Daily New Dominion

FORMAL ACCEPTANCE.

Mr. McKinley's Letter to Notification Committee.

HEARTILY APPROVES PLATFORM.

Money and Not Imperialism, According to the President, the Paramount Issue

Many Questions of Public Import Dispassionately Dealt With.

Executive Mansion,
Washington, Sept. 8.

Hon. Henry Cabot Lodge, Chairman Notification Committee.

My Dear Sir - The nomination of the Republican convention of June 19, 1900, for the office of president of the United States which as the official representative of the convention you have conveyed to me, is accepted. I have carefully examined the platform adopted and give to it my hearty approval.

Upon the great issue of the last national election it is clear. It upholds the gold standard and endorses the legislation of the present congress by which that standard has been effectively strengthened. The stability of our national currency is therefore secure so long as those who adhere to this platform are kept in control of the government. In the first battle, that of 1896, the friends of the gold standard and of sound currency were triumphant and the country is enjoying the fruits of that victory. Our antagonists, however, are not satisfied. They compel us to a second battle upon the same lines on which the first was fought and won. While regretting the reopening of this question, which can only disturb the present satisfactory financial condition of the government and visit uncertainty upon our great business enterprises, we accept the issue and again invite the sound money forces to join in winning another and we hope a permanent triumph for an honest financial system which will continue inviolable the public faith.

As in 1896 the three silver parties are united under the same leader who immediately after the election of that year, in an address to the bimetallists, said: "The friends of bimetallism have not been vanquished; they have simply been overcome. They believe that the gold standard is a conspiracy of the money changers against the welfare of the human race - and they will continue the warfare against it."

The policy thus proclaimed has been accepted and confirmed by these parties. The Silver Democratic platform of 1900 continues the warfare against the so called gold conspiracy when it expressly says "we reiterate the demand of that (the Chicago) platform of 1896 for an American financial system made by the American people for themselves, which shall restore and maintain a bimetallic price level, and as part of such system the immediate restoration of the free and unlimited coinage of silver and gold at the present ratio of 16 to 1, without waiting for the aid or consent of any other nation."

So the issue is presented. It will be noted that the demand is for the immediate restoration of the free coinage of silver at 16 to 1. If another issue is paramount, this is immediate. It will admit of no delay and will suffer no postponement.

Populists Against Single Standard.

Turning to the other associated parties we find in the Populist national platform adopted at Sioux Falls, South Dakota, May 10, 1900, the following declaration: "We pledge anew the People's party never to cease the agitation until this financial conspiracy is blotted from the statute book, the Lincoln greenback restored, the bonds all paid and all corporation money forever retired. We reassert the demand for the reopening of the mints of the United States for the free and unlimited coinage of silver and gold at the present legal ratio of 16 to 1, the immediate increase in the volume of silver coins and certificates thus created to be substituted, dollar for dollar, for the bank notes issued by private corporations under special privilege, granted by law of March 14, 1900, and prior to national banking laws."

The platform of the Silver party adopted at Kansas City July 6, 1900, makes the following announcement: "We declare it to be our intention to lend our efforts to the repeal of this currency law, which not only repudiates the ancient and time-honored principles of the American people before the constitution was adopted, but is violative of the principles of the constitution itself; and we shall not cease our efforts until there has been established in its place a monetary system based upon the free and unlimited coinage of silver and gold into money at the present legal ratio of 16 to 1 by the independent action of the United States under which system all paper money shall be issued by the government and all such money coined or issued shall be a full legal tender in payment of all debts, public and private, without exception."

In all three platforms these parties announce that their efforts shall be unceasing until the gold act shall be blotted from the statute books and the free and unlimited coinage of silver at 16 to 1 shall take its place.

The relative importance of the issues I do not stop to discuss. All of them are important. Whichever party is successful will be bound in conscience to carry into administration and legislation its several declarations and doctrines. One declaration will be as obligatory as another, but all are not immediate. It is not possible that these parties would treat the doctrine of 16 to 1, the immediate realization of which is demanded by their several platforms, as void and inoperative in the event that they should be clothed with power. Otherwise their profession of faith is insincere. It is therefore the imperative business of those opposed to this financial heresy to prevent the triumph of the parties whose union is only assured by adherence to the silver issue. Will the American people, through indifference or fancied security, hazard the overthrow of the wise financial legislation of the past year and revive the danger of the silver standard with all of the inevitable evils of shattered confidence and general disaster which justly alarmed and aroused them in 1896?

Democrats Reaffirm Old Platform.

The Chicago platform of 1896 is reaffirmed in its entirety by the Kansas City convention. Nothing has been omitted or recalled; so that all the perils then threatened are presented anew with the added force of a deliberate reaffirmation. Four years ago the people refused to place the seal of their approval upon these dangerous and revolutionary policies, and this year they will not fail to record again their earnest dissent.

The Republican party remains faithful to its principle of a tariff which supplies sufficient revenues for the government and adequate protection to our enterprises and producers; and of reciprocity which opens foreign markets to the fruits of American labor, and furnishes new channels through which to market the surplus of American farms. The time-honored principles of protection and reciprocity were the first pledges of Republican victory to be written into public law.

