought the
free-homes movement and attempted
to force slave labor into the vast
spaces of the west?
Long before the democratic rebel
lion was suppressed republican
president freed the slaves in the rebel
region, and a republican congress
Immediately afterward passed the
thirteenth amendment, which the re-
publicans Of the country ratified,
-abolishing slavery throughout the en-
tire nation. The republican party
built the railroads which connected
the Atlantic with the Pacific, and thus
peopled the whole territory between
the Missouri and the big western
ocean: it pushed internal improve