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House of Commons, Mr. Balfour, who do not accept the offered treaty which would banish war forever between the two nations of our race. This invitation was sent by the same President Cleveland, who is now denounced as favoring war. … It was my office to introduce to Mr. Cleveland, then President of the United States, as he is now, the delegation from the British Parliament urging arbitration. In the conferences I had with him previous to his receiving the deputation, I found him as strong a supporter of that policy as I ever met. I do not wonder at his outburst, knowing how deeply this man feels upon that question; it is to him so precious, it constitutes so great an advance over arbitrament by war that—even if we have to fight, that any nation rejecting it may suffer—I believe he feels that it would be our duty to do so, believing that the nation which rejects arbitration in a boundary dispute deserves the execration of mankind."A. Carnegie, The Venezuelan Question (North American Review, February, 1896). UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1895-1896 (December-February). The gold reserve in the Treasury again imperilled. Refusal of any measures of relief by the Senate. In his annual Message to Congress, December 2d, 1895, President Cleveland described at length the stress of circumstances under which in the previous February, the Secretary of the Treasury had contracted with certain bankers and financiers to replenish and protect the reserve of gold in the Treasury for redemption of United States notes (see above), and added: "The performance of this contract not only restored the reserve, but checked for a time the withdrawals of gold and brought on a period of restored confidence and such peace and quiet in business circles as were of the greatest possible value to every interest that affects our people. {561}
I have never had the slightest misgiving concerning the wisdom or propriety of this arrangement, and am quite willing to answer for my full share of responsibility for its promotion. I believe it averted a disaster the imminence of which was, fortunately, not at the time generally understood by our people. Though the contract mentioned stayed for a time the tide of gold withdrawal, its good results could not be permanent. Recent withdrawals have reduced the reserve from $107,571,230 on the 8th day of July, 1895, to $79,333,966. How long it will remain large enough to render its increase unnecessary is only matter of conjecture, though quite large withdrawals for shipment in the immediate future are predicted in well-informed quarters. About $16,000,000 has been withdrawn during the month of November. The foregoing statement of events and conditions develops the fact that after increasing our interest-bearing bonded indebtedness more than $162,000,000 to save our gold reserve we are nearly where we started, having now in such reserve $79,383,966 as against $65,488,377 in February, 1894, when the first bonds were issued. "Though the amount of gold drawn from the Treasury appears to be very large as gathered from the facts and figures herein presented, it actually was much larger, considerable sums having been acquired by the Treasury within the several periods stated without the issue of bonds. On the 28th of January, 1895, it was reported by the Secretary of the Treasury that more than $172,000,000 of gold had been withdrawn for hoarding or shipment during the year preceding. He now reports that from January 1, 1879, to July 14, 1890, a period of more than eleven years, only a little over $28,000,000 was withdrawn, and that between July 14, 1890, the date of the passage of the law for an increased purchase of silver, and the 1st day of December, 1895, or within less than five and a half years, there was withdrawn nearly $375,000,000, making a total of more than $403,000,000 drawn from the Treasury in gold since January 1, 1879, the date
fixed in 1875 for the retirement of the United States notes. "Nearly $327,000,000 of the gold thus withdrawn has been paid out, on these United States notes, and yet everyone of the $346,000,000 is still uncanceled and ready to do service in future gold depletions. More than $76,000,000 in gold has since their creation in 1890 been paid out from the Treasury upon the notes given on the purchase of silver by the Government, and yet the whole, amounting to $155,000,000, except a little more than $16,000,000 which has been retired by exchanges for silver at the request of the holders, remains outstanding and prepared to join their older and more experienced allies in future raids upon the Treasury's gold reserve. In other words, the Government has paid in gold more than nine-tenths of its United States notes and still owes them all. It has paid in gold about one-half of its notes given for silver purchases without extinguishing by such payment one dollar of these notes. "When, added to all this, we are reminded that to carry on this astounding financial scheme the