Document Namber It (N. O.)

The Issues of 1904

Hon. EDWARD M. SHEPARD
Replies to the Republican Arguments of
Secretary JOHN HAY and Hon. ELIHU ROOT

Wfiat liiKttBi Promises.

Published by Democratic Nation I Committee.
NEW YORK.
1904.

SPEECH
....OF....
EDWARD M. SHEPARD
....AT....
BENNINGTON, VERMONT,
August ^J, J904.

It is natural enough to talk for Parker and Davis at
Bennington. For their campaign is only a later chapter in
that long struggle for liberty and law and order and equal
rights, an earlier battle in which ennobled these fields of
yours. In thia^campaign of 1904, the Democratic party de
mands public as well as private obedience to law, public as
well as private practice of peace, a scrupulous assertion and
defense by all in authority under -the United States of the
sacred and fundamental American right of self-government,
the abolition of the monopolies created by that system of
corrupting special privilege miscalled " protection," a return
to public economy and simplicity of life in official station
and_a resolute investigation of the federal departments. It
is with these timely and living questions that we ask the
country to deal at this election.
If the Democratic program represent, on the one hand,
genuine and courageous progress along the only true path
for a free and industrial people, on the other hand, it rep
resents nothing new, but only a return to original American
doctrine. The soundness of that doctrine has been demon-

rtrated by the splendid and beneficent results of 'our general
trend of obedience to it during a century and more. It has
been demonstrated hardly less by the corruptions and calam
ities which have followed departures or exceptions from it'
whenever made by our people or by our national adminis
tration. The departures and exceptions are serious indeed which
the present Republican administration proposes^ and some of
which it has carried out, from this body of doctrine. The
Democratic party, on the other hand, finds its necessity, if
not its duty, in a vindication of the original ideals upon
which the prosperity of our republic and the glory of its
citizenship have been built up. The campaign is truly con«
cerned with underlying tendencies even more than wi^th the
instant decision of concrete and practical problems. We are
asked to say by our votes what kind of an office we would
have the American presidency be,— to what kind of moral
and material end we would have the American people direct.
their marvellous energies.
The speech of Mr. Hay, the Secretary of State, on the .
fiftieth anniversary of the organization of the Republican
party, at Jackson, Mich., on July 6th, and the speech of Mr.
Root, lately Secretary of War, asjdiairman of the Republican
convention at Chicago, on June 21st, were evidently; prepared
in concert, and long before their delivery, to be read together
as the chief authorized appeal of the Republican party. Two
million copies are said to. have been distributed, — all hand-
Bomely and, if the title page be credible, "privately,"
printed. They have, and with skill and eloquence, said the
best that can be said for Mr. Roosevelt's election. And in
their speeches I find an all-sufficient Democratic text. For
their fundamental note is one of fear lest the American
people shall believe that thd Republican effort during its last
seven years of renewed power has been -to tear the republic
from its long and splendid progress in democratic freedom

and humanity. Their claim is that, after all, there does not
rest upon them any burden of proof that the new departure
is wise. For their audacious affirmation is. that there has
been no new departure — that we have all misunderstood
the President's speeches about our new " world power " and
the rest, of his strident and boastful talk. The chief Repub
lican orators now say that recent Republican achievement
and policy have been soberly and patierltly kept within old
and tried traditions. Notwithstanding tEeir manner of jubi
lant assertion; they are, in substance, speeches of conscious
defense and even anxious excuse. They ,rest the case for Mr.
Roosevelt's election upon four propositions. They say, first,
tliat our increase in population, wealth and power since their
party came in power in 1861 is an all-sufficient demonstra
tion that Republican power means prosperity, and that Demo
cratic power means adversity. They say, secondly, that the
Republican party of our day is a faithful and scrupulous f pl-
J lower of Abraham Lincoln; that they who would have the
Republic continue upon the humanitarian impulse whieh
dominated our politics from and after the Chicago plat
form of 1860, must remain in the Republican party, for
its policy since 1897 has been the flower and fruit of that
very impulse. Thirdly, they say that the present tariff has
created and now preserves the industrial welfare of the
United States and its high rates of wages and profits; that
its maintenance is the first and most sacred of political
causes; and that it ought not to be readjusted' or revised:
And their fourt h proposition is that President Roosevelt's
three years of genuine power, since ne escaped from the im-
i mediate shadow of his predecessor's death, prove him to be
a statesman of "far-sighted wisdom," of "endless patience,"
of "serious reflection," one who "takes infinite pains to get
at the facts before he acts," whose maxim is that " the laws
of this country are made to be obeyed whether it is safe or
not," and the thought oftenest in whose heart " in times of

doubt and difficulty * * * is ' What in such a case
would Lincoln have done?'"
Such is the Republican case deliberately presented by
the most skilful of Republican advocates. Does it fit the
common sense and common knowledge of the American
people ?
Take the first proposition. Is it true that our increase
in wealth and prosperity since the rise of the Republican
party has been its work,, its glory? Was it an appeal to truth
for Mr. Hay to treat as result of " Fifty Tears of the Repub
lican Party" our increase in population between 1850 and
1900, our fourfold increase in farming acreage, our fivefold
increase in corn crop and sixfold increase in wlieat crop, our
increase in manufacturing capital from $500,000,000 to $10,-
000,000,000? Does any argument deserve less respect from
one who has mastered that first rule of reasoning which bids
him not infer that event A is the effective and sole cause of
event B merely because in order of time event B comes with
or after event A ? Were there not in the United States fertile
soil and moderate suns and rains, the brains and hands and
inventive genius of American men and women, liberty, law
and order, — all these before there was a Republican party;
and were not they the prime cause of our prosperity? The
growth of American .population and wealth between the peace
of 1783 and the inauguration of John Adams in 1797 was
but a small fraction of the like growth under McKinley and
Roosevelt. And in those fourteen years, — the years when
Franklin and Jefferson and Hamilton and Madison, under
the auspices of the noble, unboastful character of the Father
of his Country, established our republic — our material
growth in absolute figures was small indeed — our railroad
mileage nought. Were those earlier statesmen dwarfs, there
fore, in comparison with the latter-day Titans who have
dwelt in the White House since. March, 1897 ? What years,
O American men and women, have done more, material and

