Page:The Republican Party (1920).djvu/88

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Material Interests


the American press. They also adopted without change, save of party name, the platform of the Liberals. This provoked a revolt of many Democrats who held another convention at Louisville, Ky. and nominated Charles O'Conor of New York for President and Charles Francis Adams of Massachusetts for Vice-President on a platform of state rights, strict construction of the Constitution and a tariff for revenue only.

Amid all this “sound and fury, signifying nothing,” the Republican party pursued the steadfast tenor of its way. It met in convention at Philadelphia on June 5th, unanimously renominated President Grant and named Henry Wilson of Massachusetts for Vice-President. The platform recounted the achievements of the party during its eleven years' control of the national government. It pledged the party to a comprehensive scheme of progressive and constructive statesmanship, including: civil service reform; reservation of public lands for homesteads for actual settlers; a tariff for revenue so adjusted as to aid in securing remunerative wages for American workingmen and to promote the industries, prosperity and growth of the whole country; pensions for soldiers and sailors; the maintenance of the rights of American citizens abroad, naturalized as well as native; abolition of the much-abused franking privilege and reduction of the rates of postage; legislation to give protection and opportunity to capital, and to labor a just share of the profits of industry; and the restoration of American shipbuilding and ocean commerce.

In this platform for the first time in the platform of either of the great parties appeared a cordial recognition of the obligations of the nation to the women of

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