Government has incurred a bonded indebtedness of $95,500,000 in establishing a gold reserve, and of $162,315,400 in efforts to maintain it; that the annual interest charge on such bonded indebtedness is more than $11,000,000; that a continuance of our present course may result in further bond issues, and that we have suffered or are threatened with all this for the sake of supplying gold for foreign shipment or facilitating its hoarding at home, a situation is exhibited which certainly ought to arrest attention and provoke immediate legislative relief. "I am convinced the only thorough and practicable remedy for our troubles is found in the retirement and cancellation of our United States notes, commonly called greenbacks, and the outstanding Treasury notes issued by the Government in payment of silver purchases under the act of 1890. I believe this could be quite readily accomplished by the exchange of these
notes for United States bonds, of small as well as large denominations, bearing a low rate of interest. They should be long-term bonds, thus increasing their desirability as investments, and because their payment could be well postponed to a period far removed from present financial burdens and perplexities, when with increased prosperity and resources they would be more easily met. … "Whatever is attempted should be entered upon fully appreciating the fact that by careless easy descent we have reached a dangerous depth, and that our ascent will not be accomplished without laborious toil and struggle. We shall be wise if we realize that we are financially ill and that our restoration to health may require heroic treatment and unpleasant remedies. "In the present stage of our difficulty it is not easy to understand how the amount of our revenue receipts directly affects it. The important question is not the quantity of money received in revenue payments, but the kind of money we maintain and our ability to continue in sound financial condition. We are considering the Government's holdings of gold as related to the soundness of our money and as affecting our national credit and monetary strength. If our gold reserve had never been impaired; if no bonds had ever been issued to replenish it; if there had been no fear and timidity concerning our ability to continue gold payments; if any part of our revenues were now paid in gold, and if we could look to our gold receipts as a means of maintaining a safe reserve, the amount of our revenues would be an influential factor in the problem. But unfortunately all the circumstances that might lend weight to this consideration are entirely lacking. In our present predicament no gold is received by the Government in payment of revenue charges, nor would there be if the revenues were increased. The receipts of the Treasury, when not in silver certificates, consist of United States notes and Treasury notes issued for silver purchases. These
forms of money are only useful to the Government in paying its current ordinary expenses, and its quantity in Government possession does not in the least contribute toward giving us that kind of safe financial standing or condition which is built on gold alone. {562} "If it is said that these notes if held by the Government can be used to obtain gold for our reserve, the answer is easy. The people draw gold from the Treasury on demand upon United States notes and Treasury notes, but the proposition that the Treasury can on demand draw gold from the people upon them would be regarded in these days with wonder and amusement; and even if this could be done there is nothing to prevent those thus parting with their gold from regaining it the next day or the next hour by the presentation of the notes they received in exchange for it. The Secretary of the Treasury might use such notes taken from a surplus revenue to buy gold in the market. Of course he could not do this without paying a premium. Private holders of gold, unlike the Government, having no parity to maintain, would not be restrained from making the best bargain possible when they furnished gold to the Treasury; but the moment the Secretary of the Treasury bought gold on any terms above par he would establish a general and universal premium upon it, thus breaking down the parity between gold and silver, which the Government is pledged to maintain, and opening the way to new and serious complications. In the meantime the premium would not remain stationary, and the absurd spectacle might be presented of a dealer selling gold to the Government and with United States notes or Treasury notes in his hand immediately clamoring for its return and a resale at a higher premium. "It may be claimed that a large revenue and redundant receipts might favorably affect the situation under discussion by affording an opportunity of retaining these notes in the