moral, than tnos** early ones for their own generation, whaf
years, more for this" very Twentieth Centnry prosperity of
ours? Is it the Lincoln doctrine — or was it ever — that the
merit of moral and political causes is measurable by the
wealth and luxury accumulated at the very- time of their
operation ? Is it not the doctrine of prophets and apostles,
and the lesson of all practical history, that self-denial, sim
plicity, economy, righteousness," sobriety, lead on — not in
stantly but after patient years — to power and wealth ? Would
not Republican orators give better promise for future fruits
of present day Republican administration, if they could
rather and truly claim for their party under President Roose
velt an enforcement of equal' rights, a rigorous economy, a
punctilious regard for law ?
But if this doctrine of Present wealthy therefore present
virtue in present ruling politics, be not a shallow sophistry,
still see with what absurd unfairness it is applied. Do Re
publican apologists say — -dare, they say — what alone would
be relevant to the political problem, that during the forty-
four years since their party came into power, the progress.
of our country has been as great, from year to year, as during
the sixty year3 of general Democratic supremacy before the
civil war? If the Republican party may justly ask another
lease of power because from 1860 to 1890 our population in
creased from 31,000,000 to 76,000 000, or 36 per cent, per
decade, why may not the Democrats with greater justice1 ask
their return to power because from 1800 > to 1860 the increase
was from 5,300,000 to 31,443,000, or 82 per cent, in each
decade?* Was not the increase in the decade, 1850-1860 —
and in spite of slavery— from 33,000,000 , to 31,000,000,
• All'my statistics are taken from the Summary of Commerce
and Finance for May,, 19 4, issued by the Bureau of" Statistics,
Department of Commerce and Labor. For total wealth and other
data before 1850, there are no official figures. In each case the> per
centages are computed ' upon the earlier figure gircn.

8
ttr at t\e same rate as in the decades, 1860-1900? If the in
crease in total wealth between 1860 and 1900 was from $16,-
000,000,000 to $90,000,000,000, or 116 per cent, per decade,
and in wealth per capita of population from $513.92 to .
$1,235.86, or 35 per cent, per decade — was not the Demo- .
cratic increase in total wealth between 1850 and 1860 from.
$7,000,000,000 to $16,000,000,000; or 128 per cent, for the
decade, being still larger than the Republican, and in wealth
per capita from $307.69 to $513.93, or at the rate of 67 per
cent, for the decade — nearly double the Republican rate?
Although the value of farms and farm property increased
from $7,980,000,000 in 1860 to $20,514,000,000 in 1900, or
at the rate of 39 per cent, in each decade, was not the increase
from $3,967,000,000 in 1850 to $7,980,000,000 in 1860, or
at the rate of 100 per cent, per decade; and were not, there
fore, Democratic auspices far more favorable to' prosperity
than Republican ? Although the corn crop increased from
838 million bushels in 1860 to 2,105 millions in 1900, or at
the rate ofx37 per cent, in each decade, was not the increase
from 377 millions in 1840 to 838 millions in I860, or at the
rate of 61 per cent, in each decade ; and if, therefore, we wish
large increase in the next four years, ought we not to prefer
a Democratic President? Even if the wheat crop increased
from 173 millions of bushels in 1860 to 552 millions in 1900,
or at the rate of 50 per cent, in each decade, did it not increase
from 84,000,000 in 1840 to 173,000,000 in 1860, or at the
larger rate of 53 per cent:- per decade? If this kind of
argument be fit, what shall be said of the increases in wealth
under Democratic auspices from $7,000,000,000 to $16,000,-
000,000, in 1850-1860, or at the decade rate of 128 per cent.,
as against the increase under Republican auspices during
the decade 1890-1900 from $65,000,000,000 to $94,000,000,-
000, or at the rate of only 44.6 per cent.? Or what shall
be said of the increases in wealth per person throughout the
United States in the decade 1850-1860 from $307.69 to

$513.93, or at the decade rate of 67 per cent, as against the
corresponding increase under Republican auspices in 1890-
1900 from $1,038.57 to $1,235.86 or at the decade rate of
only 19 per cent. Or what shall be said of the increase in
export of American manufactures of iron and steel from
$52,144 in 1800 to $5,870,114 in 1860, or at average rate
of 1859 per cent, per decade, as against the Republican in
crease from $5,870,114 in 1860 to $121,913,548 (at the
abnormally high figures of 1900), or,an average increase per
decade of only 494 per cent. ? Or what shall be said, and per
haps more reasonably, of the increase under Democratic rule
in our export of agricultural products from $25,000,000 in
1800 to $256,000,000 in I860, an average of 150 per cent.
per deeade, as agaihst the increase under Republican rule
from $256,000,000,000 in 1860 to $835,000,000 in 1900,.
an average of only 56 per cent, per decade? What. shall be
said of the Democratic increase in our total domestic -mer
chandise exported from $31,000,000 in 1800 to $316,000,000
in 1860, or an average Democratic increase of 153 per cent.
per deeade, as against the Republican increase, from $316,-
000,000 in 1860 to $1,370,000,000 in 1900, an increase of
only 83. 5~ per cent, per decade ? Or what shall be said of
the Democratic increase in American tonnage engaged in
' foreign, trade from 669,921 in 1800 to 2,546,237 in 1860, a
Democratic increase per decade of 46 per cent., as against
the decrease from 2,-546,237: in 1860 to 826,694 in 1900, a
Republican decrease of 16 per cent, per decade? Or what
shall, be said of the Democratic increase of tonnage engaged
in domestic trade from 301,919 in 1800 to 2,807,631 in
1860, a Democratic increase of 138 per cent, per decade^ as
against the Republican increase from 2,807,631 in 1860 to
4,338,145 in 1900, or only 13 per cent, per decade ? If the
increase in railroad mileage be so significant, a Republican
glory, is it not fit to point out that under Democratic
auspices the mileage increased from 23 miles in 1830 to

