National Expansion
spoke clearly for protection of American rights in all parts of the world, for maintenance of the Monroe doctrine, for a reasonable degree of military preparedness for the protection of the country, for a Tariff Commission which should place the tariff system of the country upon a scientific and non-political basis, for such regulation of business as should prevent abuses without crippling enterprise for impairing property rights, for exclusive Federal control of the railway transportation system, for restoration of the merchant marine, for the establishment of a budget system for the national treasury in the interest of economy and businesslike methods in government, for the careful husbandry of natural resources, for vocational education, laws against child labor, workmen's compensation and accident compensation laws, rural credits, extension of the rural free delivery mail service, full protection of naturalized citizens in the right of expatriation and the extension of the electoral franchise to women equally with men.
There was less difference than usual between the two platforms. The Republican stood for the protective principle in the tariff, while the Democratic repeated the demand for a tariff for revenue only; though the tariff which a Democratic Congress had enacted at the dictation of the Democratic President was very far from answering that description. The Republican insisted upon keeping the faith of the nation which had been pledged in the Treaty of Paris concerning the Philippines, while the Democratic advocated a policy of repudiation, scuttling and abandonment. The Republican platform proposed specific constructive legislation and executive action for the “rigid supervision and
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