Treasury when received, and thus preventing their presentation for gold. Such retention to be useful ought to be at least measurably permanent; and this is precisely what is prohibited, so far as United States notes are concerned, by the law of 1878, forbidding their further retirement. That statute in so many words provides, that these notes when received into the Treasury and belonging to the United States shall be 'paid out again and kept in circulation.'" United States, Message and Documents (Abridgment), 1895-1896, page 27. "The difficulty which had been anticipated in keeping gold in the treasury became acute as a result of the president's Venezuelan message of December 17. The 'war scare' which was caused by that document was attended by a panic on the London Exchange, which communicated itself to the Continental exchanges and produced at once serious consequences in New York. Prices fell heavily, some failures were reported, and the withdrawal of gold from the treasury assumed great proportions. On the 20th the reserve had gone down to $69,650,000, ten millions less than three weeks earlier, with future large reductions obviously near at hand. The president accordingly on that day sent to Congress a special message, stating the situation, alluding to the effect of his recently announced foreign policy, and declaring that the result conveyed a 'warning that even the patriotic sentiment of our people is not an adequate substitute for a sound financial policy.' He asked Congress to postpone its holiday recess until something had been done to reassure the apprehensive among the people, but declared that in any case he should use every means in the power of the executive to maintain the country's credit. The suggestion was acted upon. … "On December 26 two bills were introduced in the House of Representatives by Chairman Dingley of the ways and means committee. Adopting the view maintained by the Republicans,
that the chief cause of the difficulty in maintaining the gold reserve was the deficiency in the revenue, he proposed first a bill 'to temporarily increase the revenues.' This provided that until August 1, 1898, the customs duties on most varieties of wool and woolen goods and on lumber, should stand at 60 per cent of those imposed by the McKinley Act of 1890, and that the duties in all the other schedules of the tariff, except sugar, should, with slight exceptions, be increased by 15 per cent over those of the existing law. This bill passed the House on the 27th by a party vote of 205 to 81. On the following day the second bill, 'to maintain and protect the coin redemption fund,' was passed by 170 to 136,—47 Republicans in the minority. This bill authorized the secretary of the treasury to procure coin for redeeming legal-tenders by the sale of three-per-cent five-year bonds, and to provide for temporary deficiencies by the issue of three-year three-per-cent certificates of indebtedness in small denominations. The administration was as little satisfied with this bill as with that changing the tariff, and proceeded with the bond issue. … "The failure of the bills in the Senate was foreseen, but the precise form in which it was manifested excited some surprise. On February 1, [1896], the bond bill was transformed by the adoption of a substitute providing for the free coinage of silver, and this was passed by a vote of 42 to 35. On the 14th the House refused, by 215 to 90, to concur in the Senate's amendment, and the whole subject was dropped. Meanwhile the Senate finance committee had reported a free-coinage substitute for the House tariff bill also. But after this further exhibition of their strength the silver senators refused to go further, and on February 25 joined with the Democrats in rejecting, by 33 to 22, a motion to take up the bill for consideration. This vote was recognized as finally disposing of the measure." Political Science Quarterly,
June, 1896. UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1895-1896 (DecemberDecember). Plans for coast defense. In his annual report to the President, 1895, the Secretary of War wrote as follows of pending plans for coast defense, and of the progress of work upon them: "In your annual message transmitted to Congress in December, 1886, attention was directed to the urgent necessity for seacoast defense in these words: 'The defenseless condition of our seacoast and lake frontier is perfectly palpable; the examinations made must convince us all that certain of our cities should be fortified and that work on the most important of these fortifications should be commenced at once.' … Since that time the condition of these defenses has been under grave consideration by the people and by this Department. Its inadequacy and impotency have been so evident that the intelligence of the country long since ceased to discuss that humiliating phase of the subject, but has addressed itself to the more practical undertaking of urging more rapid progress in the execution of the plan of defense devised by the Endicott Board in 1886, with subsequent slight modifications. That plan contemplated a system of fortifications at 27 ports (to which Puget Sound was subsequently added), requiring 677 guns and 824 mortars of modern construction, at a cost of $97,782,800, excluding $28,595,000 for floating batteries. By an immediate appropriation at that time of $21,500,000 and an annual appropriation of $9,000,000 thereafter, as then recommended, the system of land defenses could have been completed in 1895. {563} "The original plan contemplated an expenditure of $97,782,800
