1900 Democratic Party Platform
(2,603 words, 4 pages)
We, the representatives of the Democratic party of the United States assembledin National Convention, on the Anniversary of the adoption of the Declarationof Independence, do reaffirm our faith in that immortal proclamation ofthe inalienable rights of man, and our allegiance to the Constitution framedin harmony therewith by the fathers of the Republic. We hold with the UnitedStates Supreme Court that the Declaration of Independence is the spiritof our government, of which the Constitution is the form and letter.
We declare again that all governments instituted among men derive theirjust powers from the consent of the governed, that any government not basedupon the consent of the governed is a tyranny, and that to impose upon anypeople a government of force is to substitute the methods of imperialismfor those of a republic. We hold that the Constitution follows the flag,and denounce the doctrine that an Executive or Congress deriving their existenceand their powers from the Constitution can exercise lawful authority beyondit or in violation of it. We assert that no nation can long endure halfrepublic and half empire, and we warn the American people that imperialismabroad will lead quickly and inevitably to despotism at home.
Believing in these fundamental principles, we denounce the Porto Ricanlaw enacted by a Republican Congress against the protest and oppositionof the Democratic minority as a bold and open violation of the nation'sorganic law and a flagrant breach of the national good faith. It imposesupon the people of Porto Rico a government without their consent and taxationwithout representation. It dishonors the American people by repudiatinga solemn pledge made in their behalf by the Commanding General of our Army,which the Porto Ricans welcomed to a peaceful and unresisted occupationof their land. It dooms to poverty and distress a people whose helplessnessappeals with peculiar force to our justice and magnanimity. In this, thefirst act of its imperialistic programme the Republican party seeks to committhe United States to a colonial policy, inconsistent with republican institutionsand condemned by the Supreme Court in numerous decisions.
We demand the prompt and honest fulfillment of our pledge to the Cubanpeople and the world that the United States has no disposition nor intentionto exercise sovereignty jurisdiction, or control over the Island of Cuba,except for its pacification. The war ended nearly two years ago, profoundpeace reigns over all the island, and still the administration keeps thegovernment of the island from its people, while Republican carpet-bag officialsplunder its revenues and exploit the colonial theory, to the disgrace ofthe American people.
We condemn and denounce the Philippine policy of the present administration.It has involved the Republic in an unnecessary war, sacrificed the livesof many of our noblest sons and placed the United States, previously knownand applauded throughout the world as the champion of freedom, in the falseand un-American position of crushing with military force the efforts ofour former allies to achieve liberty and self-government. The Filipinoscannot be citizens without endangering our civilization, they cannot besubjects without imperiling our form of government, and as we are not willingto surrender our civilization nor to convert the Republic into an empire,we favor an immediate declaration of the nation's purpose to give the filipinosfirst a stable form of government; second, independence; and third, protectionfrom outside interference, such as has been given for nearly a century tothe republics of Central and South America.
The greedy commercialism which dictated the Philippine policy of theRepublican administration attempts to justify it with the plea that it willpay, but even this sordid and unworthy plea fails when brought to the testof facts. The war of "criminal aggression" against the Filipinos,entailing an annual expense of many millions, has already cost more thanany possible profit that could accrue from the entire Philippine trade foryears to come. Furthermore, when trade is extended at the expense of liberty,the price is always too high.
We are not opposed to territorial expansion when it takes in desirableterritory which can be erected into States in the Union, and whose peopleare willing and fit to become American citizens. We favor trade expansionby every peaceful and legitimate means. But we are unalterably opposed toseizing or purchasing distant islands to be governed outside the Constitution,and whose people can never become citizens.
We are in favor of extending the Republic's influence among the nations,but we believe that that influence should be extended not by force and violence,but through the persuasive power of a high and honorable example.
The importance of other questions, now pending before the American peopleis no wise diminished and the Democratic party takes no backward step fromits position on them, but the burning issue of imperialism growing out ofthe Spanish war involves the very existence of the Republic and the destructionof our free institutions. We regard it as the paramount issue of the campaign.