10
30,626 in 1860; or, if this be a crowding of the argument
then that the increase under Democratic auspices in 1850-
1860 was from 9,021 to 30,6B6, a decade increase of 239 per
cent., as against the increase from 161,276- in 1890 to 194,334
\ in 1900, or at the decade rate of only 20.5 per cent.
Or shall we take the increase in total manufactures^
which is the glory of the protectionists? We have not the
official figures before 1850 which would, no doubt, show
enormous proportional increases. Let us, as we must, begin
with 1850. The Democratic increase for 1850-1860 was,
from $1,019,000 to $l,88'5,O00,000, or at the deeade rate
of 84 per cent. But in 1890-1900 the Republican and "pro
tected" increase (allowing the abnormally high prices of
1900) was from $9,372,000,000 ta $13,039,000,000, or at
the~decade rate of only 39.2 per cent. Is it' not significant
that, while the total manufacturing product increased in
1890-1900 by 39 per cent., the increase in wages and salaries
paid employees was from only $2^,283,000,000 to $2,735,-
000,000 or at the decade rate of , 19.8 per cent., being only
one-half the ratable" increase in the manufacturing output.
So it is to be. noticed that, while population increased in
1850-1860 by 35 per cent., the increase in manufacturing
output was 84 per cent., or 2.5 times the rate of population
increase; but that the population increase from 1890-1900
was 21.8 per cent., while the increase in wealth was 39.2
per cent., or only 1.81 times the^population increase. Indeed,
in whatever just way the figures of even manufacturing
growth are treated, they tell for the period of Democratic
rule and greater economic liberty.
The Republican orators and campaign book refer to the
recent great increase in exports of domestic products as a
crushing proof that, even if foreign trade be considered,
Republican administration and a high protective tariff
are best. Did not, — so they say, — exports increase, from
$316,000,000 in 1860 to -$l,370,000,Q00r in 1900, ' a per

11

decade increase of 83 per cent, upon the amount in 1860.
But here again it is easy to explode their argument. For
the increase in 1850-1860 was from $134,900,000 to $316,-
000,000, or at the decade rate of 134 per cent., — a Demo
cratic rate of increase under a revenue tariff half as large
again as the Republican and "protected" rate of increase.
From 1890 to 1903 the increase was from $845,000,000 to
$1,393,000,000, or at an annual rate of 4.9 per cent., being
less than half the Democratic rate of 13.4 per cent, in
1850-1860. Mr. Hay ventured to include the decade 1850-1860 in
his figures of Republican glory. Yet those were years of
Democratic power; and the Walker tariff, enacted by Demo
crats in 1846 for revenue only, was in effect. Is there any
thing so truth telling in the vast masses of figures in the
Republican campaign book as the fact it would conceal, that
those were years of greater ratable growth in material things
than any our country has since known?
I cannot leave this mass of figures, made necessary by
the almost overwhelming dependence of the Republicans
upon the "prosperity" argument, without asking you to think
of another point. Does it not illustrate the debasing effect,
upon the latter-day morale of the Republican party produced
by its change of dominant purpose from the restraint of
human slayery to the maintenance , and tightening of the
shackles of a "protective" tariff, that Messrs. Hay and Root
and the authors of the Republican campaign book have
made no allowance for the regenerative and stimulating effect;
of the abolition of .slave labor? If other things were equal,
the rates of industrial increase from 1860, when in nearly
half the country the labor was chiefly crude, wasteful, hope
less labor of slavery, to 1900, when all labor was free, ought
to have exceeded those of the preceding decade, instead of to
have fallen so far below them.

12
Dou you still, Messrs. Root and Hay, stand to this kind
of argument? If you do, let me further ask ,how sound is
the reasoning,— r-how sincere it is,— that accords a sudden
and complete operation to governmental methods or economic
policies more than to the habits of a man or the customs of
a people. Do they produce their full effect at this very
moment? Or, in the field to be ploughed by statesmen,
does effect follow cause as it does elsewhere ? Was the pro
found commercial depression in 1873-1879 the result of
mistakes of Gen. Grant in his second term and of Mr.
Hayes in his first two or three years? Or did it follow,
deep, widespread influences operative " for many years pre
ceding 1873, including not only the necessary waste of the
war to save the. Union and abolish slavery, but not less
seriously the Republican issues of paper money, the indirect
injury wrought by the demoralization of an even just and
necessary war, ahd the private extravagance and speculation
incident to large governmental expenditure? If, as every
sensible man knows, such an industrial and business con
dition must follow long time causes, then so far as they are
due to what government does or omits to do, was not such
commercial depression chiefly due to policies of the Repub
lican party? Was the cause of the crisis 6f 1893-1897 the
mere fact of an election in November, 1892? Is it a fit
thing for the Republican advocates to ignore the potent '
influence of the McKinley tariff bill, of the vast increase in
pensions under the bill signed by President Harrison, —
even more the undermining and disastrous effect upon busi
ness confidence of the operation of the Sherman silver law
and the financial disturbances at the same time throughout
the world? And how much honest intelligence is there in
the Republican affirmation that the Wilson tariff law, en
acted on August 25th, 1894, produced a crisis which, gather
ing during President Harrison's last year, openly broke upon
the country in May, 1893, seventeen months before any

