The Hays free press. [volume] (Hays, Kan.) 1908-1924, 1920-09-23
What Has the Republican Party
Accomnli.hed1

for honest and efficient service, is
found in the record of that individ-
aal's or that organizations achieve
ments.
Any individual or organization can
make promises. Not all individuals
and organizations can furnish a re-
cord Of service that makes the prom
Use worthy of belief.
The best evidence of what it may
be possible for the Republican party
to do, If returned to power in this
republic by the people at the national
election nov little more than seven
months away, is adduced from what
the Republican party actually did do
during more than half century of
almost uninterrupted Republican con-
troll. For only two years prior to the
election of Woodrow Wilson as Presi-
dent in 1912 was the Democratic
party in complete control of both
legislative and executive branches of
the federal government. The story
of the nation from 1861 to 1913 is, in
effect, the story of the Republican
party.
What did the Republican party ac-
complish in the national behalf dur
ing that fifty years?
It established once and for all the
principle that the United States is a
nation, an indisso1uble Union, and not
loose confederacy of petty states.
1t abolished human slavery; made
American democracy a reality rather
than theory.
It elected Abraham Lincoln Presi-
dent of the United States, and upheld
his hands through the four long,
bloody years which made his name i'm
mortal and the Union eternal.
It paid the gigantic debt created by
the nations greatest war, preserved
the national credit, created a banking
system under which the American
people achieved a prosperity unex-
ampled in human history, resumed
specie payment, and defeated repeat
ed efforts to debase the national cur
rency.
It threw open the great West to
development through the homestead
policy of free land for the landless,
the pacifcation of savage tribes, the
encouragement of transcontinental
railroads, and the policy of internal
Improvement which brought the
strength of the nation to the accom-
plishment of tasks beyond the power
of individual effort to perform.
1t established and maintained al
most uninterruptedly for more than
a half century the American policy
of protection, under which the
American standard of wages and liv-
ing was kept at the highest level
known in history; under which the
domestic and foreign trade of the
United States attained proportions
unprecedented in this or any other
nation, and made this country the
richest of this or any other period IN
history; under which the American
masses enjoyed diffused prosperity,
a range of opportunity, and intelli-
gence and an initiative prevalent
among "the common people" of nc
other nation that ever existed; under
which labor ceased to be the fixed
function of a caste or class, under
which there was no slave, no peon, no
peasant, no coolie; nation which be-
came to such degree the hope and
admiration of the world that there
rushed into it during the half century
of Republican control the greatest
current of immigration that ever
swept upon a nations shores. Under
Republican policies and Republican
commercial prosperity and political
stability this mighty army of aliens
was absorbed into the great body of
the American people without conflict
or disturbance. The alien was being
lifted up toward the American level
rather than the American being level
ed down to the alien standard.
It fulfilled the pledge of Lincoln
to the volunteer soldier of the repub-
1lcS Ills W1UOW d4LA WIN q gu
crosby unparalleled in the history OF
governments.
It made the Monroe Doctrine, safe
guarding the affairs of this hemis-
phere from European entanglements
an International rather than an Amer
lean tenet; it drove France from the
soil of Mexico; it drove Spain from
Cuba, Porto Rico and the Philippines
it bought Alaska; it peacefully settled
questions of differences in our rela
tions with Canada; it made the dom
nance of the United States in thu
affairs of the new world unchallenged
and it's influence in the affairs of tn
whole world unquestioned.
It forced reparation from Englan'
for the depredations of British bull
cruisers during the Rebellion; it main
tanned everywhere and Away
throughout the world the dignity an,
security of American citizenship.
Tn +ho orient America gave tn