by the end of the present year. The actual expenditures and appropriations for armament and emplacements have, however, been but $10,631,000. The first appropriation for guns was made only seven years ago and the first appropriation for emplacements was made only five years ago. The average annual appropriations for these two objects has been less than $1,500,000. The work has therefore been conducted at about one-seventh the rate proposed. If future appropriations for the manufacture of guns, mortars, and carriages be no larger than the average authorized for the purpose since 1888, it will require twenty-two years more to supply the armament of the eighteen important ports for which complete projects are approved. If the appropriations for the engineer work are to continue at the rate of the annual appropriations since 1890, it will require seventy years to complete the emplacements and platforms for this armament for the ports referred to." Report of the Secretary of War, 1895, page 19 (54th Congress, 1st Session, House Document volume 1). In his Message of the following year, the subject was touched upon by the President, as follows: "During the past year rapid progress has been made toward the completion of the scheme adopted for the erection and armament of fortifications along our seacoast, while equal progress has been made in providing the material for submarine defense in connection with these works. … We shall soon have complete about one-fifth of the comprehensive system, the first step in which was noted in my message to the Congress of December 4, 1893. When it is understood that a masonry emplacement not only furnishes a platform for the heavy modern high-power gun, but also in every particular serves the purpose and takes the place of the fort of former days, the importance of the work accomplished is better comprehended. In the hope that the work will be prosecuted with no less vigor in the future, the
Secretary of War has submitted an estimate by which, if allowed, there will be provided and either built or building by the end of the next fiscal year such additional guns, mortars, gun carriages, and emplacements, as will represent not far from one-third of the total work to be done under the plan adopted for our coast defenses—thus affording a prospect that the entire work will be substantially completed within six years. In less time than that, however, we shall have attained a marked degree of security. The experience and results of the past year demonstrate that with a continuation of present careful methods the cost of the remaining work will be much less than the original estimate. We should always keep in mind that of all forms of military preparation coast defense alone is essentially pacific in its nature." Message of the President, 1896 (54th Congress, 2d Session, House Document, volume 1). UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1896 (January). Admission of Utah to the Union. See (in this volume) UTAH: A. D. 1895-1896. UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1896 (January-February). Appointment of commission to investigate the Venezuela boundary. Re-opening of discussion with Great Britain on the arbitration of the dispute. See (in this volume) VENEZUELA: A. D. 1896-1899. UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1896 (February). New treaty with Great Britain for arbitration of Bering Sea claims.
See (in this volume) BERING SEA QUESTIONS. UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1896 (February). Weyler made Governor of Cuba. His Concentration Order. See (in this volume) CUBA: A. D. 1896-1897. UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1896 (March). Removal of Confederate disabilities. The following enactment of Congress, which may, with propriety, be styled an "Act of Oblivion," was approved by the President on the 31st of March, 1896: "That section twelve hundred and eighteen of the Revised Statutes of the United States, as amended by chapter forty-six of the laws of 1884, which section is as follows: 'No person who held a commission in the Army or Navy of the United States at the beginning of the late rebellion, and afterwards served in any capacity in the military, naval, or civil service of the so-called Confederate States, or of either of the States in insurrection during the late rebellion, shall be appointed to any position in the Army or Navy of the United States,' be, and the same is hereby, repealed." United States of America, Statutes at Large, volume 29, page 84. UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1896 (May). Extension of civil service rules by President Cleveland. See (in this volume) CIVIL SERVICE REFORM: A. D. 1893-1896.