The declaration in the Republican platform adopted at the PhiladelphiaConvention, held in June, 1900, that the Republican party "steadfastlyadheres to the policy announced in the Monroe Doctrine" is manifestlyinsincere and deceptive. This profession is contradicted by the avowed policyof that party in opposition to the spirit of the Monroe Doctrine to acquireand hold sovereignty over large areas of territory and large numbers ofpeople in the Eastern Hemisphere. We insist on the strict maintenance ofthe Monroe Doctrine in all its integrity, both in letter and in spirit,as necessary to prevent the extension of European authority on this Continentand as essential to our supremacy in American affairs. At the same timewe declare that no American people shall ever be held by force in unwillingsubjection to European authority.
We oppose militarism. It means conquest abroad and intimidation and oppressionat home. It means the strong arm which has ever been fatal to free institutions.It is what millions of our citizens have fled from in Europe. It will imposeupon our peace loving people a large standing army and unnecessary burdenof taxation, and will be a constant menace to their liberties. A small standingarmy and a well-disciplined state militia are amply sufficient in time ofpeace. This republic has no place for a vast military establishment, a sureforerunner of compulsory military service and conscription. When the nationis in danger the volunteer soldier is his country's best defender. The NationalGuard of the United States should ever be cherished in the patriotic heartsof a free people. Such organizations are ever an element of strength andsafety. For the first time in our history, and coeval with the Philippineconquest, has there been a wholesale departure from our time honored andapproved system of volunteer organization. We denounce it as un-American,un-Democratic and un-Republican, and as a subversion of the ancient andfixed principles of a free people.
Private monopolies are indefensible and intolerable. They destroy competition,control the price of all material, and of the finished product, thus robbingboth producer and consumer. They lessen the employment of labor, and arbitrarilyfix the terms and conditions thereof; and deprive individual energy andsmall capital of their opportunity of betterment.
They are the most efficient means yet devised for appropriating the fruitsof industry to the benefit of the few at the expense of the many, and unlesstheir insatiate greed is checked, all wealth will be aggregated in a fewhands and the Republic destroyed. The dishonest paltering with the trustevil by the Republican party in State and national platforms is conclusiveproof of the truth of the charge that trusts are the legitimate productof Republican policies, that they are fostered by Republican laws, and thatthey are protected by the Republican administration, in return for campaignsubscriptions and political support.
We pledge the Democratic party to an unceasing warfare in nation, Stateand city against private monopoly in every form. Existing laws against trustsmust be enforced and more stringent ones must be enacted providing for publicityas to the affairs of corporations engaged in interstate commerce requiringall corporations to show, before doing business outside the state of theirorigin, that they have no water in their stock, and that they have not attempted,and are not attempting, to monopolize any branch of business or the productionof any articles of merchandise; and the whole constitutional power of Congressover interstate commerce, the mails and all modes of interstate communication,shall be exercised by the enactment of comprehensive laws upon the subjectof trusts. Tariff laws should be amended by putting the products of trustsupon the free list, to prevent monopoly under the plea of protection. Thefailure of the present Republican administration, with an absolute controlover all the branches of the
national government, to enact any legislation designed to prevent or evencurtail the absorbing power of trusts and illegal combinations, or to enforcethe anti-trust laws already on the statute books proves that insincerityof the high-sounding phrases of the Republican platform.
Corporations should be protected in all their rights and their legitimateinterests should be respected, but any attempt by corporations to interferewith the public affairs of the people or to control the sovereignty whichcreates them, should be forbidden under such penalties as will make suchattempts impossible.
We condemn the Dingley tariff law as a trust breeding measure, skillfullydevised to give the few favors which they do not deserve, and to place uponthe many burdens which they should not bear.
We favor such an enlargement of the scope of the interstate commercelaw as will enable the commission to protect individuals and communitiesfrom discrimination, and the public from unjust and unfair transportationrates.
We reaffirm and indorse the principles of the National Democratic Platformadopted at Chicago in 1896, and we reiterate the demand of that platformfor an American financial system made by the American people for themselves,and which shall restore and maintain a bi-metallic price level and as partof such system the immediate restoration of the free and unlimited coinageof silver and gold at the present legal ratio of 16 to 1, without waitingfor the aid or consent of any other nation.
