INTRODUCTORY.

HE Republican party is nearing the end of the fourth decade of its existence, and its adherents can point with pride to the work of the organization to which they belong. From the beginning the party has been the friend of freedom; it owes its origin to a movement in favor of human liberty in the days when slavery was a domestic institution of the Southern half of the land and received the support and defense of the Democratic party, which then held the reins of government. To the Republican party is due the overthrow of that accursed system of human bondage; as it began in a struggle for the rights of man and for the honor of the nation, so it has continued through all the period of its existence down to the present day. Under it was carried on the war for the suppression of the Rebellion, which cost myriads of lives to North and South, and ended forever the existence of human slavery within the boundaries of the United States. The work of reconstruction followed the war, and in it the leaders of the great party displayed a magnanimity and generosity to their fallen opponents for which history has no parallel to offer, and which was warmly appreciated by the great majority of those who had been in arms against the government.

Since 1860 the Republican party has held the control of the government, with the exception of a single presidential term of four years, when a Democrat was elected to the office of chief magistrate of the nation. It is a curious circumstance that the election of Mr. Cleveland, in 1884, was due to the advantage taken of an ill-timed remark of less than a dozen words by one of his political opponents, and not to arguments in his behalf in open debate or through the columns of the newspapers. But this accidental interruption of its career through the lingual aberration of a bystander at a reception served to demonstrate more clearly than ever the great services which the Republican party had rendered to the country, as it enabled the younger class of voters to contrast its methods and its policies with those of its political adversaries. At the next presidential election the Democratic candidates were overwhelmingly defeated, and the Republicans returned to the control of the destinies of the nation, to the chagrin of the Democracy, and also of its numerous friends and supporters on the other side of the Atlantic, the enemies of American industry and prosperity.

From the outset, the Republican party has been the supporter of the principle that the United States is the land of those who are its citizens, and does not belong to foreigners; that the prosperity of American labor, in all branches of industry, should be the first consideration, and that other nations should take care of themselves. In other words, the policy of the Republican party has been the policy of protection to American industries; it has proclaimed this at all times with no faltering voice, and never with greater force than in its most recent platforms. Its adversaries have naturally by belief and force of circumstances been in a position of hostility to protection; sometimes they have juggled with language in the construction of their platforms and sought to convince the workingman that, while favoring a "tariff for revenue only," they did not desire to bring about in any

way the downfall of American labor or the reduction of American wages to those of the countries of the old world. But as time has gone on, the aggressive attitude of the Republicans in favor of protection has forced their adversaries to adopt the free-trade banner as their own; in its latest platform, adopted at Chicago, in June, 1892, the Democracy unhesitatingly proclaims its hostility to the protective system. Elsewhere in this volume will be shown what Republicans believe to be the advantages of protection over free trade-the advantages of the American workman over the workman of the countries on the other side of the Atlantic.

The Republican party has fought steadily for an honest ballot all over the land, believing that in a free and fair suffrage and an honest count of the ballots cast at any and all elections rests the security of American institutions. Every reform of the voting system has been opposed by the Democratic party, and wherever a reform has been made, it is due to the defeat of the Democratic policy. Take, as an illustration of this assertion, the history of the suffrage in the State of New York. The Republicans passed the laws which provided for the registration of voters, and thus reduced the opportunities for fraud; the registry system was vigorously opposed by the Democracy in the Legislature from the beginning to the end of the contest, and after the bill providing for it became a law, its overthrow was sought in the courts through the aid of Democratic judges. The practical working of the first registry law showed imperfections; from time to time new laws were passed to cover these defects, and in every instance their passage was opposed by Democratic legislators, and only accomplished by the Republican majority. In recent years, when the Australian system of voting attracted general attention, and was adopted in many of the States of the Union, efforts were made by the friends of an honest ballot to secure its adoption in the State of New York. The Republicans had a majority in both houses of the Legislature, but

the chair of State was held by a Democratic governor. In one session after another the Legislature passed an Australian ballot bill, but each time it was vetoed by the governor; finally, when popular opinion became so great that the Democratic managers feared to resist it longer, a compromise bill was passed which received the governor's signature and became a law. Every intelligent voter in New York is aware how the present ballot system keeps the word of promise to the ear but breaks it to the hope. The Democratic managers, headed by their governor, refused to allow any bill to become a law unless it contained a provision for the infamous paster ballot," which completely nullifies the true intention of the Australian system, which is to guarantee to the voter that no one shall know how he has voted. Thus it happens that New York owes to the Democracy the Australian ballot system in its worst possible form; if the Republicans could have carried out their wishes, the New York form of the law would have been the best.

66

The Republican party has been not less strenuous for honest money than for the protection of the American workingman and an honest ballot. The end of the War of the Rebellion found the country burdened with an enormous debt, and with a paper currency far below par value in gold or silver. At once the leaders of the party turned their attention to the reduction of the debt and the prompt payment of interest as it became due. Many men, some of them honest theorists, and others dishonest without theory, advocated the payment of the debt in paper, although the promises of the government had been given for its payment in coin; a greenback craze spread over the land to such an extent that a political party was formed with the declared object of paying the national debt in paper money or else not paying it at all. The Republican party opposed from the commencement all the paper heresies, keeping steadily in view the resumption of specie payment and the reduction of the national debt

according to the honorable promises of the government. A Republican Congress enacted the law, that was signed by a Republican president, fixing the date on which the government and national banks should resume specie payment. Resumption thus came in due course, and with resumption the reduction of the national debt has been kept steadily in sight till it is now little if any more than one-half what it was at the end of the war. Since the resumption of specie payment every measure calculated to impair the credit of the country has been resisted by the Republican party; its position is well stated by President Harrison when he declared that every dollar in the country should be as good as any other dollar.

In material prosperity the advance of the country has been greater since the Republican party came into power than in its whole previous history-greater in thirty years of Republican control than in the seventy years and more that preceded it.

Up to the year 1890 our population had increased in thirty years over one hundred per cent; our capital from $16,000,000,000 to $70,000,000,000 — an actual gain of $44,000,000,000, or at the average rate of about $1,500,000,000 for thirty years in succession. Our foreign commerce up to 1884 was the astounding sum of over $2,400,000,000, with the balance of trade in our favor at the average rate of $154,000,000 a year since 1873; the population of our cities has doubled; our annual output of coal has increased from 14,000,000 tons to 100,000,000 tons; our iron ore

from 900,000 to 14,500,000 (1890); our railway mileage from 30,000 miles to 163,400 miles (in 1888); our farms from 2,000,000 to over 5,000,000, and their value from $6,000,000,000 to $12,000,000,000; our cereals from 1,230,000,000 to 3,000,000,000 bushels (1890); our live stock from $1,000,000,000 to $2,500,000,000 (1890); our flocks from 22,000,000 to 50,600,000 (1884); our wool from 60,000,000 pounds to 308,000,000 (1884); those engaged in gainful occupations from