the country, with its farmers and!^ the workingmen, demand that every dollar, paper or coin, issued by
the government, shall be as good as any other.
Free Coinage of Silver.— We urge that the United States exert its influence to establish with
the important commercial nations of the world such an international commerce as \vill enable this
eountrj' to reopen Its mints to the free, unlimited coinage of both metals, without the loss of one or the
other from, the volume of our money.
Immigration.— The honest and industrious immigrant who comes to our land with the intent to
become in good faith an American citizen is always welcome. None . others should be permitted to
come We favor the amendment and more stringent enforcement of the immigration laws so as to
exclude criminals, paupers and all other undesirable classes whose presence tends to degrade Am.3rican
labor and incite disorder.
The Soldiers.— The Republican party, ever mindful of the patriotic sacrifices of the veteran
soldiers of the republic, reaffirms its position in favor of liberality to the nation's defenders. We
favor the granting of pensions to all honorably discharged Union soldiers and sailors whose disabili-
ties or necessities justly entitle them thereto.
KENTUCKY DEMOCRATIC PLATFORM.
Protection Denonnced. — The Democracy of Kentucky, in convention assembled, congratulates
the country upon the repeal of the McKinley Tariff law, and upon the evidences we have on every
hand of returning prosperity, under the operations of reduced and equalized tariff taxation, and we
denounce as fraught with danger and disaster the threat of our Republican adversaries to re-establish
a protective tariff and to reinaugurate a policy of unequal taxation, which, in connectior with general
misgovernment by the Republican party, culminated in the business panic of 1893,
Sectarianism.— The Democratic Party, which has always stood for the separation of church and
state for the sake alike of civil and religious freedom, does not he.sitate to condemn all efforts to
create distinction among citizens because of differences in faith as repugnant to an enlightened age
and abhorrent to the instincts of American freemen.
Cleveland! Carlisle, and Sound Money. —We affirm without qualification the principles and
policies declared by the National Democratic platform of 1892, and declare that our present National
Democratic Administration is entitled to the thanks of thepart;v' for its honest, courageous, and states-
manlike management of public affairs, and we express our undiminished confidence in the Democracy
and patriotism of President Grover Cleveland and his distinguished co- adviser and Secretary, John G.
Carlisle, of Kentucky.
MARYLAND DEMOCRATIC PLATFORM.
President Cleveland Tndorsed.-Upon the declaration of principles set forth in the National
Democratic platform of 1892, and under the inspiring leadership of our great candidate, Grover
Cleveland, the Democracv of the Union obtained control of the Government in the memorable con-
test of that year, and in full view of the important events which have since occurred, the representa-
tives of the Democracy of Maryland in State Convention assembled proclaim their firm adherence to
the principles declared in that platform and their unabated confidence in the wisdom, patriotism and
fldtelity of President Cleveland.
Free Silver.— We heartily commend his administration for the vigor and success with which it
has met and overcome the many and great difficulties which the Administration of President Harri-
son and the Republican Party left it to deal with, and especially for the courage, sagacity and ability
which it has displayed in its determined and resolute efforts to rescue the country from the deplorable
evils of a fluctuating, unstable and debased currency, and to crush the pernicious financial heresy of
the free coinage of silver at the ratio of 16 to 1.
The Tariff— Our platform denounced the McKinley tariff law as the culminating atrocity of
class legislation. It has been repealed and in its stead we have a law which, while not containing all
that the advanced advocates of tariff reform hoped would be secured, gives us, nevertheless, the
best tariff which the country has had for thirty -five years, and enables us to exult in the accom-
plished fact that under its practical operation we have come to the full enjovment of the blessings of
restored confidence and renewed prosperity in all branches of industry, while, at the same time, the
National Treasury will be supplied with revenues sufficient to meet all the obligations of the GK)vern-
meut and maintain unimpaired its high credit at home and abroad.
MASSACHUSETTS DEMOCRATIC PLATFORM.