We denounce the currency bill enacted at the last session of Congressas a step forward in the Republican policy which aims to discredit the sovereignright of the National Government to issue all money, whether coin or paper,and to bestow upon national banks the power to issue and control the volumeof paper money for their own benefit. A permanent national bank currency,secured by government bonds, must have a permanent debt to rest upon, and,if the bank currency is to increase with population and business the debtmust also increase. The rep currency scheme is, therefore, a scheme forfastening upon the taxpayers a perpetual and growing debt for the benefitof the banks. We are opposed to this private corporation paper circulatedas money, but without legal tender qualities, and demand the retirementof national bank notes as fast as government paper or silver certificatescan be substituted for them.
We favor an amendment to the Federal Constitution, providing for theelection of United States Senators by direct vote of the people, and wefavor direct legislation wherever practicable.
We are opposed to government by injunction; we denounce the blacklist,and favor arbitration as a means of settling disputes between corporationsand their employees.
In the interest of American labor and the uplifting of the workingman,as the cornerstone of the prosperity of our country, we recommend that Congresscreate a Department of Labor, in charge of a secretary, with a seat in theCabinet, believing that the elevation of the American laborer will bringwith it increased production and increased prosperity to our country athome and to our commerce abroad.
We are proud of the courage and fidelity of the American soldiers andsailors in all our wars; we favor liberal pensions to them and their dependents,and we reiterate the position taken in the Chicago Platform of 1896, thatthe fact of enlistment and service shall be deemed conclusive evidence againstdisease and disability before enlistment.
We favor the immediate construction, ownership and control of the NicaraguanCanal by the United States, and we denounce the insincerity of the plankin the Republican National Platform for an Isthmian Canal in face of thefailure of the Republican majority to pass the bill pending in Congress.
We condemn the Hay-Pauncefote treaty as a surrender of American rightsand interests not to be tolerated by the American people.
We denounce the failure of the Republican party to carry out its pledgesto grant statehood to the territories of Arizona, New Mexico and Oklahoma,and we promise the people of those territories immediate statehood and homerule during their condition as territories, and we favor home rule and aterritorial form of government for Alaska and Porto Rico.
We favor an intelligent system of improving the arid lands of the West,storing the waters for the purpose of irrigation, and the holding of suchlands for actual settlers.
We favor the continuance and strict enforcement of the Chinese exclusionlaw, and its application to the same classes of all Asiatic races.
Jefferson said, "Peace, commerce and honest friendship with allnations; entangling alliance with none." We approve this wholesomedoctrine, and earnestly protest against the Republican departure which hasinvolved us in so-called world politics, including the diplomacy of Europeand the intrigue and land-grabbing of Asia, and we especially condemn theill-concealed Republican alliance with England which must mean discriminationagainst other friendly nations, and which has already stifled the nation'svoice while liberty is being strangled in Africa.
Believing in the principles of self-government and rejecting, as didour forefathers, the claim of monarchy, we view with indignation the purposeof England to overwhelm with force the South African Republics. Speaking,as we believe for the entire American nation except its Republican officeholders and for all freemen everywhere, we extend our sympathies to theheroic burghers in their unequal struggle to maintain their liberty andindependence.
We denounce the lavish appropriations of recent Republican Congresses,which have kept taxes high and which threaten the perpetuation of the oppressivewar levies. We oppose the accumulation of a surplus to be squandered insuch barefaced frauds upon the taxpayers as the shipping subsidy bill, which,under the false pretense of prospering American shipbuilding, would putunearned millions into the pockets of favorite contributors to the Republicancampaign fund. We favor the reduction and speedy repeal of the war taxes,and a return to the time-honored Democratic policy of strict ecnomy in governmentalexpenditures.
Believing that our most cherished institutions are in great peril, thatthe very existence of our constitutional republic is at stake, and thatthe decision now to be rendered will determine whether or not our childrenare to enjoy these blessed privileges of free government which have madethe United States great, prosperous and honored, we earnestly ask for theforegoing declaration of principles, the hearty support of the liberty-lovingAmerican people regardless of previous party affiliations.