13
tariff change ? So far as the apparent prosperity which, re
turning before President Cleveland last left the White House,
as it had departed before his Republican predecessor, Presi
dent Harrison, left it, continued for several years, is to be
ascribed to any president, it must be ascribed to him, if effect
"follow cause. The white sails of commercial venture and
industrial enterprise which, since then, have been blown out
and rounded, are now coming more and more to an ominous
shiver; and more cautious Republican statesmen already
point out that .their party is not to be condemned merely
because hard«times come when it is in power. But, if the'
Republican party ought not to be thus condemned, it is
simply because the chief argument made by its orators and
its official campaign book is grossly unsound. , But reject
this insolent "claim of credit to Republican administration
for what during the first century and more of our freedom,
splendidly resulted from our long and persistent rejection
of the devices of imperialism with its great armies and
navies and extravagant administration and foreign meddling,
— from our vast area of interior free trade, from our soil
and climate and mines and rivers and forests and, most of
all, from our free men, jealous , of their own rights and re
spectful of others, and of their industrial genius, which is
truly an item and result of their love of liberty,^-reject
this -preposterous claim,— and the Republican case is naked
" indeed. Although the chief Republican dependence is thus laid
lipon'the argument that we made money, or seemed to make
it, and that prices were high under McKinley and Roosevelt;
and that the money-making and the high prices were due to
Republican administration and legislation, the Republicans
still reluctantly perceive that moral(feeling plays a real part.
with American voters,. -So, as a second argument, Messrs. Hay
and Root, and even the sordid pages of the. Republican
eampaigh' book, affirm a moral kinship between Abraham

14
Lincoln and the . statesmen who control their politics in
1904, between the men and women who gave the all neces
sary religious and humanitarian uplift to the anti-slavery
struggle and the war for the Union, and, on the other hand,
the vast corporate and business influences which, by and for
their own profit, dominate the Republican party. To these
influences even its gallant and strenuous candidate has, —
after his much protesting eloquence to the contrary in 1902
and 1903, — been compelled to completely submit with prom
ises not again to "run amuck," and not again to treat the
tariff question as open, even to the extent to which President
McKinley at the last held that the welfare of the country
required it to be open. Surely the claim to this kinship
needs only to be stated to refute itself. What part, indeed,
did a protective tariff play in the national uprising of 1861 ?
How much was it discussed in the Lincoln-Douglas debates
of 1858, or Lincoln's Cooper Union speech of 1859, or the
important speeches, Republican or Democratic, of 1860 or
1864? It was not mentioned. The Republican platform of
1856 said not one vrord in behalf of protection nor did it
mention the tariff, although the Walker tariff — a tariff for
revenue, and not for protection — had been in operation ten
years. The Republican platform of 1860 did not refer to
protection or a protective tariff. In one of the later .and
subordinate clauses of the platform it did declare that "while
"providing revenue * * * by duties upon imports, sound
"policy requires such an adjustment of these impositions as
" to encourage the development of the industrial interest of
" the uihote country." But even this vague suggestion, which
might mean high or low protective duties, or no protective
duties whatever, made no part of the campaign. Lincoln
did not refer to it in his letter of acceptance or in his inaugu
ral. In 1864 the Republican platform made not a single
reference to protection or the tariff; nor did Lincoln in his
acceptance or inaugural.

15
Something from Abraham Lincoln in behalf of a high
protective tariff would be precious, indeed, to the Republicans
of to-day. But they can find nothing. For even their cam
paign book the best they can do is to pick out a few sen^
tences from speeches of Mr. Lincoln in 1843 and 1847, a dozen
and more years before he was president, and even before
he was in Congress, in which he declared that the justification
of a. protective duty would be its result in establishing some
new industry in our own country, so as to secure the goods
to the consumer at a cheaper rate than he could bring them
from abroad. The modern Republican idea that the use of
a protective tariff is to 'keep prices high to the American con
sumer in order that the profits of other Americans engaged
In gigantic and long established industries shall be increased,
would have been as abhorrent to Abraham Lincoln as it is
fo Judge Parker.
Even in 1868 when; the war being three years ended,
business questions began to be thought of, the Republican
party said not a word in behalf of a protective tariff, but,
rather to the contrary, declared that "it is due to* the labor
* of the- nation that taxation should be equalized and reduced
" as rapidly as the national faith will permit;" and General
Grant in his letter of acceptance was equally silent on this
question. Could there have then been Republican success in
1860 or 1864 or even 1868 unless Walker tariff men and
even free traders whose economic views remained' unchanged,
had not left the Democratic party for the Anti-Slavery party ?
Would not that success have been defeat if Chase, Sumner,
Blair, Bates, John M. Palmer, Trumbull and a host of other
former Democrats and believers in low duties had not,— and
because the tariff was not in question, — joined the Republi
can party ? Are you not, Mr. Hay, f orgetful^ very forgetful,
when you say that "only those who believe in hupian rights
" and * * * ¦ who believe in the American^ system of
"protection * * * have any title to name themselves

16
* by the name of Lincoln, or to claim a moral kinship with
" that august and venerated spirit ?"*
And what part did colonial exploitation of inferior races
or weaker countries, or the. policy of "big stick" suzerainty
over the republics to the south of us, or the policy of the
"strong man armed" in the trade and territorial disputes of
foreign countries, play in the politics conceived or directed
by Lincoln or his party ? If, in 1854, the Democratic party
boasted the Ostend manifesto in behalf of a conquest of
Cuba, did it not result in "Democratic shame and disaster?
If Seward, at the head of the Republican cabinet, a month
after Lincoln's inauguration, secretly urged his chief to avoid
domestic difficulties by plunging us into an European war,
did noxt Mr. Hay's own disclosure in his Lincoln biography
of the secret well nigh blast Seward's reputation for states
manship? Quote, Mr. Root and Mr. Hay, if you can, any
remembered and honored utterances of honored Republican
statesmen before McKinley's presidency, in behalf of your
foreign and colonial policy. Quote, if you dare, the Repub
lican platform assertion in 1856, that "the maintenance of
"the principles promulgated in the Declaration of Inde
pendence is essential to the preservation of our Republican
"institutions," that the Tiighwayman's appeal' that 'might
"makes right' would ^bring shame and dishonor upon any
" government or people." Or quote the Republican declara
tion of 1860 that the doctrine that governments derive "their
just powers from the consent of the governed," is "essential
"to the preservation of our republican institutions." Or
quote the platform declaration by the Republican party in
1868 of its "sympathy with all oppressed peoples struggling
" for their rights," and of its solemn recognition of "the
"great principles laid down in the immortal Declaration of
* Independence as the true foundation of democratic gov-
* Mr. Hay, in "Fifty fears of the Republican Party."