President Cleveland's Ailministration.- The Democrats of Massachusetts, in convention
assembled, again declare their allegiance to the principles of government formulated by Thomas
JeflFerson, and illustrated by a long line of i distinguished successors, from Madison to Cleveland. We
commend the present Administration for its dignified, energetic, and patriotic management of our
foreign affairs; for the economies and reforms effected in the various branches of the Federal service,
and for the many improvements in the civil service, particularly the recent order concerning foreign
Consuls.
The New Tariff.— We congratulate the manufacturing interests of Massachusetts on the suc-
cessful operation of the present tariff While we renew our regret that the full advantages of the
bill as it came from the House were not realized, the placing of important raw materials of manu-
facture on the free list is already producing beneficial results. We call attention to the marked
j Increase in the exports of our manufactured goods as an index of the enlargement of our foreign
Party Platforms on National Issues in 1895. 87
commerce, which, imder the reduced duties, will furnish a suflScient revenue for the legitimate needs
of the Government. "Under the operation of the present tariflF law this country will teiethat place
among the greatest manufacturing nations of the world to which it is entitled by virtue of its varied
resources, its abundant capital, its inventive genius, and its skilled labor. We therefore denounce the
efforts of the Republican party to reopen the tariflF question for the purpose of restoring the abomina-
tions of the McKinley act.
The Gold Standard.— "We demand the maintenance of the existing gold standard of value, and
that the Government shall keep all its obligations at all times redeemable m gold.
Free Coinage Opposed.— "We oppose the free coinage of silver and any further purchase of
silver bullion on Government account.
Retirement of Legal Tender.— "We reaffirm the demands of our platform of last yearthat the
Government shall not carry on a banking business; that the untaxed notes of State or National banks
shall be the only credit currency, and that the Government shall, with the development of a banking
system adequate to the demands of trade, retire, as rapidly as possible, all United States paper money,
"we recommend that the Administration formulate and present to the next Congress a measure calcu-
lated to secure these results. Pending a return to these sound principles of finance, from which the
country has departed under Republican rule, we favor the grant to the Secretary of the Treasury of
powerto negotiate short-term loans for the purpose of maintaining a suflScient gold reserve and insur-
ing the parity of all our different forms of currency and an increase in the gold reserve.
Revival of Prosperity.- "We tender to President Cleveland and Secretary Carlisle the
thanks of the Democratic party of Massachusetts for their patriotic efforts to protect the public credit
under the adverse conditions brought about by Republican misrule, and we congratulate the country
on the marked revival of business confidence and prosperity which has followed their action.
The A.P. A. Denounced.— Religious differences should find noplace in American politics,and the
Democratic party is unalterably opposed to the spirit of intolerant Digotry fostered for political pur-
poses by those who seek to breed discord and animosities among the citizens of the Republic. Secret
political bodies are a curse to party. State, and nation; we denounce the so-called American Pro-
tective Association, its purposes, its methods, and its allies. We welcome the assistance of all
good citizens who v/ill co-operate in the suppression of any political movement organized for religious
proscription.
MASSACHUSETTS REPUBLICAN PLATFORM.
The Republicans of Massachusetts, having witnessed for two years the endeavors, the achieve-
ments, and the recriminations of a Democratic President and a Democratic Congress ; having observed
the variance between Democratic promises and performance, and having endured the business dis-
asters which accompanied Democratic victory, now as we are apparently entering into a prosperous
era of Republican ascendancy, pledge ourselves with augmented loyalty to the tried and established
principles of our party.
Protection.— First and foremost stands protection. Our opponents, when seeking votes, de-
nounced it as injurious, immoral, and unconstitutional; when clothed with the responsibility of power
they enacted a tariff which was avowedly and intentionally protective. But while it recognizes the
principle of protection as wise and necessary, their bill is so unequal and unfair as to deserve all the
scathing denunciations with which they themselves baptized it. It does not give protection as a right
to all, but sells it as a favor to some. It is partial, sectional, and hypocritical. The protection we up-
hold IS equal and universal. We are not pledged to any schedules. We only pledge to each American
industry such protection as shall equalize differences in the price of labor, and to that the farmer and
the miner Is as much entitled as the manufacturer and the artisan. In determining that we are not
bound by precedents or by theories ; we are governed by the teachings of experience, and are as ready
to learn from the experiments of our adversaries as of ourselves, from failure as well as from success.
