Year: 1876

an artlUClat scarcity OF currency
or disturbing the public or COM
mercIal credit, and that these re-
forms, together with the restora-
ton of pure government, viii re
store general confidence, encourage
the useful investment OF capital,
furnish employment to labor and
relieve the country from the pa
ralysis of hard times. With the
industries of the people there have
been frequent interferences, Our
platform truly says that many in
dustries have been impoverished to
subsidize a few. Our commerce
has been degraded to an inferior
position on the high seas, manufac-
lures have been diminished, agri
culture has been embarrassed, and
the distress of the industrial classes
demands that these things shall be
reformed, The burdens Of the peo-
pie must also be frightened by great
change in our system Of public ex-
penses. The profigate expenditures
which increased taxation from $5
per capita III 1860 to SIS in 1870
tells its own story of our need of
fiscal reform.


Our treaties with foreign power
should also be revised and amended
in so far as they leave our citizens
of foreign birth in any particular
less secure in any country on earth
than they would if they had been
born upon our soil.


The iniquitous coolie system,
which through the agency of veal
thy companies, imports Chinese
bondmen and establishes a species
of slavery and interferes with the
just rewards of labor on our Pacific
coast should be utterly abolished.


In the reform of our Civil Service
I most heartily endorse that section
of the platform which declares that
The Civil Service ought not to be
subject to change at every electiou,
and that it ought not to be made
the brief reward of party zeal, but
ought to be awarded for proved
competency and held for fidelity in
public employ. hope never again
to see the cruel and remorseless
prescription for political opinions.
which has disgraced the admins.
tration of the last eight years. Bad
as the CIVIL Service now is, as all
know, it has some men Of tried in
tegrity and proved ability. Such
men, and such men only, should be
retained in office; but no man
should be retained in any consid-
Grafton who has prostituted his of
flee to the purposes of partisan in
timidation or compulsion, or who
has furnished money to corrupt the
elections. This is done and has
been done in almost every county
of the land 1t is a blight upon the
morals of the country and ought
TO be reformed.


OF sectional contentious and in
respect to our common schools,
have only this to say, that in my
judgement the man or party that
would involve our schools in polit-
zeal or sectional controversies is an
enemy TO the schools. The com
mon schools are so far under the
protecting care Of the people than
under the control of any party or
sect, that they must be neither sec
tartan nor partisan, and there must
be neither division nor misapprOpri-
alton of the funds for their support.


Likewise I regard the man who
would arouse or foster sectional an
ImosiUes and antagonisms among
his countrymen as dangerous en-
envy to his country. All the peo-
pie must be made to feel and know
that once more there is established
a purpose and policy under which
all citizens of every condition, race
and color will be secure in the en-
joyment of whatever rights the
constitution and laws declare or
recognize, and that in the contro-
versies that may arise, the govern
ment is not a partisan, but within
its constitutional authority the just
and powerful guardian of the rights
and safety of all The strife be-
tween the sections and between the
races will cease as soon as the pow
er for evils is taken away from
party that makes political gain out
of scenes of violence and blood
shed, and the constitutional au-
thority is placed in the hands of men
whose political welfare requires
that peace and good order shall be
preserved everywhere.


1t viii be seen, gentlemen, that /
am in entire accord with the plat
form Of the convention by which 1
have been nominated as a candi-
date for the Office of Vice President
Of the United States. Permit me
in conclusion to express my salts
faction at being associated with a
candidate for the Presidency who
is first among his equals as a rep
resentative of the spirit off the
achievements Of reform. In his Of
fetal career, as the executive of the
great State of New York, he has in
a comparatively short period, re-
formed the public service and re-
duced the public burden so as TO
have earned at once the gratitude
of his State and the admiration of
the country. The people know him
to be thoroughly in earnest. He
has shown himself to be possessed
of powers and qualities which fit
him in an eminent degree for the
great work of reformation which
this country now needs, and if he
shall be chosen by the people to the
high Office Of President of the Uni
ted States, believe that the day Of
his Inauguration viii be the begin


ming of a new era Of peace, purity


and prosperity in all the depart


ments of our government.


am, gentlemen, your obedient
I servant,


THOMAS A. HENDRICKS.
To the Hon. John a. McClernand,
Chairman, and others Of the Commit


tee ofthe National Democratic Con-
yentiOn.


When you reflect that at picnics


a hundred years ago it was the Gus
tom for the girls TO stand up in q


row and let the men kiss them al