17
" ernment." If to these challenges you must remain dumb,
are you not, truly in Mr. Hay's eloquent words, guilty of
" sacrilege to try to trade upon that benignant renown" of
the humanitarian I /in coin "whose light 'folds in this orb o'
"the earth?"'
The Republican note is, I admit, more sincere in the
third of the four chief propositions pf their campaign. The
mass of the Republican ^party, — some of its leaders, and all
of the practically monopolistic interests which control its
economic policies,— do believe, really and earnestly, that
American prosperity and the high standard of American
industry depend upon very .large '"protective" duties. If
many of their chief leaders or statesmen, like Secretary Blaine
in 1889 or President McKinley in 1901 (or like even Presi
dent Roosevelt in 1902), have at last become skeptical and
suggest their doubts, — or if the Iowa idea of some .tariff
revision and reduction be held in the Northwest or by Re
publican managers of various hampered industries in Massa
chusetts and elsewhere in the East> — such doubts or "liber
alities do not, and will not, practically affect Republican
legislation. The limits of even this long speech prohibit
discussion of the great issue which Democrats wisely and
courageously raise by their assertion that the system called
"protection," — that is to say, the support of specially favored
industries by duties, payment ''of which is enforced upon the
whole people, — is a "robbery," and by the Republican vindi
cation of it as a "cardinal policy" to be followed. I point
out, however, th'at, notwithstanding the former urgency of
both Mr. McKinley and Mr. Roosevelt for revision of tariff
schedules in the interest of larger export trade, the Repub
lican party is now pledged, not only against revision, but
against" any. discussion whatever .of the question. The citi
zens who would undo any injustice in the tariff or let down
any of its obstructions by partial repeals or reciprocity
treaties, or who would have light shed upon the operation in

18
detail of its multifariously complicated system constructed
by "give and take" between the attorneys of special interests
before Ways and Means, and Finance Committees, is per
emptorily refused any relief if Mr. Roosevelt be elected. The
policy of "stand pat" means that, under Republican auspices,
no committee shall investigate, nor house of congress consider,
the working of the tariik On this suBject there must be
mute obedience as before a deity. If the manufacture of
steel and iron be no lohger an "infant industry" to be cher-'
ished, but a practical monopoly withy^the American republic,
out of whose profits the vastest fortunes in the world have
been built up, — if it sell its products to foreigners more
cheaply than to AmericansJ-i-nevertheless there must be
silence. If its charter of monopoly in the Dingley tariff or '
any other schedule of that law is found to he unjust or cor
rupt or oppressive, — still they are never to be revised until
those who have made them thus vicious shall choose to revise
them. Judge Parker has pointed out that, since the Senate
must.be Republican during the next four years, no tariff
reform can be enacted without Republican support; but he
promises, if elected, an effort to obtain that support, and,
in any event, a presentation of the cause to public opinion
from the vantage ground of the presidency of the United
States. A vote for Mr. Roosevelt, on the other hand, is a
vote that not even an effort at tariff reform, — even the
slightest measure of it, — shall be made, and that every ini
quity of the Dingley schedules shall be borne in silence.
The Republican platform declares that, when England "agi
tates a return to protection, the chief protective country
should not falter in maintaining it." This praise of Mr.
Chamberlain for his policy of defensively economical warfare
against the United States finds a fit place in the Republican
creed. , They applaud the retaliatory blow aimed at ourselves,
so much are they in love with any blow given by any nation
to another.

w

The fourth and last Republican argument is President
Roosevelt himself. To many, whether for or against him, it
is the first argument, although prudent Republican advo
cates dare not, or at least do not, give it that rank. If
Americans refuse to ascribe the fruits of their soil and sun
and rain and industry .and skill and invention to Republican
. presidents, or to credit the assertion that the cause of the
prosperity of a nation at a given time is in its present poli-"
tics rather than in the long time past operation of deep
dynamic causes; if they refuse to,,, find "moral kinship" be
tween those who struggle to free the slaves and save the
Union, and those who now' refuse self-government to the
Philippines and by law saddle the, vast profits of monopolistic
interests, upon the people at large; if they do not deem the
System, of excluding foreign goods offered in exchange for
theirs to be the chief support of American prosperity, — if
these reasons will not secure their support, nevertheless will
they not vote for Theodore Roosevelt ? Is, he not the "type
of nobie manhood," of "gentle birth and breeding," with
the "sensibility of a poet," and the "steel. nerve of a rough
"rider," — a man of "honor, truth, courage, purity of life,
domestic virtue, love of country, loyalty to high ideals?"
For these qualities it is as easy, — Mr. Hay delightfully says,
— to talk of him as "to sing the glory of the Graeme." But,
however gladly we accord all this to Mr. Roosevelt, we may
still thank God that such praise is not sound argument. For,
unless by "gentle birth and breeding" there be meant the
President's inheritance of wealth and superior opportunities
in education and social life, Alton B. Parker is, in all these
things, hia equal, as are tens of thousands, and more, of
Americans who will never be named for any office. Thej
argument for Theodore Roosevelt, distinct from his party
and bis political program, cannot, as Mr. Hay and Mr. Root
well knew, be rested upon these virtues. Not only are they
common in our coantry, but men having all of them have,

20 0
as riders, done their countries infinite-harm. For, their^pur-
pos'es, therefore, these adroit Republican apologists wisely
ascribe to him certain far rarer, even if not purer,— virtues
of the really great ruler. His "far sighted wisdom," his
habits of "long meditation and well reasoned conviction," of
"serious reflection," and' of taking "infinite pains to get at
"the facts before' -he acts," of '"endless patience," of living up
to the maxim that1 "The laws of the country are made to be
" obeyed," — these are the -faculties which the Republican ora
tors deem it fit and' far "more relevant to ascribe to him.
They know what the American people require. These facul
ties are, indeed, those of true statesmanship.
But, honor bright, Messrs. Hay and Root, can you sin
cerely affirm them of Theodore Roosevelt? And, oh, Secre
tary Hay, what are we to say of your supreme tribute
to the " ardent and able young statesman," who is your
chief, that "in times of doubt and / difficulty the thought
" oftenest in his. heart is, ' What in such a case would Lin-
" coin have done ?' " If, after the new fashion of which we
are advised, your manuscript were not submitted to the Presi
dent, — still doubtless you were right that in that amazing
assertion you were " violating neither the confidence of a
" friend nor the proprieties." But would it have violated
either if .you had let us know what apt or utterance of Lin
coln was in the President's heart on his three days' recog
nition of Panama, or on his executive- extension of the pen
sion law, or on his threat against the South American repub
lics, or during his long continued and truly " ardent "
advocacy of a great navy, or in his long and systematic
preaching of the "strong man armed " and the " big stick,"
or when he sent to his somewhat dull convention at Chicago
that true rough rider's telegram that we must have " Perdi-
earis alive or Raisuli dead.'* The President's three years'
occupancy Of the center of the stage have made the American
people understand this part of his . character and political