Democratic Incapacity.— Republican extravagance has been a favorite theme of Democratic
censure, and yet the last Congress, in a time of private and national impoverishment, maintained the
same standard of expenditure. But if Republicans were liberal in appropriations they furnished rev-
enue to meet them, and steadily reduced the public debt. The last Congress provided a revenue shame-
fully inadequate, and by the issue of bonds shifted_,on to succeeding administrations the burden of
their outlay. "Whether this was the result of policy or recklessness, an evidence of wilfullness or in-
competence, we will not assert; but it illustrates anew that the province of the Democracy is criticism
and not action; that its true and permanent place is in the minority and not in power, and that it is
incapable of managing the nation's business. We believe that to keep outgo less than income is an
axiom of public as well as private economy; that a large surplus is less menacing than a large deficit,
and that redeeming government bonds, even at a high price, is more creditable than in issuing new
ones.
The Curreacy.— We believe in sound and honest money; that a depreciated currency unsettles
legitimate business and turns it into speculation; that the government should maintain each doUar
which it issues on a par with its standard gold dollar, and should not permit the free coinage of silver
at any ratio not established by international agreement. No other policy could expect to find friends
in Massachusetts, which, under sorest temptation, held the spirit of its obligations sacred, refused to
avail itself of legal tender laws, paid its creditors with the best and most expensive dollars, and thus
maintained its credit and its honor untarnished and supreme.
Financial Policy of the Administration.- Weregret that the action and inaction of the Demo-
cratic majority in Congress has forced the National Treasury to a humiliating dependency upon pri-
vate bankers, and believe that there should be legislation to protect the metallic reserve from con-
certed attacks of speculators.
The Monroe Doctrine.- We believe that this hemisphere is no longer a subject for European
colonization, or aggressive and oppressive occupation; that the Monroe doctrine is a true guide for
American statesmanship, and should be maintained towards great nations without cringing, but al-
ways deliberately, temperately, resolutely.
88 Party Platforms on National Issues in 1895.
Civil Service Reform.— "We believe in Civil Service Reform, not only as a promoter of efficient
service, but also as an antidote to that demoralizing spirit which considers public office only a bribe or
a reward.
Immigration.— The tide of immigration, which has done so much to quicken our national
growth, has in recent years changed and deteriorated in its character. We believe that our country
has reached that stage of development vvhen it needs not so much more men as better men ; that the
population is already so heterogeneous that our most urgent task is to elevate and a.ssimilate it rather
than increase it by foreign importation ; that our self-respecting labor should be protected ; and we de-
sire no further immigrants who are not intelligent, self-supporting, readj to cast off all foreign alle-
giance, and to enter mto full and permanent sympathy with our free institutions. In this task of ele-
vating and Americanizing our population we recognize as the most potent agent the free public school,
to whose perpetual maintenance the Republican party has long been pledged. We are opposed to any
appropriation of public funds to sectarian purposes.
Sectarian A^tation.— Religious and race partisanship has for many years been manifest in the
Democratic party in Massachusetts ; has weakened that sentiment of pure Americanism which ought
to control all public action, and has resulted in counter- irritation and antagonism. We deplore the
existence in politics of such inflaming and estranging issues; we believe that church and state should
be separate and independent in fact as well as in theorj' ; that neither should invade the province of the
other, and that sectarian animosities should be buried and forgotten in a patriotic and paramount de-
votion to our common country
The Saloon.— We believe that the saloon breeds crime and poverty, and is a proper subject of
legislative and municipal restriction, and that laws as increasingly rigid as can be enforced strictly and
universally are the best hope of progressive temperance
MICHIGAN DEMOCRATIC PLATFORM.
