Material Interests
industries to which it should be extended. Having themselves enacted a protective tariff in 1894 the Democrats in their national platform of 1896 demanded that it should be left undisturbed, and while declaring the obvious truism that “tariff duties should be levied for purposes of revenue”—which of course nobody ever disputed—they were careful to omit the word “only” which they had thither to inserted. Upon that platform, the salient feature of which was something other than the tariff, they nominated William J. Bryan of Nebraska for President and Arthur Sewall of Maine for Vice-President.
The Republicans in their platform strongly reaffirmed the principle of a tariff so adjusted as to afford protection to American industrial development. They condemned the existing Democratic tariff for its sectional character. Then they wisely closed the Controversy by declaring that they were not pledged to any particular schedules; that the question of rates was a practical question, to be governed by the conditions of time and of production; and thus implied that the amount of protection afforded was to be determined by the need of it. They also strongly approved the policy of reciprocity as going hand in hand with protection. Upon this platform they nominated William McKinley of Ohio for President and Garret A. Hobart of New Jersey for Vice-President.
The Populist, or People's party, nominated Mr. Bryan for President and Thomas E. Watson of Georgia for Vice-President. The Silver party ratified the Democratic nominations. A “National Democratic” convention, composed of Democrats who split from their party on the question of the monetary standard,
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