21

habit. His personal charm will, I believe, earn him many
votes; the false argument that Republican supremacy and a
high protective tariff mean national welfare will bring him
many votes; but I venture to say that not a score of votes
will go to him for his imaginary faculties of "long medi-
"tation" and "endless patience,'' of sober devotion to law,
or for his imaginary devotion to the ideals of one so. patient,
so long suffering, so humane and: even gentle, so wise and
steadfast, as Lincoln. Hea,r , rather the eulogy by Gov.
Black, which we . are told without.Tjcpntradiction, wa^ sub
mitted before its delivery to the Ptre,si,dent himself:
"Fortune soars with high and rapid wing, and
"whoever brings it down must shoot with accuracy
"and sjaeed. Only the man with steady eye and nerve
"and^ courage to pull the trigger brings the largest
"opportunities to the ground., * * * He spends
"little time in review, for that he knows can be done
'by the schools. A statesman grappling with the liv
ing problems of the hour, he gropes but little in the
"past. He believes in going ahead. * * * The
"fate of nations is still decided by their wars. You
"may talk of orderly tribunals and learned referees;
"you may sing in your schools the gentle praises of
"the quiet life; you may strike from your books. the
"last note of every . martial anthem; and yet out in
"the smoke and thunder will always be the tramp of
"the horses and the silent, rigid, upturned face. Men
"may prophesy and women pray ; but peace will come
"to abide forever on this earth only when the dreams
"of childhood are the accepted charts to guide the des-
"tinies of men."
This was part of the vindication of the President offi
cially-made by the distinguished and practised speaker
chosen to present his name, and give the reasons for his

nomination. Will not its very praise suggest to any wise
American the real Theodore Roosevelt of great public sta
tion? Does it not suggest the "ardent young statesman"
who, in so many ways, and so often, and until his advisers
bade him beware of heroics while the American people were
soberly considering their verdict, exhibited a reckless and
war-loving temper? Was not Governor Blaek right? For
did he not speak of a president who has declared his contempt
for "that mock humafaitarianisan" wMch weald prevent the
great liberty-loving nations of the world from going to war,
who despises, as he himself has told us, the "cloistered vir
tue" which dare not go down into *the hurly-burly where
the men of might contend?" Was he not speaking of a presi
dent who, in a hundred speeches, has talked of the "craven"
and the "weakling" and the "coward who babbles of peace,"
who has preached the "just man armed* as his dearest gos
pel, who would have a great army, although, as he has said,
"we do not" need it in the least for police purposes at home,"
but because we need to use it abroad, — who, three years be
fore our marauding venture at Panama, declared that "we
"must build the Isthmian canal," and must grasp the points
"of vantage," meaning that we must violate the territory of
another nation, — who has talked in season and out of season
of the "cant about liberty" and the "consent of the gov
erned,"— who, speaking-as the chief magistrate of a republic
of law and order and peace, which in its men and resources
is the most powerful of nations, declared that its maxims
should be, "Speak softly and carry a big stick," and who
has of late in plain terms threatened our neighbors at the.
South that unless, — in their relations, not with the United
States but with others, for whom we are in no way called
upon to act, — they acted "with decency in industrial and po
etical matters," unless they "kept order and paid their ohli-
"gations," unless they "governed themselves well" and were
"prosperous and orderly" they might -expect our forcible in-

' 23
tervention? Where is the .parallel for utterances like these
by the ruler of a great country since Moscow and Waterloo
brought to an en<J the insolent addresses of the first Napoleon
to the monarchs of Europe and the terrified envoys at his
court ? Some of the President's admirers draw a comparison
between him and Andrew Jackson. Jackson indeed was not
lacking in courage, virility, energy, or genius; and, besides,
he was a frontiersman of very rough early years, utterly lack
ing the elaborate and gentle education and long literary
practice of the President. Jackson alsb asserted his coun
try's rights, but, like a later Democratic President in 1895,
against powerful nations of ; Europe. But in no speech or
paper of Jaekson^s after ho- came to the presidencycan utter
ances like -those of Mr. Roosevelt be found. Nor can like
utterances he found in the record of any one of our Presi
dents,— especially not of Washington and Jackson and Grant,
who had been great generals.
In Gov. Blaek's speech, — in the President's own exhibi
tion of his political temper and ideals, before the enforced
sobriety of critical candidacy was upon him, — in these and
not in the cautious and diplomatic utterances, of Secretary
Hay and Mr. Root, is the true Roosevelt,— as we have seen
his behavior in great public station. It is to the credit of
Messrs. Hay and Root that they, far better than Gov. BlackT
or the President himself, knew the abiding instinct of the
American people, and offer their own statesmanlike and ideal
Roosevelt, so very, very far removed from the real Roosevelt
of the chief magistracy.
Such, then", fellow-citizens, is the strength of the Repub
lican case. And is its strength not weakness, shattered the
moment a sober-minded citizen really thinks out its argu
ment? But even so, it will be asked, what have the Demo
crats to offer ?
Before . we Democrats propose any specific measure wa

