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INCORPORATION OF NATIONAL TRADES UNIONS.

Passed the Senate June 9, 1886, without division. Passed the House June 11, 1886, without division.

PAYMENT OF PER DIEM EMPLOYEES FOR HOLIDAYS.

Passed without division in the Forty-ninth Congress, second session.

LABOR OF UNITED STATES CONVICTS-CONTRACT SYSTEM PROHIBITED. Passed the House March 9, 1886. Passed the Senate February 28, 1887. All the votes against the bill were Democratic.

BOARDS OF ARBITRATION.

Passed the House on April 3, 1886, with thirty votes against the bill, all being Democratic.

HOURS OF LABOR, LETTER CARRIERS.

Law limiting letter carriers to eight hours a day. Passed in the Senate without division.

DEPARTMENT OF LABOR.

Passed the House April 19, 1888. Passed the Senate May 23, 1888. All votes cast against the bill were Democratic.

ALIEN CONTRACT LABOR.

Passed the House during the Fifty-first Congress without division August 30, 1890. Passed the Senate with verbal amendments

September 27, 1890.

MCKINLEY.

The Hour and the Man.

The

[Washington Times (official organ of the Bryan Democracy), July 21, 1898.] While we are praising Joshua let us not forget Moses! truth is rapidly dawning upon the country that if Dewey and Schley have won unfading laurels for their country and for themselves, there is a crown of honor no less the due of William McKinley, President of the United States. The glorious conditions of the hour, whether reflected in the war situation or in our national and international status, can not be contemplated without bringing home the conviction that an honest, true, and wise pilot stands at the helm of state. Time has been when we thought otherwise. We may have been excusable, in view of things antecedent. In fact, we were wrong and gladly acknowledge it. An honest newspaper, like an honest gentleman, will never hesitate

to retreat from a mistaken position nor lose a minute in undoing an injustice.

The war with Spain followed hard upon a period of intense domestic, political, and economic strife. The Administration of President McKinley was surrounded by evil and corrupt elements, and appearances ustified the suspicion that it was influenced by them to the detriment of the country. Whether it was or not, is of little moment at this time. The declaration of war made a "tabula rasa" of old differences and contentions, and, beyond that, we can say with complete satisfaction and pleasure that, on the firing of the first gun, William McKinley, the practical Ohio politician, passed from the stage, and William McKinley, the great war President, appeared to plan victory for his people and to achieve for them the benefits and glories of a new and splendid colonial empire.

Prince Hal did not more suddenly or sternly relegate to obscurity the disreputable Falstaff and other loose companions of his evil days than President McKinley swept away from his official life the renegade Tories and despicable peace mongers who once permeated it. The 21st of April saw him seize the crown of American patriotism, championship of humanity, and national progress from the deathbed of old-time seclusion and provincialism, and placing it on his head, stand forth a new man and a worthy counselor and leader of the splendid imperial Republic of America.

While we have a McKinley in the chair of state and a Dewey in the conning tower, all Europe could not wrest from our hands the scepter of our new dominion in the Far Orient. As in the case of the hero of Cavite, so in that of President McKinley. "The hour has come, and the Man."

THE HAND UPON THE HELM.
[Washington Post, Ind.]

In this hour of rejoicing and relief, while, as is right and proper, we visit with acclamation the men who have led our military forces with such courage and address, it is well to keep always before us the thought of that firm yet gentle hand which from the first has been upon the helm of state and which, with wise and noble guidance, has steered us into port--the hand of William McKinley, President and patriot, philanthropist and warrior.

To his undaunted courage, lofty purpose, and immovable devotion we owe not only the swift and splendid victory we have won, but the glory of having won it as gentlemen and Christians. He it was who, at the outset, curbed the passionate extravagance of those who had invoked the judgment of the sword.

