Part 35

The National party, that was the legatee of the Greenback party, held its national convention at Indianapolis, on the 28th of May, with James B. Weaver, of Iowa, its president. General Benjamin F. Butler, of Massachusetts, was nominated for President on the 1st ballot, as follows:

Benjamin F. Butler, Mass. 322 Jesse Harper, Ill. 99 Solon Chase, Me. 2 Edward P. Allis, Wis. 1 David Davis, Ill. 1

General Butler was then declared the choice of the convention, but the motion to make it unanimous called out hisses from a portion of the delegates. A. M. West, of Mississippi, was nominated for Vice-President by acclamation. The following platform was adopted:

Eight years ago our young party met in this city for the first time, and proclaimed to the world its immortal principles, and placed before the American people as a Presidential candidate that great philanthropist and spotless statesman, Peter Cooper. Since that convention our party has organized all over the Union, and through discussion and agitation has been educating the people to a sense of their rights and duties to themselves and their country. These labors have accomplished wonders. We now have a great, harmonious party, and thousands who believe in our principles in the ranks of other parties.

“We point with pride to our history.” We forced the remonetization of the silver dollar; prevented the refunding of the public debt into long-time bonds; secured the payment of the bonds, until “the best banking system the world ever saw,” for robbing the producer, now totters because of its contracting foundation; we have stopped the wholesale destruction of the greenback currency, and secured a decision of the Supreme Court of the United States establishing forever the right of the people to issue their own money.

Notwithstanding all this, never in our history have the banks, land-grant railroads, and other monopolies been more insolent in their demands for further privileges—still more class legislation. In this emergency the dominant parties are arrayed against the people, and are the abject tools of the corporate monopolies.

In the last Congress, they repealed over twelve million dollars of annual taxes for the banks, throwing the burden upon the people to pay, or pay interest thereon.

Both old parties in the present Congress vie with each other in their efforts to further repeal taxes in order to stop the payment of the public debt and save the banks whose charters they have renewed for twenty years. Notwithstanding the distress of business, the shrinkage of wages, and panic, they persist in locking up, on various pretexts, four hundred million dollars of money, every dollar of which the people pay interest upon, and need, and most of which should be promptly applied to pay bonds now payable.

The old parties are united—as they cannot agree what taxes to repeal—in efforts to squander the income of the Government upon every pretext rather than pay the debt.

A bill has already passed the United States Senate making the banks a present of over fifty million dollars more of the people’s money, in order to enable them to levy a still greater burden of interest taxes.

A joint effort is being made by the old party leaders to overthrow the sovereign constitutional power of the people to control their own financial affairs, and issue their own money, in order to forever enslave the masses to bankers and other business. The House of Representatives has passed bills reclaiming nearly one hundred million acres of land granted to and forfeited by railroad companies. These bills have gone to the Senate, a body composed largely of aristocratic millionaires, who, according to their own party papers, generally purchased their elections in order to protect great monopolies which they represent. This body has thus far defied the people and the House, and refused to act upon these bills in the interest of the people.

Therefore we, the National party of the United States, in national convention assembled, this twenty-ninth day of May, A.D., 1884, declare:

1. That we hold the late decision of the Supreme Court on the legal tender question to be a full vindication of the theory which our party has always advocated on the right and authority of Congress over the issue of legal tender notes, and we hereby pledge ourselves to uphold said decision, and to defend the Constitution against alterations or amendments intended to deprive the people of any rights or privileges conferred by that instrument. We demand the issue of such money in sufficient quantities to supply the actual demand of trade and commerce, in accordance with the increase of population and the development of our industries. We demand the substitution of greenbacks for national bank notes, and the prompt payment of the public debt. We want that money which saved our country in time of war, and which has given it prosperity and happiness in peace. We condemn the retirement of the fractional currency and the small denomination of greenbacks, and demand their restoration. We demand the issue of the hoards of money now locked up in the United States Treasury, by applying them to the payment of the public debt now due.

2. We denounce, as dangerous to our republican institutions, those methods and policies of the Democratic and Republican parties which have sanctioned or permitted the establishment of land, railroad, money, and other gigantic corporate monopolies; and we demand such governmental action as may be necessary to take from such monopolies the powers they have so corruptly and unjustly usurped, and restore them to the people, to whom they belong.

