Rensselaer Semi-Weekly Republican, Volume 40, Number 102, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 1 September 1908 — WON THE ONE HUNDRED FIFTY. [ARTICLE]

WON THE ONE HUNDRED FIFTY.

Political Prize Essay Contest Conducted By Republican National Committee Proves Interesting.

Some time ago the National Republican -committee offered a prize for the best essay on “Why the Republican Party Should Be Succe-sful in November.” Many thousand papers were submitted. The one prepared by Frank Hend.icks, of New York, proves the winner. It is as follows: The Republican party was founded upon the principle that this government was established to protect for all times the rights and opportunities of every individual from abridgment. That principle it has successfully maintained. Through the CiVil War it consecrated a reunited country to free and equal American citizenship. It has kept the channels of Interstate Commerce open for ell and, through the National Banking System, the refunding of the National Debt, resumption of specie payments, the Gold Standard and the Emergency Currency Law, has sustained the life current of national integrity. As trustee of the National wealth, it has investigated mineral regions, surveyed soils, developed waterways, including the Panama Canal, irrigated deserts, conserved watersheds, and husbanded the public lands.' Protecting American labor by regulating immigration and by taking at the Custom House, to pay American taxes, foreign capital’s advantage from- low wages, it has preserved to American industres the, home market of eighty millions of the world’s greatest consumers so laid the surest basis of American competition in foreign markets. Uniting capital and labor, thus, in a common prosperity and common source of increased reward, it has created opportunities, improved conditions of employment, brought about a higher standard of living, and more widespread distribution of wealth and well-being, and made expansion moral as well as material.

from law. Yet it passed the Pure Fppd Daw and the Employers’ Liability Law, secured equal accommodations oh railroads, ai led agriculture, created the Civil Service, established Free Rural Mail Delivery, reduced foreign postage, and increasing pensions. Continuing naturally markedout progress, it will keep its pledges of Tariff readjustment, Currency Reform and development of the Merchant Marine, and make the United States 'the financial centre as it has made it the industrial centre of the world. In the evolution by which party government has become the extraconstitutional method of securing responsibility to the people, the Republican Party hag become their tradl tonal representative and the Democratic Party the organized aspiration of individuals for power without responsibility. Fairly tried, from 1893 to 1895, the two Democratic Houses and the Democratic! President were a “wild team”- and a helpless driver. Democracy agitates local differences, Republicanism organizes the National idea. In 1863 the people were committed to the cause of human liberty; the “Liberty and Union” expanded for the first time into the reality of the American nation. In 1879 money was committed to a specie basis; specie was at once, until 1893, no longer sought, and government bonds went to a premium at the reduced rate of interest. In 1896 business men were again committed to confidence; before a single statute was enacted prosperity set in and in ten years bank deposits almost trebled—a permanent gain which the

recent panic, a “state of mind” now completely dispelled, scarcely touched. In 1906 business was committed to fair methods; without compulsion violations largely ceased. The Republican party, at each period, sounded the public conscience, felt the National pulse, framed its policies in response, and realized in law the dominant American idea. Its constructive past assures its constructive future. It is today as it always has been, “The Party fit to Govern.” The party of statesmanship, it has been the training school of statesmen. Its policies have been forged in the heat of public discussion, temered In the deliberation and shaped in the conflict of many trained hands, and drawn and finally wrought for the country’s welfare. Dominating its members through principles, it assures unity in government; its staunchest partisans have . made the greatest contributions to national progress. The roster of tts leadertT is the national roll of honor of public service. Republicanism stands today for progressive policies in safe hands. By solving the constructive prob’ems of world power in the last two adminWilliam H. Taft taught the world our capacity and us his own. In all constructive legislation for twenty years James S. Sherman has been a leader. In tie records of the republican candidates as well as in the platform are written the story of the nation’s progress and the reliance of the future. A Democratic President or a Den> ocraXic House would turn ba'k those pages; thereafter Bfyanism’ would record “destruction.” This the Republican senate could not prevent/ Under Taft and Sherman and a Republican congress the great progress of the past will be held and the greater of the future will be assured.

Intrusted with insular possession?, it has brought them peace and progress, and provided for the extension and protection of American trade, for the National defense, and for the honorable discharge of the responsibilities of the world greatness. Maintaining peace at home, with foreign nations and among them, it ha* given American rights | and American opportuni-ies new meaning throughout tie nation and' throughout the world. Promising progiess and prosperity,, it has been politically sincere. It has never had a candidate cf a section, prejudice, or class, nor a platform of negation, scheme of repudiation, program of seuttle, or doctrine, of despair. It has never lent itself to a demand for to 1 e fol-j lowed by reaction and retrogression, I it has stood firm for evolution by constant, steady and enduring progress. Finding trusts, giant-born, flourishing under supposed conflict _ of State and National law, the double prohibition of existence serving but to foster their development, It has' never, in an attempt to destroy trusts, J withdrawn, in State or Nation, the protection of law from property, but has, through Executive invesiigat'on and resort to the courts, resolving the copflict which had silenced law and given trusts existence. It has never proposed to advance American workingmen and American institutions by banishing American industries and building up those of other lands, and scorned to insult labor with an Illusory promise of immunity