tion of the United States, and the complete separation of church and state in political affairs.

"We denounce the Ship Subsidy bill recently passed by the United States Senate as an iniquitous appropriation of public funds for private purposes and a wasteful, illogical, and useless attempt to overcome by subsidy the obstructions raised by Republican legislation to the growth and development of American commerce on the sea. We favor the upbuilding of a merchant marine without new or additional burdens upon the people and without bounties from the public treasury.

"We favor liberal trade arrangements with Canada, and with peoples of other countries where they can be entered into with benefit to American agriculture, manufactures, mining, or commerce.

"We favor the maintenance of the Monroe doctrine in its full integrity.

"We favor the reduction of the army and of army expenditures to the point historically demonstrated to be safe and sufficient.

"The Democracy would secure to the surviving soldiers and sailors and their dependents generous pensions, not by an arbitrary Executive order but by legislation which a grateful people stand ready to enact. Our soldiers and sailors who defended with their lives the Constitution and the laws have a sacred interest in their just administration. They must therefore share with us the humiliation with which we have witnessed the exaltation of court favorites, without distinguished service, over the scarred heroes of many battles, or aggrandizement by Executive appropriations out of the treasuries of prostrate peoples in violation of the act of Congress which fixed the compensation of allowance of the military officers.

"The Democratic party stands committed to the principles of civil service reform, and we demand their honest, just, and impartial enforcement. We denounce the Republican party for its continuous and sinister encroachments upon the spirit and operation of civil service rule, whereby it has arbitrarily dispensed with examinations for office in the interest of favorites and employed all manner of devices to overreach and set aside the principles upon which the civil service is based.

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"The race question has brought countless woes to this country. The calm wisdom of the American people should see to it that it brings no more. To revive the dead and hateful race and sectional animosities in any part of our common country means confusion, distraction of business, and the reopening of wounds now happily healed. North, south, east, and west have but recently stood together in line of battle from the walls of Peking to the hills of Santiago, and as sharers of a common glory and a common destiny we should share fraternally the common burdens.

"We therefore deprecate and condemn the Bourbon-like, selfish, and narrow spirit of the recent Republican convention at Chicago which sought to kindle anew the embers of racial and sectional strife, and we appeal from it to the sober common sense and patriotic spirit of the American people.

"The existing Republican administration has been spasmodic, erratic, sensational, spectacular, and arbitrary. It has made itself a satire upon the Congress and courts, and upon the settled practices and usages of national and international law.

"It summoned the Congress in hasty and futile extra session and virtually adjourned it, leaving behind in its flight from Washington uncalled calendars and unaccomplished tasks.

"It made war, which is the sole power of Congress, without its authority, thereby usurping one of its fundamental perogatives. It violated a plain statute of the United States as well as plain treaty obligations, international usages, and constitutional law; and has done so under pretense of executing a great public policy which could have been more easily effected lawfully, constitutionally, and with honor.

"It forced strained and unnatural constructions upon statutes, usurping judicial interpretation and substituting for Congressional enactment Executive decree.

"It withdrew from the Congress its customary duties of investigation which have heretofore made the representatives of the people and the States the terror of evil-doers.

"It conducted a secretive investigation of its own, and, boasting of a few sample convicts, it threw a broad coverlet over the bureaus

which had been the chosen field of operative abuses and kept in power the superior officers under whose administration the crimes had been committed.

"It ordered assault upon some monopolies, but, paralyzed by a first victory, it flung out the flag of truce and cried out that it would not 'run amuck,' leaving its future purposes beclouded by its vacillations.

"Conducting the campaign upon this declaration of our principles and purposes, we invoke for our candidates the support not only of our great and time-honored organization, but also the active assistance of all of our fellow-citizens who, disregarding past differences, desire the perpetuation of our constitutional government as framed and established by the fathers of the republic."

The deliberations in the committee on resolutions involved conflicting views on the financial question, and by unanimous agreement no reference whatever was made to that question. This harmonious action was due to a general recognition that free silver had ceased to be an issue because of the country's full acceptance of the gold standard. The platform, silent on the subject, was unanimously adopted by the convention.

Judge Parker, however, after receiving the news of his nomination for the Presidency, felt that it was due to the convention and the country that his own position should be clearly defined. He consequently sent the following telegram to William F. Sheehan, one of the New York delegates in attendance at the convention:

"ESOPUS, New York, July 9, 1904.

"I regard the gold standard as firmly and irrevocably established, and shall act accordingly if the action of the convention to-day shall be ratified by the people. As the platform is silent on the subject, my view should be made known to the convention, and if it is proved

HISTORY OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK

to be unsatisfactory to the majority I request you to decline the nomination for me at once so that another may be nominated before adjournment. ALTON B. PARKER."

By 794 ayes to 191 nays the convention voted to send Judge Parker the following reply:

"The platform adopted by this convention is silent upon the question of the monetary standard because it is not regarded by us as a possible issue in this campaign, and only campaign issues are mentioned in the platform. Therefore there is nothing in the views expressed by you in the telegram just received which would preclude a man entertaining them from accepting a nomination on said platform."

Other Parties

People's Party.-Convention held in Springfield, Illinois, July 4-6, 1904. For President, Thomas E. Watson, of Georgia; for Vice-President, Thomas H. Tibbles, of Nebraska.

Prohibition Party.-Convention held in Indianapolis, June 29-July 1, 1904. For President, Silas C. Swallow, of Pennsylvania; for Vice-President, George W. Carroll, of Texas.

Socialist Labor Party.-Convention held in New York, July 3-9, 1904. For President, Charles H. Corrigan, of New York; for Vice-President, William W. Cox, of Illinois.

Socialist Party.-Convention held in Chicago, May 1-6, 1904. For President, Eugene V. Debs, of Indiana; for Vice-President, Benjamin Hanford, of New York.