3. The public lands being the natural inheritance of the people, we denounce that policy which has granted to corporations vast tracts of land, and we demand that immediate and vigorous measures be taken to reclaim from such corporations, for the people’s use and benefit, all such land grants as have been forfeited by reason of non-fulfilment of contract, or that may have been wrongfully acquired by corrupt legislation, and that such reclaimed lands and other public domain be henceforth held as a sacred trust, to be granted only to actual settlers in limited quantities; and we also demand that the alien ownership of land, individual or corporate, be prohibited.

4. We demand Congressional regulation of interstate commerce. We denounce “pooling,” stock watering, and discrimination in rates and charges, and demand that Congress shall correct these abuses, even, if necessary, by the construction of national railroads. We also demand the establishment of a Government postal telegraph system.

5. All private property, all forms of money and obligations to pay money, should bear their just proportion of the public taxes. We demand a graduated income tax.

6. We demand the amelioration of the condition of labor, by enforcing the sanitary laws in industrial establishments, by the abolition of the convict labor system, by a rigid inspection of mines and factories, by a reduction of the hours of labor in industrial establishments, by fostering educational institutions, and by abolishing child labor.

7. We condemn all importations of contracted labor, made with a view of reducing to starvation wages the workingmen of this country, and demand laws for its prevention.

8. We insist upon a constitutional amendment reducing the terms of United States Senators.

9. We demand such rules for the government of Congress as shall place all representatives of the people upon an equal footing, and take away from committees a veto power greater than that of the President.

10. The question as to the amount of duties to be levied upon various articles of import has been agitated and quarrelled over, and has divided communities, for nearly a hundred years. It is not now, and never will be, settled, unless by the abolition of indirect taxation. It is a convenient issue, always raised when the people are excited over abuses in their midst. While we favor a wise revision of the tariff laws, with a view to raising a revenue from luxuries rather than necessities, we insist that, as an economic question, its importance is insignificant as compared with financial issues; for whereas we have suffered our worst panics under low and also under high tariffs, we have never suffered from a panic, nor seen our factories and workshops closed, while the volume of money in circulation was adequate to the needs of commerce. Give our farmers and manufacturers money as cheap as you now give it to our bankers, and they can pay high wages to labor, and compete with all the world.

11. For the purpose of testing the sense of the people upon the subject, we are in favor of submitting to a vote of the people an amendment to the Constitution in favor of suffrage regardless of sex, and also on the subject of the liquor traffic.

12. All disabled soldiers of the late war should be equitably pensioned, and we denounce the policy of keeping a small army of office-holders, whose only business is to prevent, on technical grounds, deserving soldiers from obtaining justice from the Government they helped to save.

13. As our name indicates, we are a national party, knowing no East, no West, no North, no South. Having no sectional prejudices, we can properly place in nomination for the high offices of state, as candidates, men from any section of the Union.

14. We appeal to all people who believe in our principles to aid us by voice, pen, and votes.

The Prohibitionists divided in the contest of 1884. Their first was a mass convention, held at Chicago on the 19th of June, under the title of the American Prohibition National Convention, with J. L. Barlow, of Connecticut, as president. The fact that it was not largely a representative body is evidenced from the fact that on the ballot for President, Samuel C. Pomeroy, of Kansas, received 72 votes to 12 for all others, and was declared the nominee, and John A. Conant, of Connecticut, was nominated for Vice-President without a ballot. This organization did not have any electoral tickets as far as I can learn.

It adopted the following platform:

We hold: 1. That ours is a Christian, and not a heathen, nation, and that the God of the Christian Scriptures is the author of civil government.

2. That the Bible should be associated with books of science and literature in all our educational institutions.

3. That God requires and man needs a Sabbath.

4. That we demand the prohibition of the importation, manufacture, and sale of intoxicating drinks.

5. That the charters of all secret lodges granted by our Federal and State Legislatures should be withdrawn and their oaths prohibited by law.

6. We are opposed to putting prison labor or depreciated contract labor from foreign countries in competition with free labor to benefit manufacturers, corporations, and speculators.

7. We are in favor of a thorough revision and enforcement of the law concerning patents and inventions, for the prevention and punishment of frauds either upon inventors or the general public.