24
ask the American Ijeople to remember their own'histofy. We
also begin with the marvelous statistics of national growth
from the first census in 1790 to the last in 1900, with the
increase in population in the produce of^farm and manu
factures and forests and mine*, in the achievements of Amer
ican invention and organized industry. We do not say that
these material results have been achieved by laws, however .
good* We recognize their source in the natural bounties of
God, and the hearts: and brains and muscle of American, free
men. We do add, however, that, here between the Atlantic
and Pacific, between Cataada: and the Gulf, was first tried on
a great scale the new experiment of human and industrial
freedom, of equal rights and no, special privilege. If the
presence of negro slavery, untilr the civil war, created dismal
exceptions, — and if the presence together in the South of a
great or equal or even outnumbering mass of a colored race
with profoundly different characteristics and" as yet justly
behind the white race in the faculties of disciplined industry
and high-class government, gave, and even now gives, rise to
anomalies and inconsistencies, — they have made only clearer
the wisdom and beneficence of our fundamental policy. We
Democrats point out that, during this .period of splendid
growth, there was systematic hostility to a large military or
naval expenditure, there was systematic preference for simple
ahd inexpensive administration, there was systematic dislike
of personal and sumptuary restraints. Democrats do not?
like Republicans, forget how vast during our wonderful
economic progress has been the American area of free trade
between our forty-five states, an extent of free trade far be
yond anything ever before or now elsewhere known. For
that area has included the widest difference of climate and
soil and human labor, and also far differing conditions in
organized society, ranging from settlements nearly three
centuries old to frontiers occupied but a few years. They
remember that the internal trade of this truly imperial do-

25
main which is free of all tariff is in volume and amount
vastly, very many times, more important than its foreign
trade which is subject to tariff.* They point out that for
more than a century the American nation scrupulously re-,
framed from foreign entanglements and made no forcible
conquest except as it took from Mexico' as a war indemnity
the practically uninhabited country on the Pacific slope and
the Rio Grande. \ They point out that," although the concbV.
tions of American life have, to a' large extent, been those of
a new and frontier country, the public men and the official
life of our country have been so dominated by love of law as
to command the just tribute of every: intelligent foreign vis
itor, and that the very "lynch law" which has now and then
in thinly-settled parts of this vast domain, disgraced portions
of our population, has often been mere reaction against tech
nical administration of law, — that is to say, against misdi
rected respect for law on the part of those in authority.
Frpm all these conditions and from these institutions, —
and in spite of their faults, — has come, — so the Democrats
sny, — the industrial productivity and triumph of the Ameri
can citizen. After praise to God for His gifts to us of land
and water and climate, it is to these deep-lying and truly
dynamic causes, and above all to the American devotion to
liberty and law, that the Democratic party assigns our splen
did results in agriculture and mining, our vast treasure
houses, our enormous increase in railroad and, manufacturing
plants, and all other material as well as political glory of
our land. Democrats know, nor would they have any Ameri
can forget, that the" most stupendous force , the worid has
known, is the free, self-governing, law-abiding, self-respect
ing citizen, regardful of the rights of other men and there
fore justly insistent upon his own. From the marvelous suc-
• Senator Hoar, in his speech on Trust Legislation in the Senate
on January 6, 1903, states that "our domestic commerce is * * * more
than twenty times as great as that with foreign nations."

26
cess of our party summed up in the census of 1900 and its
tables of comparisons with the results of other censuses, the
Democrats draw the conclusion,_not that the general and.
broad principles of the American people should be reversed,
or their sacred traditions undone, — but that they should be,
continued; that only faults and exceptions and inconsisten
cies should be eliminated. They would not have less respect
for law but moro respect; not less freedom of trade but more
freedom; not less respect for theT rights of other countries
and races, however inferior to us, but more respect ; not more
foreign entanglements' but fewer;' not increase but decrease
in the proportion of military and naval and general. govern
ment expenditure ta the ability of the people.
Such is the general creed of the Democratic party; and'
such must and will be its practice when it returns to power.
But the candidacy of Judge Parker represents something
besides this table of principles. H he be elected he will
undertake specific reforms; if the Republican Senate prevent
the enactment of any of the necessary laws, the Democratic
president will lead on, surely if conservatively, to the accom
plishment of those reforms as soon as the American people
shall be able, under our constitution, to choose United States
Senators to/ do their will. And these reforms are plain:
i
First.— A return by the executive of the country to
respect for law, national' and international; a refusal by
executive order and without warrant of law to open the
treasury for pension or other largesse^ whether just before ,
an election, as President Roosevelt hasTlone, or at any-other
time;1 a steadfast remembrance that the price lately paid in
the practical connivance of the Republican administration
with conspirators, — and in other precedents dangerous for
the peace and welfare of the civilized world, — for the begin--
ning of the Panama Canal, — or the price paid in lawless

27
despotism for the suppression of disorder in Colorado— 6r for
the accomplishment of any other good, or to " do things," a
little earlier than they would otherwise and inevitably have
come, is far too great a price to be paid by a free, honest and
law-abiding people.
Second.' — A refusal to meddle with the< affairs of other
nations except as it is necessary to protect our own rights; a
withdrawal from the program of menace and oyerlordship
to. be exercised in behalf of European nations against the
republics to the south of us,— which was condescendingly and
even contemptuously held out by the President in his letter
written to the Cuban dinner only a few weeks before his
nomination; a return to the ancient doctrine of friendship
with all nations; a refusal to convert such a friendship for
England into the unworthy sympathy shown by those in
high authority under President Roosevelt for its Jingo war
fare upon the South African Republic. Cap. Mahan, the
President's own special spokesman in the Navy, has indeed
earned the admiring recognition of the aristocratic and mili
tary classes of England by his eulogy of warfare as a chief
agent of civilization and by his sympathy for her in her wars,!
even the worst of them. Mr. Choate, our Ambassador at
St. James, instead of enforcing, so far as the proprieties of ,
his place permitted,, and as his predecessors, Mr. Lowell and
Mr. Bayard, did, the ideals of democracy, has invited the
favor of the same classes by his unqualified tribute to Lord
Roberts for his military victories over weaker nations re
sisting conquest by England. If, under President Roosevelt^
we are gaining the sympathy and approval of English Tories
who have been hostile to Our democracy and who, during our
Civil" War, wished us to perish, we are losing the sympathy
and approval of that noble body of Englishmen, the true
bulwark of English civilization, who stand for peace, trade
liberality, humane and democratic progress, men who are the
successors of Gladstone and Cobden and Bright, those who