Silver.— The Democratic party of Michigan, in convention assembled, hails with delight the rap-
idly increasing sentiment in favor of the restoration of silver to the position it so long held in the mone-
tary system of our countiy, and unqualifiedly declares in favor of the free and unlimited coinage of
silver and gold with full legal-tender power and at a ratio of IG to 1, and invites every patriotic citizen
of Michigan, regardless of previous party affiliation, to join us in an imperative demand for immediate
legislation to that end, and without regard to the position of any other nation in respect thereto.
MICHIGAN REPUBLICAN PLATFORM.
Democratic Maladministration. —We charge the Democratic party with gross maladmin-
istration of national affairs, by which they have bankrupted the Treasury of the United States,
driven prosperity from our people by a mongrel tariff act, caused a shrinkage of revenue and forced a
sale of bonds to supply the deficiency thereby created. We arraign the Democratic administration for
its un-American policy, whereby home industry is paralyzed and national honor humiliated,
Hawaii. —We denounce the unpatriotic and un-American action of the Cleveland administration
regarding the young republic of Hawaii, the cowardly act of hauling down the American flag and its
arrogant disregard of public sentiment in the country relating thereto.
Republican Financial Policy. —This convention approves and reaffirms the planks of the Re-
publican State platform of 1894 relating to tariff, currency, reciprocity, labor, immigration and the
election laws, and expresses its full confidence in the ability of the Republican party through its rep-
resentatives in the national and State governments to settle to the advantage of the State and the
country at large details of questions upon which there may be differences of individual opinion.
NEBRASKA DEMOCRATIC PLATFORM.
Democratic Prosperity.— The Democracy of Nebraska, in convention assembled, congratu-
lates the country upon the sure signs of returning prosperity. In spite of the evil predictions alike of
protectionists and silver inflationists, the country is steadily and surely gaining ground, thus justify-
ing the wisdom of the reversal of the Republican policies of protective tariff taxes and coinage of a
redundant quality of token dollars. The fact that the wheels of industry, so long silenced in conse-
quence of these policies by a long and depressing panic, have resumed their wonted motion and that
more than 300,000 laborers are receiving the large increase in wages of 12 per cent, proves this as-
sertion.
The Cleveland Administration. —We send hearty greetings and congratulations to Grover
Cleveland and his Cabinet, not only for their wise and prudent course, which has aided so much in
bringing about tlie better financial condition, but also for their firm and fearless adberence through-
out the depression to sound policies of economy and for their unswerving fidelity in upholding the
honor and integrity of the nation against organized mob violence.
Honest Money.— We indorse the national Democratic platform of 1892 and the interpretation
placed thereon by the President, and we declare ourselves unequivocally and unreservedly for that
metallic money as the standard mintage the bullion and mint value of which are approximately the
same, the purchasing power of which, regardless of government mintage, is the least fluctuating in
all the markets of the civilized world.
Free Coinage Denounced.— We insist upon this policy as especially necessary for the pro-
tection of the farmers, laborers and property-owning debtors, the most defenseless victims of un-
stable money and fluctuating currency. Free coinage of silver at 16 to 1 means a poorer money and
lessof it; it means less wages for the laboring man and less actual money for the Dusiness man. It
means bankruptcy for all save the mine owner.
Party Platforms on National Issues in 1895. 89
Retirement of liegal Tender.— We recognize the issue and reissue of our Treasury notes as
a serious menace to the stability of our national finances, and we favor the retirement of all Treasury
notes at the soonest possible moment, with proper and safe guarantees for maintaining the necessary
volume of currency, which shall be devised by a competent and non-partisan currency commission
NEBRASKA FREE SILVER DEMOCRATIC PLATFORM.