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1896 (June-November). The Presidential election. The silver question at issue. Party Platforms and Nominations. A national conference held at Washington, in March, 1895, may be looked upon as the beginning of a widely and powerfully organized movement to force the demand for a free and unlimited coinage of silver, on equal terms, as legal tender money, with gold, into the front of the issues of the presidential canvass of 1896. The agitation then projected was carried on with extraordinary ardor and skill and had astonishing success. It was helped by the general depression of business in the country, and especially by the long continued ruling of low prices for the produce of the farms,—for all of which effects the gold standard of values was held to be the one relentless cause. In both political parties the free silver propaganda was pushed with startling effect, and there seemed to be doubt, for a time, whether the controlling politicians in either would take an opposing stand. Southern influences proved decisive of the result in the Democratic party; eastern influences in that of the Republicans. The ranks of the former were swept rapidly into the movement for free silver, and the party chiefs of the latter were driven to a conflict with it, not wholly by convictions or will of their own. During the spring and early summer of 1896, the Democratic Party in State after State became committed on the question, by declarations for the unlimited free coinage of silver, at the ratio of 16 to 1; until there was tolerable certainty, some weeks before the meeting of the national convention, that its nominee for President must be one who represented that demand. How positively the Republican Party would champion the gold monetary standard was somewhat less assured, though its stand on that side had been taken in a general way. {564}
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: Republican Platform and Nominations. The Republican national convention was held at St. Louis, on the 16th, 17th and 18th of June. The "platform" reported by the committee on resolutions was adopted without amendment on the last named date. Its declarations were as follows: "The Republicans of the United States, assembled by their representatives in National Convention, appealing for the popular and historical justification of their claims to the matchless achievements of the thirty years of Republican rule, earnestly and confidently address themselves to the awakened intelligence, experience, and conscience of their countrymen in the following declaration of facts and principles: "For the first time since the civil war the American people have witnessed the calamitous consequences of full and unrestricted Democratic control of the Government. It has been a record of unparalleled incapacity, dishonor, and disaster. In administrative management it has ruthlessly sacrificed indispensable revenue, entailed an unceasing deficit, eked out ordinary current expenses with borrowed money, piled up the public debt by $262,000,000 in time of peace, forced an adverse balance of trade, kept a perpetual menace hanging over the redemption fund, pawned American credit to alien syndicates, and reversed all the measures and results of successful Republican rule. "In the broad effect of its policy it has precipitated panic, blighted industry and trade with prolonged depression, closed factories, reduced work and wages, halted enterprise, and crippled American production while stimulating foreign production for the American market. Every consideration of public safety and individual interest demands that the Government shall be rescued from the hands of those who have
shown themselves incapable to conduct it without disaster at home and dishonor abroad, and shall be restored to the party which for thirty years administered it with unequalled success and prosperity, and in this connection we heartily endorse the wisdom, patriotism, and the success of the administration of President Harrison. "We renew and emphasize our allegiance to the policy of protection as the bulwark of American industrial independence and the foundation of American development and prosperity. This true American policy taxes foreign products and encourages home industry; it puts the burden of revenue on foreign goods; it secures the American market for the American producer; it upholds the American standard of wages for the American workingman; it puts the factory by the side of the farm, and makes the American farmer less dependent on foreign demand and price; it diffuses general thrift, and founds the strength of all on the strength of each. In its reasonable application it is just, fair, and impartial; equally opposed to foreign control and domestic monopoly, to sectional discrimination, and individual favoritism. "We denounce the present Democratic tariff as sectional, injurious to the public credit, and destructive to business enterprise. "We demand such an equitable tariff on foreign imports which come into competition with American products as will not only furnish adequate revenue for the necessary expenses of the Government, but will protect American labor from degradation to the wage level of other lands. We are not pledged to any particular schedules. The question of rates is a practical question, to be governed by the conditions of the time and of production; the ruling and uncompromising principle is the protection and development of American labor and industry. The country demands a right settlement, and then it wants rest. "We believe the repeal of the reciprocity arrangements