28
have wished us well and have'struggled to make the world
better by making it free.
Third. — A sincere and persistent effort to reform the
^tariff, and especially to abolish or, to the uttermost practica
ble, reduce those duties the plain effect of which is to create
monopolies, -and is not, as pretended, to extend or diversify
American industry, but rather to stifle its freedom. If, be
cause public sentiment is not yet ready, we cannot at once
and completely sweep away the robbery practised under the
alluring name of " projection," or even now go back to the
low tariff schedules advocated by the early protection leaders,
Hamilton and Clay, we can at, least undo the monstrous ex
cesses of the present system, and then let the American
people, in the light of that measure of reform and of its
practical results, decide whether the lowering of duties does
not tend to promote our industrial progress. If for four
years we must face a Republican Senate, none the less we can
systematically present this great andrpressing question to the
American people for discussion, and, perhaps, through en
lightened public sentiment, as Judge Parker hopefully sug
gests, even compel our adversaries in the Senate to yield.
Fourth. — A return to public economy. The total ex
penditure in President Roosevelf s last fiscal year, ending
July 1, 1904, was $562,000,000, or, if the $50,000,000 paid
on account of the Panama Canal, and the $4,000,000
paid to the St. Louis Exposition, be deducted, the
total expense was $528,000,000, or at a per capita
rate, in time of profound peace, of $6.57,* the greatest
ever known in the history of our government, except only the
expenditure as measured in depreciated paper currency during
the Civil War in 1863, 1864 and 1865, and the expenditure in
1899 during the worst of the Philippine war. Without the
* On the basis of the population estimate for 1903, given in
the official Summary at 80,872,000.

29
Panama and St. Louis Exposition payments, the expenditure
during Mr. Roosevelt's first three years has been $1,505,692,-
185.99, as against $778,340,119.60 for the first three years of
Mr. Cleveland's first term, and $1,075,900,024.29 for the first
three years of Mr. Cleveland'6 ^second term, when he had to
bear the enormous increase by permanent legislation enacted
by the Republicans ^nder President Harrison. ' The 'danger
of this is not only that the increase is ;'inr a proportion far
exceeding the proportional growth of the1 population, but that
it is in a proportion exceeding/the pTopbrtion of increase in
the wealth and earning capacity of the1 country and its wages.
Although since 1900 industrial conditions have grown' less
favorable and wages been reduded, the expenditure, omitting
interest on the public debt, in the gross and per capita has
very greatly increased. In Mr. Roosevelt's last year our ex
penditure upon the War Department, not including pensions,
was $115,000,000, and without the excuse of war, as against
$44,000,000 jn the last year of 'President Cleveland's first
term, or $49,000,000 in the last year of \ President Harrison's,
. or $48,000,000 in the last year of President Cleveland's secohd
term. President Roosevelt's expenditure for the Navy De
partment last year was $102,000,000, as against $21,000,000
in the last year of Cleveland's first term, or $30,000,000 in
the last year of President Harrison's, or $31,000,000 in the
first 'year of President Cleveland's second term. In war and
naval expenditure combined, excluding pensions, we now
rank with, England and outrank France and Germany; and
we are without their excuse of powerful and jealous neigh
bors. The freedom from this wasteful barbarism was until
lately a glory of our republic. Unless the Democratic party
succeed we shall Continue in the barbarism. And all this
goes with the imperialistic. temper of disregard for law and
public right which belongs to the President.
2?«/iA.— A' resolute investigation of the executive* depart
ments. The public has already had some glimpses of the

30
conditions of incompetence and corruption in the Post Office
Department. The Republicans have refused any independent'
investigation. The time is well for it; but it will not be "had
unless Judge Parker is elected.
Sixth. — The grant of independence to the Philippine
people. Since there has, for years, been no recognized govern
ment there except the American, no doubt the manner of
the restoration to the Philippine people o? their right of
self-government must accord with existing conditions. But
the thing to be accomplished and to be accomplished at the
first practicable moment is to put in operation in the Philip
pines the fundamental rule of the American democracy, the
rule affirmed, as I have already shown, by at least three
Republican national conventions, that government under the
American flag shall depend upon the consent of the governed.
Seventh- — A dissolution of the partnership between. the
great corporations of the country and the United States
Government, a partnership most unworthily illustrated by-
the transfer of Mr. Cortelyou from the head of the depart
ment in supervision of the corporations to the chairmanship
of a national committee which is in large part dependent
upon those very corporations for its pecuniary support.
Eighth. — A refusal of a subsidy to the shipping interest
or to any other interest.
Ninth. — -A refusal to reopen the negro question, and thus
to interrupt and well nigh frustrate the higb>minded and
skilful work being done by educational and industrial leaders
and the encouraging progress they are making towards a
solution of the unique and tremendous difficulty incident
to the presence together at the South of two widely differing
races. Such are some of the measures which the Democratic
party may be justly expected to undertake if power shall

31
be accorded them in November. They may all be summed
np in this, that the government of this democratic republic
should be made democratic; that its powers should not be
used to promote special interests; that the rule of democratic
self-government should be sacredly observed; that the money
of the people should remain in the pockets of the people
through rigorous economy in the administration of govern
ment; that the people should support their government rather
than that the government should be used to support special
and limited classes of its citizens; that there should be sacred
regard to law and order; and finally, and above all, that, in
place of the ideal held up by the Republican party and pro
moted by President Roosevelt^ — the ideal of force and law
lessness and war, — we should return, as Judge Parker and
Senator Davis would have us return, to the simpler and
nobler ideal which, in spite of some exceptions and incon-.
eistencies, our Republic followed for its first century and
longer, and under which, and by reason of which, the Ameri
can people have* come to a splendid wealth and prosperity;
and their nation to a just and honorable power.

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