Democratic Principles Affirmed.— We, the Democrats of Nebraka, in convention assem-
bled, reaffirm our faith in those principles written in the declaration of American independence and
emphasized by Jetferson and Jackson— namely, "that all men are created equal ; that they are
endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights, among which are life, liberty and the pursuit
of happiness ; that governments are instituted among men to secure these rights, and that govern-
ments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed "—and we demand that all of the
departments of the government, legislative, executive and judicial, shall be administered iu accord-
ance with these principles.
Free Coinage- Indorsed. —We believe the restoration of the money of the Constitution is now
the paramount issue before the country and insist that all parties shall plainly state their respective
positions upon the question in order that the voters may intelligently express their preference. We
therefore declare ourselves in favor of the immediate restoration of the free and unlimited coin-
age of gold and silver at the present legal ratio of 16tol, as such coinage existed prior to 1873,
without waiting for the aid or consent of any other nation, such gold and silver coin to be a full legal
tender for all debts, public and private.
Secret Cabals. —We deprecate and denounce as un-American and subversive of the principles
of free government any attempt to control the action or policy of the political parties of this country
by secret cabals or organizations of any character, and warn the people against the danger to our
institutions which lurks under any such secret organization, whether on religious, political or other
differences of opinion.
NEBRASKA REPUBLICAN PLATFORM.
Republican Principles Affirmed.— We, the Republicans of Nebraska, in convention assem-
bled, declare our adherence to the statement of principles and policies adopted by the National Re-
publican Convention of 1892, Governed in accordance with those principles and policies, the indus-
tries of the nation have prospered, the revenues were always sufficient for the ordinary expenses of the
Government, the veterans of the war for the Union, disabled in the service, and the widows and
orphans of the dead were liberally provided for, and a greater part of the national debt incurred in the
defence of the flag had been paid out of the surplus. The national credit had been established, the
currency of the country (amply secured by a treasury reserve never impaired) was beyond question,
and a degree of prosperity attained unexampled in the history of the nations.
Protection.— We therefore call upon all patriotic people, irrespective of former political affilia-
tions, to join in assisting to bring back prosperity to the State and nation by re-enacting protection to
American industries on the basis of that splendid law known as the "McKinley act," thereby securing
an adequate revenue while guarding the American market for American products, and furnishing
steady and permanent employment of American labor at American wages, and returning to the bene-
ficial system of commercial reciprocity with our sister American republics.
The Currency .-Favoring the use of both gold and silver standard money, we oppose all mone-
tary legislation that would result in either gold or silver monometallism, and demand the maintenance
of a national currency, every dollar of which, whether in gold, silver or paper, shall be of equal
value and of equal debt- paying or purchasing power.
Democratic Foreign Policy. —We denounce the Democratic national Administration for its
supine neglect of American interests in its foreign policy and its cowardly abandonment of the doc-
trine of the fathers of the Republic, that guarantee the friendly offices of this Government in favor of
the independent States of the American continent, threatened with spoliation or conquest by any
European power.
Recognition of Cuban Belligerency. —We most heartily sympathize with the people of
Cuba in their desire to attain independence and self-government, and demand, in case oi Spain at-
tempting to make good its threat to wage a war of extermination against them, the prompt recogni-
tion of the belligerent rights of the Cuban Republic by the United States.
Sugar.— We congratulate the people upon the restoration of the sugar bounty and the wonderful
impetus given this industry on account thereof, but we demand that the books of those that receive
the benefits of the bounty of State and nation should at all times be open to the inspection of lawful
authority , and that sworn statements of costs of production should be furnished in order that justice
may be done to the people as well as to the recipients.
NEW JERSEY DEMOCRATIC PLATFORM.
President Cleveland's Administration.— We reaffirm the national Democratic platform
adopted at Chicago in 1892, and cordially indorse the administration of President Cleveland, with
whose determination to protect the people of this country from the evils ever attendant upon a de-
basement of the national currency, we are in most hearty sympathy.
Republican Policy Denounced.— We congratulate the people upon the revival of prosperity,
everywhere evident in our land, and we assert that the industrial depression with whicn we have
been afflicted during the last three years is chargeable to the national legislation enacted by the