8. We hold to and will vote for woman suffrage.

9. We hold that civil equality secured to all American citizens by Articles Thirteen, Fourteen, and Fifteen of our amended national Constitution should be preserved inviolate, and the same equality should be extended to Indians and Chinamen.

10. That international differences should be settled by arbitration.

11. That land and other monopolies should be discouraged.

12. That the General Government should furnish the people with an ample and sound currency.

13. That it should be the settled policy of the Government to reduce the tariffs and taxes as rapidly as the necessities of revenue and vested business interests will allow.

14. That polygamy should be immediately suppressed by law, and that the Republican party is censurable for its long neglect of its duty in respect to this evil.

15. And, finally, we demand for the American people the abolition of electoral colleges, and a direct vote for President and Vice-President of the United States.

The regular national Prohibition party held its convention in Pittsburg on the 23d of July with Samuel Dickie, of Michigan, as permanent president. The sentiment of the party was very strongly in favor of Governor John P. St. John, of Kansas, who was unanimously nominated as President, and William Daniel, of Maryland, was chosen for Vice-President by a like unanimous vote. The following platform was adopted:

The Prohibition-Home-Protection party, in national convention assembled, acknowledge Almighty God as the rightful sovereign of all men, from whom the just powers of government are derived, and to whose laws human enactments should conform. Peace, prosperity, and happiness only can come to the people when the laws of their national and State governments are in accord with the divine will.

That the importation, manufacture, supply, and sale of alcoholic beverages, created and maintained by the laws of the national and State governments, during the entire history of such laws, is everywhere shown to be the promoting cause of intemperance, with resulting crime and pauperism; making large demands upon public and private charity; imposing large and unjust taxation and public burdens for penal and sheltering institutions upon thrift, industry, manufactures, and commerce; endangering the public peace; causing desecration of the Sabbath; corrupting our politics, legislation, and administration of the laws; shortening lives; impairing health, and diminishing productive industry; causing education to be neglected and despised; nullifying the teachings of the Bible, the Church, and the school, the standards and guides of our fathers and their children in the founding and growth under God of our widely extended country; and, while imperilling the perpetuity of our civil and religious liberties, are baleful fruits by which we know that these laws are alike contrary to God’s laws and contravene our happiness; and we call upon our fellow-citizens to aid in the repeal of these laws and in the legal suppression of this baneful liquor traffic.

The fact that, during the twenty-four years in which the Republican party has controlled the General Government and that of many of the States, no effort has been made to change this policy; that Territories have been created from the national domain and governments from them established, and States admitted into the Union, in no instance in either of which has this traffic been forbidden, or the people of these Territories or States been permitted to prohibit it; that there are now over two hundred thousand distilleries, breweries, wholesale and retail dealers in these drinks, holding certificates and claiming the authority of Government for the continuation of a business which is so destructive to the moral and material welfare of the people, together with the fact that they have turned a deaf ear to remonstrance and petition for the correction of this abuse of civil government, is conclusive that the Republican party is insensible to or impotent for the redress of those wrongs, and should no longer be intrusted with the powers and responsibilities of government; that although this party, in its late national convention, was silent on the liquor question, not so were its candidates, Messrs. Blaine and Logan. Within the year past Mr. Blaine has publicly recommended that the revenues derived from the liquor traffic shall be distributed among the States, and Senator Logan has by bill proposed to devote these revenues to the support of schools. Thus both virtually recommend the perpetuation of the traffic, and that the State and its citizens shall become partners in the liquor crime.

The fact that the Democratic party has, in its national deliverances of party policy, arrayed itself on the side of the drink makers and sellers by declaring against the policy of prohibition of such traffic under the false name of “sumptuary laws,” and, when in power in some of the States, in refusing remedial legislation, and, in Congress, of refusing to permit the creation of a board of inquiry to investigate and report upon the effects of this traffic, proves that the Democratic party should not be intrusted with power or place.

There can be no greater peril to the nation than the existing competition of the Republican and Democratic parties for the liquor vote. Experience shows that any party not openly opposed to the traffic will engage in this competition, will court the favor of the criminal classes, will barter away the public morals, purity of the ballot, and every trust and object of good government, for party success; and patriots and good citizens should find in this practice sufficient cause for immediate withdrawal from all connection with their party.

