DHC THE REPUBLICAN PARTY: ITS HISTORY, PRINCIPLES, AND POLICIES. EDITED BY HON. JOHN D. LONG, CONTRIBUTORS: THE EDITOR; Hon. EDWARD MCPHERSON, of Pa.; Hon. L. E. PAYSON, J. C. BURROWS, of Mich.; Hon. GREEN B. RAUM, of Ill.; Hon. S. WISE, of Va.; Hon. HENRY CABOT LODGE, of Mass.; And Others. NEW YORK: THE M. W. HAZEN CO., PREFACE. WHILE this work will serve a useful purpose in the Presidential campaign of the present year, it has also a higher and permanent value as a concise yet substantial history of the Republican party, and a comprehensive discussion of the most important political questions now pending. The object of its preparation has been to give alike to the student and to the busy man an authoritative statement, first, of the great work achieved by that party for human freedom and the people's welfare; and, second, of the great economic and beneficent principles on which it has insured and will continue to insure the development of the Republic along every line of prosperity and progress. The names of the historian and of the contributors who follow him are the best earnest of its contents, each of them an authority upon every question he treats, and all holding commanding places in national councils. They have been actuated by a desire to impress the truth of history and the foundations of political principle, and to responsibly instruct the popular mind. The result, therefore, is not an ephemeral work, prepared as a part of the shout of a campaign, but a substantial contribution to political literature. Parties, like individuals, sometimes suffer from the very unbroken sequence of their own good record. It at last becomes tiresome to hear Aristides always called the Just. No political party in any age or quarter of the civilized world ever had so brilliant and beneficent a career or lived up to its own standards so faithfully as the Republican party of Lincoln and Harrison. Yet perhaps for that very reason the new generation of voters, who since its birth have come to the ballot-box, hardly ap preciate for what an advance and achievement it has stood and still stands, and how vital are its principles to the safety and progress of the country. There has been at times a tendency rather to fling at its grand old record than to count the value of its work. It is especially important, therefore, that the popular mind be instructed to look beyond the catchwords and party cries of the hour, and to comprehend the principles that are at stake. Happily, too, a reaction has already begun in consequence of the present Democratic supremacy, with its painful backsliding from the pretense of civil-service reform; the acknowl edged inability of its chief to rise above its own level, either of reform or of administration; its humiliating abandonment of American rights in all its negotiations with foreign powers; and its now unconcealed surrender of the protection of American industries and labor. The Republican party has not only made a Presidential nomination which commands the universal respect due to a loyal soldier, a wise statesman, and an honest, unspotted man, but its platform is a fearless, outspoken statement of its faith, evading nothing, inviting discussion, patriotic, progressive, AMERICAN. The following pages will not have been written in vain if they shall coöperate with the efforts of a party which puts such leaders at its front and so boldly enunciates its principles; or if they shall help to reawaken the spirit which in 1861 sprang, at the risk of life itself, to the rescue of freedom and the Union, and which in 1888 is again summoned to the battle of the people-the battle of an honest vote against a corrupt ballot-box; of education and temperance against the grog-shop; of protected labor against pauperism; and of a country developed, defended, prosperous, against national humiliation on the one hand or an "innocuous desuetude" on the other. THE EDITOR. |