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"We denounce the lavish appropriations of recent Republican Congresses, which have kept taxes high and which threaten the perpetuation of the oppressive war levies. We oppose the accumulation of a surplus to be squandered in such barefaced frauds upon the taxpayers as the Shipping Subsidy bill, which, under the false pretense of fostering American shipbuilding, would put unearned millions into the pockets of favorite contributors to the Republican campaign fund. We favor the reduction and speedy repeal of the war taxes, and a return to the time-honored Democratic policy of strict economy in governmental expenditures.

"Believing that our most cherished institutions are in great peril, that the very existence of our constitutional republic is at stake, and that the decision now to be rendered will determine whether or not our children are to enjoy those blessed privileges of free government which have made the United States great, prosperous, and honored, we earnestly ask for the foregoing declaration of principles the hearty support of the liberty-loving American people, regardless of previous party affiliations."

Other Parties

People's Party.-Convention held in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, May 9-10, 1900. For President, William J. Bryan. The convention nominated for VicePresident Charles A. Towne, of Minnesota, who in the summer withdrew in the interest of complete fusion with the Democratic party. Adlai E. Stevenson, the Democratic candidate for Vice-President, was thereupon nominated by the national committee of the People's party.

People's Party, "Middle-of-the-Road" Bolters.Convention held in Cincinnati, May 9-10, 1900. For President, Wharton Barker, of Pennsylvania; for VicePresident, Ignatius Donnelly, of Minnesota.

Chester A. Arthur, 21st president; born at Fairfield, Vt., October 5, 1830; lawyer; teacher; engineer and chief of staff of Governor Edwin D. Morgan; appointed by President Grant collector of the port of New York, 1871; removed for political reasons, July 11, 1878; elected vice president, 1880; became president September 20, 1881, upon the death of President Garfield; died in New York City, November 18, 1886.

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"His administration has been throughout vigorous and honorable, high-minded and patriotic. We commend it without reservation to the considerate judgment of the American people."

Democratic Party

Convention held in St. Louis, July 6-9, 1904. Temporary chairman, John Sharp Williams, of Mississippi; permanent chairman, Champ Clark, of Missouri.

On the first ballot for President Alton B. Parker, of New York, was nominated. The vote stood: Parker, 679; William R. Hearst, of New York, 181; Francis M. Cockrell, of Missouri, 42; Richard Olney, of Massachusetts, 38; Edward C. Wall, of Wisconsin, 27; George Gray, of Delaware, 12; John Sharp Williams, of Mississippi, 8; Robert E. Pattison, of Pennsylvania, 4; George B. McClellan, of New York, 3; Nelson A. Miles, of Massachusetts, 3; Charles A. Towne, of Minnesota, 2; Bird S. Coler, of New York, 1.

The first ballot for Vice-President resulted in the nomination of Henry G. Davis, of West Virginia, by the following vote: Davis, 654; James Robert Williams, of Illinois, 165; George Turner, of Washington, 100; William A. Harris, of Kansas, 58.

Platform:

"The Democratic party of the United States, in national convention assembled, declares its devotion to the essential principles of the Democratic faith which bring us together in party communion.

"Under these principles local self-government and national unity and prosperity were alike established. They underlaid our independence, the structure of our free republic, and every Democratic expansion from Louisiana to California and Texas to Oregon, which

preserved faithfully in all the States the tie between taxation and representation. They yet inspire the masses of our people, guarding jealously their rights and liberties and cherishing their fraternity, peace, and orderly development. They remind us of our duties and responsibilities as citizens and impress upon us, particularly at this time, the necessity of reform and the rescue of the administration of government from the headstrong, arbitrary, and spasmodic methods which distract business by uncertainty and pervade the public mind with dread, distrust, and perturbation.

"The application of these fundamental principles to the living issues of the day constitutes the first step toward the assured peace, safety, and progress of our nation. Freedom of the press, of conscience, and of speech; equality before the law of all citizens; right of trial by jury; freedom of the person defended by the writ of habeas corpus; liberty of personal contract untrammeled by sumptuary laws; supremacy of the civil over military authority; a welldisciplined militia; separation of church and state; economy in expenditures; low taxes, that labor may be lightly burdened; prompt and sacred fulfillment of public and private obligations; fidelity to treaties; peace and friendship with all nations, entangling alliances with none; absolute acquiescence in the will of the majority, the vital principle of republics-these are doctrines which Democracy has established as proverbs of the nation, and they should be constantly invoked and enforced.

"Large reductions can easily be made in the annual expenditures of the government without impairing the efficiency of any branch of the public service, and we shall insist upon the strictest economy and frugality compatible with vigorous and efficient civil, military, and naval administration as a right of the people too clear to be denied or withheld.

"We favor the enforcement of honesty in the public service, and to that end a thorough legislative investigation of those executive departments of the government already known to teem with corruption, as well as other departments suspected of harboring corruption, and the punishment of ascertained corruptionists without fear or favor or regard to persons. The persistent and deliberate refusal of

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both the Senate and House of Representatives to permit such investigation to be made demonstrates that only by a change in the executive and in the legislative departments can complete exposure, punishment, and correction be obtained.

"We condemn the action of the Republican party in Congress in refusing to prohibit an executive department from entering into contracts with convicted trusts or unlawful combinations in restraint of interstate trade. We believe that one of the best methods of procuring economy and honesty in the public service is to have public officials, from the occupant of the White House down to the lowest of them, return, as nearly as may be, to Jeffersonian simplicity of living.

"We favor the nomination and election of a President imbued with the principles of the Constitution, who will set his face sternly against executive usurpation of legislative and judicial functions, whether that usurpation be veiled under the guise of executive construction of existing laws or whether it take refuge in the tyrant's plea of necessity or superior wisdom.

"We favor the preservation, so far as we can, of an open door for the world's commerce in the Orient without unnecessary entanglement in Oriental and European affairs, and without arbitrary, unlimited, irresponsible, and absolute government anywhere within our jurisdiction. We oppose, as fervently as did George Washington, an indefinite, irresponsible, discretionary, and vague absolutism and a policy of colonial exploitation, no matter where or by whom invoked or exercised. We believe with Thomas Jefferson and John Adams, that no government has a right to make one set of laws for those 'at home' and another and a different set of laws, absolute in their character, for those 'in the colonies.' All men under the American flag are entitled to the protection of the institutions whose emblem the flag is; if they are inherently unfit for those institutions, then they are inherently unfit to be members of the American body politic. Wherever there may exist a people incapable of being governed under American laws, in consonance with the American Constitution, the territory of that people ought not to be part of the American domain.