Our industrial and agricultural conditions are more promising than they have been for many years; probably more so than they have ever been. Prosperity abounds everywhere throughout the republic. I rejoice that the southern as well as the northern states are enjoying a full share of these improved national conditions and that all are contributing so largely to our remarkable industrial development. The money lender receives lower rewards for his capital than if it were invested in active business. The rates of interest are lower than they have ever been in this country while those things which are produced on the farm and in the workshop, and the labor producing them, have advanced in value.

In the unfortunate contest between Great Britain and the Boer states of South Africa, the United States has maintained an attitude of neutrality in accordance with its well known traditional policy. It did not hesitate, however, when requested by the governments of the South African republics, to exercise its good offices for a cessation of hostilities. It is to be observed that while the South African republics made like requests of other powers, the United States is the only one which complied. The British government declined to accept the intervention of any power.

Ninety-one per cent of our exports and imports are now carried by foreign ships. For ocean transportation we pay annually to foreign ship-owners over $165,000,000.

We ought to own the ships for our carrying trade with the world and we ought to build them in American shipyards and man them with American sailors. Our own sailors should receive the transportation charges now paid to foreigners. I have called the attention of congress to this subject in my several annual messages.

A subject of immediate importance to our country is the completion of a great waterway of commerce between the Atlantic and Pacific. The construction of a maritime canal is now more than ever indispensable to that intimate and ready communication between our eastern and western seaports demanded by the annexation of the Hawaiian Islands and the expansion of our influence and trade in the Pacific.

Our national policy more imperatively than ever calls for its completion and control by this government; and it is believed that the next session of congress, after receiving the full report of the commission appointed under the act approved March 3, 1899, will make provisions for the sure accomplishment of this great work.

Merit System In Civil Service.

During the present administration as occasions have arisen for modification or amendment in the existing civil service law and rules they have been made. Important amendments were promulgated by executive order under date of May 29, 1899, having for their principal purpose the exception from competitive examination of certain places involving fiduciary responsibilities or duties of a strictly confidential, scientific or executive character, which it was thought might better be filled either by non-competitive examination or by other tests of fitness in the discretion of the appointing officer. It is gratifying that the experience of more than a year has vindicated these changes in the marked improvement of the public service.

The merit system, as far as practicable, is made the basis for appointments to office in our new territory.

Those who profess to distrust the liberal and honorable purposes of the administration in its treatment of the Filipinos are not justified. Imperialism has no place in its creed or conduct. Freedom is a rock upon which the Republican party was builded and now rests. Liberty is the great Republican doctrine for which the people went to war and for which a million lives were offered and billions of dollars expended to make it a lawful legacy of all without the consent of master or slave. There is a strain of ill-concealed hypocrisy in the anxiety to extend the constitutional guarantees to the people of the Philippines, while their nullification is openly advocated at home. Our opponents may distrust themselves, but they have no right to discredit the good faith and patriotism of the majority of the people, who are opposed to them. They may fear the worst form of imperialism with the helpless Filipinos in their hands; but if they do it is because they have parted with the spirit and faith of the fathers and have lost the virility of the founders of the party which they profess to represent.

The Republican party does not have to assert its devotion to the Declaration of Independence. That immortal instrument of the fathers remained unexecuted until the people under the lead of the Republican party in the awful clash of battle turned its promises into fulfillment. It wrote into the constitution the amendments guaranteeing political equality to American citizenship and it has never broken them or counseled others in breaking them. It will not be guided in its conduct by one set of principles at home and another set in the new territory belonging to the United States.

If our opponents would only practice as well as preach the doctrine of Abraham Lincoln there would be no fear for the safety of our institutions at home or their frightful influence in any territory over which the flag floats.

Our Flag Is Emblem of Sovereignty.

Empire has been expelled from Porto Rico and the Philippines by American freemen. The flag of the republic now floats over these islands as an emblem of rightful sovereignty. Will the republic stay and dispense to their inhabitants the blessings of liberty, education, and free institutions, or steal away, leaving them to anarchy and imperialism?

The American question is between duty and desertion - the American verdict will be for duty against desertion, for the republic against anarchy and imperialism.

The country has been fully advised of the purposes of the United States in China, and they will be faithfully adhered to as already defined.

The nation is filled with gratitude that the little band, among them many of our own blood, who for two months have been subjected to privations and perils by the attacks of pitiless hordes at the Chinese capital, exhibiting supreme courage in the face of despair, have been enabled by God's favor to greet their rescuers and find shelter under their own flag.

The people not alone of this land but of all lands have watched and prayed through the terrible stress and protracted agony of the helpless sufferers in Peking, and while at times the dark tidings seemed to make all hope vain, the rescuers never faltered in the heroic fulfillment of their noble task.

We are grateful to our own soldiers and sailors and marines, and to all the brave men who, though assembled under many standards representing peoples and races strangers in country and speech, were yet united in the sacred mission of carrying succor to the besieged, with a success that is now the cause of a world's rejoicing.

Not only have we reason for thanksgiving for our material blessings, but we should rejoice in the complete unification of the people of all sections of our country, that has so happily developed in the last few years and made for us a more perfect union.

The obliteration of old differences, the common devotion to the flag and the common sacrifices for its honor, so conspicuously shown by the men of the north and south in the Spanish war, have so strengthened the ties of friendship and mutual respect that nothing can ever again divide us. The nation faces the new century gratefully and hopefully, with increasing love of country, with firm faith in its free institutions, and with high resolve that they shall not perish from the earth.

Very respectfully yours,
William McKinley.