Part 18 (1/2)

TRUSTS.

We recognize the necessity and propriety of the honest co-operation of capital to meet new business conditions, and especially to extend our rapidly increasing foreign trade; but we condemn all conspiracies and combinations intended to restrict business, to create monopolies, to limit production, or to control prices, and favor such legislation as will effectively restrain and prevent all such abuses, protect and promote compet.i.tion, and secure the rights of producers, laborers, and all who are engaged in industry and commerce.

PROTECTION POLICY REAFFIRMED.

We renew our faith in the policy of protection to American labor. In that policy our industries have been established, diversified, and maintained. By protecting the home market, compet.i.tion has been stimulated and production cheapened. Opportunity to the inventive genius of our people has been secured and wages in every department of labor maintained at high rates--higher now than ever before, and always distinguis.h.i.+ng our working people in their better conditions of life from those of any competing country. Enjoying the blessings of the American common school, secure in the right of self-government, and protected in the occupancy of their own markets, their constantly increasing knowledge and skill have enabled them to finally enter the markets of the world.

RECIPROCITY FAVORED.

We favor the a.s.sociated policy of reciprocity, so directed as to open our markets on favorable terms for what we do not ourselves produce, in return for free foreign markets.

RESTRICTION OF IMMIGRATION, AND OTHER LABOR LEGISLATION.

In the further interest of American workmen we favor a more effective restriction of the immigration of cheap labor from foreign lands, the extension of opportunities of education for working-children, the raising of the age limit for child-labor, the protection of free labor as against contract convict labor, and an effective system of labor insurance.

s.h.i.+PPING.

Our present dependence upon foreign s.h.i.+pping for nine-tenths of our foreign-carrying trade is a great loss to the industry of this country.

It is also a serious danger to our trade, for its sudden withdrawal in the event of European war would seriously cripple our expanding foreign commerce. The national defense and naval efficiency of this country, moreover, supply a compelling reason for legislation which will enable us to recover our former place among the trade carrying fleets of the world.

DEBT TO SOLDIERS AND SAILORS.

The nation owes a debt of profound grat.i.tude to the soldiers and sailors who have fought its battles, and it is the government's duty to provide for the survivors and for the widows and orphans of those who have fallen in the country's wars. The pension laws, founded on this just sentiment, should be liberally administered, and preference should be given, wherever practicable, with respect to employment in the public service, to soldiers and sailors and to their widows and orphans.

THE CIVIL SERVICE.

We commend the policy of the Republican Party in maintaining the efficiency of the civil service. The administration has acted wisely in its effort to secure for public service in Cuba, Porto Rico, Hawaii, and the Philippine Islands, only those whose fitness has been determined by training and experience. We believe that employment in the public service in these territories should be confined, as far as practicable, to their inhabitants.

THE RACE QUESTION.

It was the plain purpose of the Fifteenth Amendment to the Const.i.tution to prevent discrimination on account of race or color in regulating the elective franchise. Devices of state governments, whether by statutory or const.i.tutional enactment, to avoid the purpose of this amendment are revolutionary and should be condemned.

PUBLIC ROADS.

Public movements looking to a permanent improvement of the roads and highways of the country meet with our cordial approval, and we recommend this subject to the earnest consideration of the people and of the legislatures of the several states.

RURAL FREE DELIVERY.

We favor the extension of the rural free delivery service wherever its extension may be justified.

LAND LEGISLATION.

In further pursuance of the constant policy of the Republican Party to provide free homes on the public domain we recommend adequate national legislation to reclaim the arid lands of the United States, reserving control of the distribution of water for irrigation to the respective states and territories.

NEW STATES PROPOSED.

We favor home-rule for, and the early admission to statehood of, the territories of New Mexico, Arizona and Oklahoma.

REDUCTION OF WAR TAXES.