He foresaw the calamities which our first outburst of ardor would have entailed upon us; he stood firm against the clamor of the unthinking multitude. His wisdom set us in the straight and narrow path of justice. His quiet strength has held us there. We stand to-day free of all complications, at liberty to carry out our wholesome and beneficent schemes of restoration, simply because William McKinley cast away the fetters that were offered us by folly and excess of zeal. We are masters of the situation, bound to no ignoble course and touched by no discreditable alliances, solely because he, with clear head and tender heart and potent hand, has saved us from ourselves.

We owe nothing to Aguinaldo, the vengeful mountebank of the Philippines. We are not involved with the insurgent chiefs of Cuba and their conspiracies of tyranny and pillage. To Mr. MeKinley's tranquil prevision and statesmanlike conservatism we Owe our present immunity from those abominable and sinister entanglements. He braved the insensate storm, the maudlin clamor, the hysterical importunity, which, three months or so ago, held possession of the land and threatened the extinction of its self-restraint. He it was who held Congress at bay, with its insane hypothesis of Cuban independence, meaning the regime of the insurgents. Through all that tragic time he scorned delights and lived laborious days, that wisdom, righteousness, and hallowed peace might crown our arms. Kind of heart, leaning always to gentleness and mercy, suspected by the callous, and reproached by every rude and brutal tongue, he yet displayed a courage which nothing could appal-a determination for the right which stood like adamant.

And he has led us to humanity and grace, to power and to cleanliness. We take up the work of emancipation and civilization without a shameful or encumbering embarrassment. We have no objectionable coadjutors, no distasteful obligations. The field of regeneration lies before us and we enter it without a single clog upon our action. William McKinley has led us to this noble task. His has been the hand upon the helm.

THE LONDON TIMES RECOGNIZES THE PRESIDENT AS A STATESMAN.

LONDON, Aug. 1.-The Times this morning comments editorially upon the generous universal recognition of the part which President McKinley has played throughout the war between the United States and Spain, and says:

"If foreign observers might presume to have an opinion on his conduct, it would be that President McKinley has kept his finger constantly upon the national pulse and has known how to stim

ulate and direct national thought without too markedly outrunning its movement.

"Everything has been done in the open, every move has been discussed on a possibility all over the United States before the Government was irrevocably committed one way or the other, and the tentative policy is that where he stands at this moment the President has the whole American people at his back.

"We do not know that there can be any higher statesmanship for a President governing under the Constitution of the United States.

"It is noteworthy that while the Spaniards, who are usually regarded as chivalrous, romantic, and medieval, have turned first to the financial aspect of the situation, the Americans, who are usually supposed to be intensely practical, have as yet hardly given a thought to the financial or economical side of the question. What occupies the American people at this moment is not the cost of the war, the value of their acquisitions, or the balance of the profit and loss account, but the moral result of the struggle and the nature of the ideas which it stimulates.”

PRESIDENT MCKINLEY AND THE COLORED PEOPLE. Afro-Americans have reason to feel grateful to the present Administration. In civil affairs they have shared in the Government patronage, as the Official Register or Blue Book, will attest, equally as well as ever before, and very many of them have been restored to places from which they were removed by the former Administration.

President McKinley has taken an advanced step in recognizing colored men. He has by his own choice (as the law did not require it), commissioned them as officers in the United States Army. The Eighth Illinois Regiment of Volunteers is officered by colored men. The Seventh, Eighth, Ninth, and Tenth United States Volunteers have two colored officers with each company. The Twenty-third Kansas is officered in part by colored men; and in the Sixth Massachusetts Volunteers, Company L, is officered by colored men.

MERCHANT MARINE.

Its Operations, 1897 and 1896.

On June 30, 1897, the merchant marine of the United States, including all kinds of documented shipping, comprised 22,633 vessels, of 4,769,020 gross tons. On June 30, 1896, it comprised 22,908 vessels, of 4,703,880 gross tons. The following table shows the geographical distribution, motive power, and material of construction, and trade of vessels of the United States for the fiscal year 1897 compared with the fiscal year 1896, and also the construction for the two years:

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