negotiated by the last Republican administration was a national calamity, and we demand their renewal and extension on such terms as will equalize our trade with other nations, remove the restrictions which now obstruct the sale of American products in the ports of other countries, and secure enlarged markets for the products of our farms, forests, and factories. See, in volume 5, TARIFF LEGISLATION (UNITED STATES): A. D. 1890, and 1894. "Protection and reciprocity are twin measures of Republican policy and go hand in hand. Democratic rule has recklessly struck down both, and both must be re-established. Protection for what we produce; free admission for the necessaries of life which we do not produce; reciprocity agreements of mutual interests which again open markets for us in return for our open markets to others. Protection builds up domestic industry and trade and secures our own market for ourselves; reciprocity builds up foreign trade and finds an outlet for our surplus. We condemn the present administration for not keeping faith with the sugar producers of this country. The Republican party favors such protection as will lead to the production on American soil of all the sugar which the American people use, and for which they pay other countries more than $100,000,000 annually. To all our products—to those of the mine and the fields as well as to those of the shop and the factory—to hemp, to wool, the product of the great industry of sheep husbandry, as well as to the finished woollens of the mill—we promise the most ample protection. "We favor restoring the early American policy of discriminating duties for the upbuilding of our merchant marine and the protection of our shipping in the foreign carrying trade, so that American ships—the product of American labor, employed in American shipyards, sailing under the Stars
and Stripes, and manned, officered, and owned by Americans—may regain the carrying of our foreign commerce. "The Republican party is unreservedly for sound money. It caused the enactment of the law providing for the resumption of specie payments in 1879; since then every dollar has been as good as gold. We are unalterably opposed to every measure calculated to debase our currency or impair the credit of our country. We are, therefore, opposed to the free coinage of silver except by international agreement with the leading commercial nations of the world, which we pledge ourselves to promote, and until such agreement can be obtained the existing gold standard must be preserved. All our silver and paper currency must be maintained at parity with gold, and we favor all measures designed to maintain inviolably the obligations of the United States and all our money, whether coin or paper, at the present standard, the standard of the most enlightened nations of the earth. {565} "The veterans of the Union Army deserve and should receive fair treatment and generous recognition. Whenever practicable, they should be given the preference in the matter of employment, and they are entitled to the enactment of such laws as are best calculated to secure the fulfillment of the pledges made to them in the dark days of the country's peril. We denounce the practice in the Pension Bureau, so recklessly and unjustly carried on by the present administration, of reducing pensions and arbitrarily dropping names from the rolls as deserving the severest condemnation of the American people. "Our foreign policy should be at all times firm, vigorous, and dignified, and all our interests in the Western Hemisphere carefully watched and guarded. The Hawaiian Islands should be controlled by the United States, and no foreign power should
be permitted to interfere with them; the Nicaraguan Canal should be built, owned, and operated by the United States; and by the purchase of the Danish Islands we should secure a proper and much needed naval station in the West Indies. "The massacres in Armenia have aroused the deep sympathy and just indignation of the American people, and we believe that the United States should exercise all the influence it can properly exert to bring these atrocities to an end. In Turkey American residents have been exposed to the gravest dangers and American property destroyed. There and everywhere American citizens and American property must be absolutely protected at all hazards and at any cost. "We reassert the Monroe doctrine in its full extent, and we reaffirm the right of the United States to give the doctrine effect by responding to the appeal of any American State for friendly intervention in case of European encroachment. We have not interfered with and shall not interfere with the existing possessions of any European power in this hemisphere, but those possessions must not on any pretext be extended. We hopefully look forward to the eventual withdrawal of European powers from this hemisphere and to the ultimate union of all the English-speaking parts of the continent by the free consent of its inhabitants. "From the hour of achieving their own independence the people of the United States have regarded with sympathy the struggles of other American people to free themselves from European domination. We watch with deep and abiding interest the heroic battle of the Cuban patriots against cruelty and oppression, and our best hopes go out for the full success of their determined contest for liberty. The Government of Spain having lost control of Cuba, and being unable to protect the property or lives of resident American citizens, or to comply with its treaty obligations, we believe that the Government of the United States should actively use its influence and good
offices to restore peace and give independence to the island. "The peace and security of the Republic and the maintenance of its rightful influence among the nations of the earth demand a naval power commensurate with its position and responsibility. We therefore favor the continued enlargement of the navy and a complete system of harbor and seacoast defenses. "For the protection of the quality of our American citizenship and of the wages of our workingmen against the fatal competition of low-priced labor, we demand that the immigration laws be thoroughly enforced and so extended as to exclude from entrance to the United States those who can neither read nor write. "The civil-service law was placed on the statute book by the Republican party, which has always sustained it, and we renew our repeated declarations that it shall be thoroughly and honestly enforced and extended wherever practicable. "We demand that every citizen of the United States shall be allowed to cast one free and unrestricted ballot, and that such ballot shall be counted and returned as cast. "We proclaim our unqualified condemnation of the uncivilized and barbarous practice, well known as lynching or killing of human beings suspected or charged with crime, without process of law. We favor the creation of a National board of arbitration to settle and adjust differences which may arise between employers and employed engaged in interstate commerce. "We believe in an immediate return to the free-homestead policy of the Republican party, and urge the passage by Congress of a satisfactory free-homestead measure such as has already passed the House and is now pending in the Senate. "We favor the admission of the remaining Territories at the
earliest practicable date, having due regard to the interests of the people of the Territories and of the United States. All the Federal officers appointed for the Territories should be selected from bona fide residents thereof, and the right of self-government should be accorded as far as practicable. "We believe the citizens of Alaska should have representation in the Congress of the United States, to the end that needful legislation may be intelligently enacted. "We sympathize with all wise and legitimate efforts to lessen and prevent the evils of intemperance and promote morality. "The Republican party is mindful of the rights and interests of women. Protection of American industries includes equal opportunities, equal pay for equal work, and protection to the home. We favor the admission of women to wider spheres of usefulness, and welcome their co-operation in rescuing the country from Democratic and Populist mismanagement and misrule. "Such are the principles and policies of the Republican party. By these principles we will abide and these policies we will put into execution. We ask for them the considerate judgment of the American people. Confident alike in the history of our great party and in the justice of our cause, we present our platform and our candidates in the full assurance that the election will bring victory to the Republican party and prosperity to the people of the United States." Before the adoption of this platform, a motion to amend its currency "plank," by substituting a declaration in favor of "the use of both gold and silver as equal standard money," was laid on the table by a vote of 818½ to 105½. A protest from delegates representing Colorado, Idaho, Nevada, Utah, Montana and South Dakota was then read, and twenty-two withdrew from the convention, as a sign of secession from the party.
{566} Immediately following the adoption of the platform, the Honorable William McKinley, ex-Governor of Ohio, and of fame in his connection with the tariff act of 1890, was nominated on the first ballot for President of the United States, by 661½ votes against 240½ divided among several opposing candidates, and the nomination was then made unanimous. For Vice President, the Honorable Garret A. Hobart, of New Jersey, was named, and similarly by the first voting. UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: 1896. Democratic Platform and Nominations. The Democratic national convention was held in Chicago, July 7-11. The delegates who came to it from the southern States, and from most of the States west of Ohio, were arrayed with a close approach to solid ranks for free silver; while those from New England and the Middle States opposed them in a phalanx almost equally firm. The "Gold Democrats" or "Sound Money Democrats," as the latter were called, ably led by ex-Governor Hill, of New York, fought hard to the end, but without avail. The financial resolution they strove to place in the platform was the following: "We declare our belief that the experiment on the part of the United States alone of free-silver coinage, and a change in the existing standard of value independently of the action of other great nations, would not only imperil our finances, but would retard or entirely prevent the establishment of international bimetallism, to which the efforts of the government should be steadily directed. It would place this country at once upon a silver basis, impair contracts, disturb business, diminish the purchasing power of the wages of labor, and inflict irreparable evils upon our nation's commerce and industry.