That we favor reforms in the administration of the Government, in the abolition of all sinecures, useless offices and officers, in the election by the people of officers of the Government instead of appointment by the President. That competency, honesty, and sobriety are essential qualifications for holding civil office, and we oppose the removal of such persons from mere administrative offices, except so far as it may be absolutely necessary to secure effectiveness to the vital issues on which the general administration of the Government has been intrusted to a party.

That the collection of revenue from alcohol, liquors, and tobacco should be abolished, as the vices of men are not a proper subject for taxation; that revenue for customs duties should be levied for the support of the Government, economically administered; and when so levied, the fostering of American labor, manufactures, and industries should constantly be held in view.

That the public land should be held for homes for the people and not for gifts to corporations, or to be held in large bodies for speculation upon the needs of actual settlers.

That all money, coin and paper, shall be made, issued, and regulated by the General Government, and shall be a legal tender for all debts, public and private.

That grateful care and support should be given to our soldiers and sailors, their dependent widows and orphans, disabled in the service of the country.

That we repudiate as un-American, contrary to and subversive of the principle of the Declaration of Independence, from which our Government has grown to be the government of fifty-five millions of people, and a recognized power among nations, that any person or people shall or may be excluded from residence or citizenship with all others who may desire the benefits which our institutions confer upon the oppressed of all nations.

That while there are important reforms that are demanded for purity of administration and the welfare of the people, their importance sinks into insignificance when compared with the reform of the drink traffic, which annually wastes eight hundred million dollars of the wealth created by toil and thrift, and drags down thousands of families from comfort to poverty; which fills jails, penitentiaries, insane asylums, hospitals, and institutions for dependency; which destroys the health, saps industry, and causes loss of life and property to thousands in the land, lowers intellectual and physical vigor, dulls the cunning hand of the artisan, is the chief cause of bankruptcy, insolvency, and loss in trade, and by its corrupting power endangers the perpetuity of free institutions.

That Congress should exercise its undoubted power, and prohibit the manufacture and sale of intoxicating beverages in the District of Columbia, in the Territories of the United States, and in all places over which the Government has exclusive jurisdiction; that hereafter no State shall be admitted into the Union until its Constitution shall expressly prohibit polygamy and the manufacture and sale of intoxicating beverages.

We earnestly call the attention of the laborer and mechanic, the miner and manufacturer, and ask investigation of the baneful effects upon labor and industry caused by the needless liquor business, which will be found the robber who lessens wages and profits, the destroyer of happiness and the family welfare of the laboring man, and that labor and all legitimate industry demand deliverance from the taxation and loss which this traffic imposes, and that no tariff or other legislation can so healthily stimulate production or increase a demand for capital and labor, or produce so much of comfort and content as the suppressing of this traffic would bring to the laboring man, mechanic, or employer of labor throughout our land.

That the activity and co-operation of the women of America for the promotion of temperance has in all the history of the past been a strength and encouragement which we gratefully acknowledge and record. In the later and present phase of the movement for the prohibition of the licensed traffic by the abolition of the drinking-saloon, the purity of purpose and method, the earnestness, zeal, intelligence, and devotion of the mothers and daughters of the Women’s Christian Temperance Union has been eminently blessed by God. Kansas and Iowa have been given her as “sheaves of rejoicing;” and the education and arousing of the public mind, and the demand for constitutional amendment now prevailing, are largely the fruit of her prayers and labors, and we rejoice to have our Christian women unite with us in sharing the labors that shall bring the abolition of this traffic to the polls, she shall join in the grand “Praise God, from whom all blessings flow,” when by law our boys and friends shall be free from legal drink temptation.

That we believe in the civil and political equality of the sexes, and that the ballot in the hand of woman is a right for her protection, and would prove a powerful ally for the abolition of the drink-saloon, the execution of law, the promotion of reform in civil affairs, and the removal of corruption in public life; and thus believing, we relegate the practical outworking of this reform to the discretion of the Prohibition party in the several States, according to the condition of public sentiment in those States; that gratefully we acknowledge and praise God for the presence of His Spirit, guiding our counsels and granting the success which has been vouchsafed in the progress of temperance reform, and looking to Him from whom all wisdom and help come, we ask the voters of the United States to make the principles of the above declaration a ruling principle in the government of the nation and of the States.

_Resolved_, That henceforth the Prohibition-Home-Protection party shall be called by the name of the Prohibition party.

The following table exhibits the popular and electoral vote for 1884: