1920 Republican Platform

June 8, 1920

The Republican party, assembled in representative national convention, reaffirms its unyielding devotion to the Constitution of the United States, and to the guaranties of civil, political and religious liberty therein contained. It will resist all attempts to overthrow the foundations of the government or to weaken the force of its controlling principles and ideals, whether these attempts be made in the form of international policy or domestic agitation.

For seven years the national government has been controlled by the Democratic party. During that period a war of unparalleled magnitude has shaken the foundations of civilization, decimated the population of Europe, and left in its train economic misery and suffering second only to the war itself.

The outstanding features of the Democratic administration have been complete unpreparedness for war and complete unpreparedness for peace.

Unpreparedness for War

Inexcusable failure to make timely preparations is the chief indictment against the Democratic administration in the conduct of the war. Had not our associates protected us, both on land and sea, during the first twelve months of our participation and furnished us to the very day of the armistice with munitions, planes, and artillery, this failure would have been punished with disaster. It directly resulted in unnecessary losses to our gallant troops, in the imperilment of victory itself, and in an enormous waste of public funds, literally poured into the breach created by gross neglect. To-day it is reflected in our huge tax burdens and in the high cost of living.

Unpreparedness for Peace

Peace found the administration as unprepared for peace as war found it unprepared for war. The vital need of the country demanded the early andsystematic return of a peace time basis.

This called for vision, leadership, and intelligent planning. All three have been lacking. While the country has been left to shift for itself, the government has continued on a wartime basis. The administration has not demobilized the army of place holders. It continued a method of financing which was indefensible during the period of reconstruction. It has used legislation passed to meet the emergency of war to continue its arbitrary and inquisitorial control over the life of the people in the time of peace, and to carry confusion into industrial life. Under the despot's plea of necessity or superior wisdom, executive usurpation of legislative and judicial function still undermines our institutions. Eighteen months after the armistice, with its wartime powers unabridged, its wartime departments undischarged, its wartime army of place holders still mobilized, the administration still continues to flounder helplessly.

The demonstrated incapacity of the Democratic party has destroyed public confidence, weakened the authority of the government, and produced a feeling of distrust and hesitation so universal as to increase enormously the difficulty of readjustment and to delay the return to normal conditions.

Never has our nation been confronted with graver problems. The people are entitled to know in definite terms how the parties purpose solving these problems. To that end, the Republican party declares its policy and programme to be as follows:

Constitutional Government

We undertake to end executive autocracy and restore to the people their constitutional government.

The policies herein declared will be carried out by the Federal and State governments, each acting within its constitutional powers.

Foreign Relations

The foreign policy of the Administration has been founded upon no principle and directed by no definite conception of our nation's rights and obligations. It has been humiliating to America and irritating to other nations, with the result that after a period of unexampled sacrifice, our motives are suspected, our moral influence impaired, and our Government stands discredited and friendless among the nations of the world.

We favor a liberal and generous foreign policy founded upon definite moral and political principle, characterized by a clear understanding of and a firm adherence to our own rights, and unfailing respect for the rights of others. We should afford full and adequate protection to the life, liberty, property and all international rights of every American citizen, and should require a proper respect for the American flag; but we should be equally careful to manifest a just regard for the rights of other nations. A scrupulous observance of our international engagements when lawfully assumed is essential to our own honor and self-respect, and the respect of other nations. Subject to a due regard for our international obligations, we should leave our country free to develop its civilization along lines most conducive to the happiness and welfare of its people, and to cast its influence on the side of justice and right should occasion require.

(a) Mexico

The ineffective policy of the present Administration in Mexican matters has been largely responsible for the continued loss of American lives in that country and upon our border; for the enormous loss of American and foreign property; for the lowering of American standards of morality and social relations with Mexicans, and for the bringing of American ideals of justice, national honor and political integrity into contempt and ridicule in Mexico and throughout the world.

The policy of wordy, futile written protests against the acts of Mexican officials, explained the following day by the President himself as being meaningless and not intended to be considered seriously, or enforced, has but added in degree to that contempt, and has earned for us the sneers and jeers of Mexican bandits, and added insult upon insult against our national honor and dignity.

We should not recognize any Mexican government, unless it be a responsible government willing and able to give sufficient guarantees that the lives and property of American citizens are respected and protected; that wrongs will be promptly corrected and just compensation will be made for injury sustained. The Republican party pledges itself to a consistent, firm and effective policy towards Mexico that shall enforce respect for the American flag and that shall protect the rights of American citizens lawfully in Mexico to security of life and enjoyment of property, in accordance with established principles of international law and our treaty rights.

The Republican party is a sincere friend of the Mexican people. In its insistence upon the maintenance of order for the protection of American citizens within its borders a great service will be rendered the Mexican people themselves; for a continuation of present conditions means disaster to their interests and patriotic aspirations.

(b) Mandate for Armenia

We condemn President Wilson for asking Congress to empower him to accept a mandate for Armenia. We commend the Republican Senate for refusing the President's request to empower him to accept the mandate for Armenia. The acceptance of such mandate would throw the United States into the very maelstrom of European quarrels. According to the estimate of the Harbord Commission, organized by authority of President Wilson, we would be called upon to send 59,000 American boys to police Armenia and to expend $276,000,000 in the first year and $756,000,000 in five years. This estimate is made upon the basis that we would have only roving bands to fight; but in case of serious trouble with the Turks or with Russia, a force exceeding 200,000 would be necessary.

No more striking illustration can be found of President Wilson's disregard of the lives of American boys or of American interests.

We deeply sympathize with the people of Armenia and stand ready to help them in all proper ways, but the Republican party will oppose now and hereafter the acceptance of a mandate for any country in Europe or Asia.

(c) League of Nations

The Republican party stands for agreement among the nations to preserve the peace of the world. We believe that such an international association must be based upon international justice, and must provide methods which shall maintain the rule of public right by the development of law and the decision of impartial courts, and which shall secure instant and general international conference whenever peace shall be threatened by political action, so that the nations pledged to do and insist upon what is just and fair may exercise their influence and power for the prevention of war.

We believe that all this can be done without the compromise of national independence, without depriving the people of the United States in advance of the right to determine for themselves what is just and fair when the occasion arises, and without involving them as participants and not as peacemakers in a multitude of quarrels, the merits of which they are unable to judge.

The covenant signed by the President at Paris failed signally to accomplish this great purpose, and contains stipulations, not only intolerable for an independent people, but certain to produce the injustice, hostility and controversy among nations which it proposed to prevent.

That covenant repudiated, to a degree wholly unnecessary and unjustifiable, the time-honored policies in favor of peace declared by Washington, Jefferson, and Monroe, and pursued by all American administrations for more than a century, and it ignored the universal sentiment of America for generations past in favor of international law and arbitration, and it rested the hope of the future upon mere expediency and negotiation.

The unfortunate insistence of the President upon having his own way, without any change and without any regard to the opinions of a majority of the Senate, which shares with him in the treaty-making power, and the President's demand that the Treaty should be ratified without any modification, created a situation in which Senators were required to vote upon their consciences and their oaths according to their judgment against the Treaty as it was presented, or submit to the commands of a dictator in a matter where the authority and the responsibility under the Constitution were theirs, and not his.

The Senators performed their duty faithfully. We approve their conduct and honor their courage and fidelity. And we pledge the coming Republican administration to such agreements with the other nations of the world as shall meet the full duty of America to civilization and humanity, in accordance with American ideals, and without surrendering the right of the American people to exercise its judgment and its power in favor of justice and peace.

Congress and Reconstruction

Despite the unconstitutional and dictatorial course of the President and the partisan obstruction of the Democratic congressional minority, the Republican majority has enacted a program of constructive legislation which in great part, however, has been nullified by the vindictive vetoes of the President.

The Republican Congress has met the problems presented by the administration's unpreparedness for peace. It has repealed the greater part of the vexatious war legislation. It has enacted a transportation act making possible the rehabilitation of the railroad systems of the country, the operation of which, under the present Democratic administration, has been wasteful, extravagant, and inefficient in the highest degree. The transportation act made provision for the peaceful settlement of wage disputes, partially nullified, however, by the President's delay in appointing the wage board created by the Act. This delay precipitated the outlaw railroad strike.

We stopped the flood of public treasure, recklessly poured into the lap of an inept shipping board, and laid the foundations for the creation of a great merchant marine; we took from the incompetent Democratic administration the administration of the telegraph and telephone lines of the country and returned them to private ownership; we reduced the cost of postage and increased the pay of the postal employes—the poorest paid of all public servants; we provided pensions for superannuated and retired civil servants; and for an increase in pay of soldiers and sailors we reorganized the Army on a peace footing and provided for the maintenance of a powerful and efficient navy.

The Republican Congress established by law a permanent woman's bureau in the Department of Labor; we submitted to the country the constitutional amendment for woman suffrage, and furnished twenty-nine of the thirty-five legislatures which have ratified it to date.

Legislation for the relief of the consumers of print paper, for the extension of the powers of the government under the Food Control Act, for broadening the scope of the War Risk Insurance Act, better provision for the dwindling number of aged veterans of the Civil War and for the better support of the maimed and injured of the great war, and for making practical the vocational rehabilitation act, has been enacted by the Republican Congress.

We passed an oil leasing and water power bill to unlock for the public good the great pent-up resources of the country; we have sought to check the profligacy of the administration, to realize upon the assets of the government and to husband the revenues derived from taxation. The Republicans in Congress have been responsible for cuts in the estimates for government expenditure of nearly $3,000,000,000 since the signing of the armistice.

We enacted a national executive budget law; we strengthened the Federal Reserve Act to permit banks to lend needed assistance to farmers; we authorized financial incorporations to develop export trade; and finally, amended the rules of the Senate and House, which will reform evils in procedure and guarantee more efficient and responsible government.

Agriculture

The farmer is the backbone of the nation. National greatness and economic independence demand a population distributed between industry and the farm, and sharing on equal terms the prosperity which it holds is wholly dependent upon the efforts of both. Neither can prosper at the expense of the other without inviting joint disaster.

The crux of the present agricultural condition lies in prices, labor and credit.

The Republican party believes that this condition can be improved by: practical and adequate farm representation in the appointment of governmental officials and commissions; the right to form co-operative associations for marketing their products, and protection against discrimination; the scientific study of agricultural prices and farm production costs, at home and abroad, with a view to reducing the frequency of abnormal fluctuation; the uncensored publication of such reports; the authorization of associations for the extension of personal credit; a national inquiry on the coordination of rail, water and motor transportation with adequate facilities for receiving, handling and marketing food; the encouragement of our export trade; and end to unnecessary price-fixing and ill-considered efforts arbitrarily to reduce prices of farm products which invariably result to the disadvantage both of producer and consumer; and the encouragement of the production and importation of fertilizing material and of its extensive use.

The Federal Farm Loan Acts should be so administered as to facilitate the acquisition of farm land by those desiring to become owners and proprietors and thus minimize the evils of farm tenantry, and to furnish such long time credits as farmers may need to finance adequately their larger and long time production operations.

Industrial Relations

There are two different conceptions of the relations of capital and labor. The one is contractual and emphasizes the diversity of interest of employer and employГ©. The other is that of co-partnership in a common task.

We recognize the justice of collective bargaining as a means of promoting good will, establishing closer and more harmonious relations between employers and employГ©s and realizing the true ends of industrial justice.

The strike or the lockout, as a means of settling industrial disputes, inflicts such loss and suffering on the community as to justify government initiative to reduce its frequency and limit its consequences. We denied the right to strike against the government; but the rights and interests of all government employГ©s must be safeguarded by impartial laws and tribunals.

In public utilities we favor the establishment of an impartial tribunal to make an investigation of the facts and to render decision to the end that there may be no organized interruption of service necessary to the lives and health and welfare of the people. The decisions of the tribunal to be morally but not legally binding, and an informed public sentiment be relied on to secure their acceptance. The tribunals, however, should refuse to accept jurisdiction except for the purpose of investigation as long as the public service be interrupted. For public utilities we favor the type of tribunal provided for in the Transportation Act of 1920.

In private industries we do not advocate the principle of compulsory arbitration, but we favor impartial commissions and better facilities for voluntary mediation, conciliation and arbitration supplemented by the full publicity which will enlist the influence of an aroused public opinion. The government should take the initiative in inviting the establishment of tribunals or commissions for the purpose of voluntary arbitration and of investigation of disputed issues.

We demand the exclusion from interstate commerce of the products of convict labor.

National Economy

A Republican Congress reduced the estimates submitted by the Administration almost three billion dollars. Greater economies could have been effected had it not been for the stubborn refusal of the Administration to co-operate with Congress in an economy program. The universal demand for an executive budget is a recognition of the incontrovertible fact that leadership and sincere assistance on the part of the executive departments are essential to effective economy and constructive retrenchment.

The Overman Act invested the President of the United States with all the authority and power necessary to restore the Federal Government to a normal peace basis and to reorganize, retrench and demobilize. The dominant fact is that eighteen months after the armistice, the United States Government is still on a war time basis, and the expenditure program of the Executive reflects war time extravagance rather than rigid peace time economy.

As an example of the failure to retrench which has characterized the post war time administration we cite the fact that not including the war and navy departments, the executive departments and other establishments at Washington actually record an increase subsequent to the armistice of 2,184 employГ©s. The net decrease in pay roll costs contained in the 1921 demands submitted by the Administration is only one per cent below that of 1920. The annual expenses of Federal operations can be reduced hundreds of millions of dollars without impairing the efficiency of the public service.

We pledge ourselves to a carefully planned readjustment on a peace time basis and to a policy of rigid economy, to the better co-ordination of departmental activities, to the elimination of unnecessary officials and employГ©s, and to the raising of the standard of individual efficiency.

The Executive Budget

We congratulate the Republican Congress on the enactment of a law providing for the establishment of an Executive Budget as a necessary instrument for a sound and business-like administration of the national finances; and we condemn the veto of the President which defeated this great financial reform.

Reorganization of Federal Departments and Bureaus

We advocate a thorough investigation of the present organization of the Federal departments and bureaus, with a view to securing consolidation, a more business-like distribution of functions, the elimination of duplication, delays and overlapping of work and the establishment of an up-todate and efficient administrative organization.

War Powers of the President

The President clings tenaciously to his autocratic war time powers. His veto of the resolution declaring peace and his refusal to sign the bill repealing war time legislation, no longer necessary, evidenced his determination not to restore to the Nation and to the State the form of government provided for by the Constitution. This usurpation is intolerable and deserves the severest condemnation.

Taxation

The burden of taxation imposed upon the American people is staggering; but in presenting a true statement of the situation we must face the fact that, while the character of the taxes can and should be changed, an early reduction of the amount of revenue to be raised is not to be expected. The next Republican Administration will inherit from its Democratic predecessor a floating indebtedness of over three billion dollars—the prompt liquidation of which is demanded by sound financial consideration. Moreover, the whole fiscal policy of the Government must be deeply influenced by the necessity of meeting obligations in excess of five billion dollars which mature in 1923. But sound policy equally demands the early accomplishment of that real reduction of the tax burden which may be achieved by substituting simple for complex tax laws and procedure, prompt and certain determination of the tax liability for delay and uncertainty, tax laws which do not, for tax laws which do, excessively mulct the consumer or needlessly repress enterprise and thrift.

We advocate the issuance of a simplified form of income return; authorizing the Treasury Department to make changes in regulations effective only from the date of their approval empowering the Commissioner of Internal Revenue, with the consent of the taxpayers, to make final and conclusive settlements of tax claims and assessments barring fraud, the creation of a Tax Board consisting of at least three representatives of the taxpaying public and the heads of the principal divisions of the Bureau of Internal Revenue to act as a standing committee on the simplification of forms, procedure and law and to make recommendations to the Congress.

Banking and Currency

The fact is that the war to a great extent, was financed by a policy of inflation, through certificate borrowings from the banks, and bonds issued at artificial rates sustained by the low discount rates established by the Federal Reserve Board. The continuance of this policy since the armistice lays the administration open to severe criticism. Almost up to the present time the practices of the Federal Reserve Board as to credit control have been frankly dominated by the convenience of the Treasury.

The results have been a greatly increased war cost, a serious loss to the millions of people who, in good faith, bought liberty bonds and victory notes at par, and extensive post war speculation followed to-day by a restricted credit for legitimate industrial expansion and as a matter of public policy, we urge all banks to give credit preference to essential industry.

The Federal Reserve System should be free from political influence, which is quite as important as its independence of domination by financial combinations.

The High Cost of Living

The prime cause of the "High Cost of Living" has been first and foremost, a fifty per cent depreciation in the purchasing power of the dollar, due to a gross expansion of our currency and credit. Reduced production, burdensome taxation, swollen profits, and the increased demand for goods arising from a fictitious but enlarged buying power, have been contributing forces in a greater or less degree. We condemn the unsound fiscal policies of the Democratic Administration which have brought these things to pass, and their attempts to impute the consequences to minor and secondary causes. Much of the injury wrought is irreparable. There is no short way out, and we decline to deceive the people with vain promises or quack remedies. But as the political party that throughout its history has stood for honest money and sound finance, we pledge ourselves to earnest and consistent attack upon the high cost of living, by rigorous avoidance of further inflation in war government borrowing, by courageous and intelligent deflation of over-expanded credit and currency, by encouragement of heightened production of goods and services, by prevention of unreasonable profits, by exercise of public economy and stimulation of private thrift and by revision of war imposed taxes unsuited to peace time economy.

Profiteering

We condemn the Democratic Administration for failure impartially to enforce the Anti-Profiteering Laws enacted by the Republican Congress.

Railroads

We are opposed to government ownership and operation or employГ© operation of the Railroads. In view of the conditions prevailing in this country, the experience of the last two years, and the conclusion which may fairly be drawn from an observation of the transportation systems of other countries it is clear that adequate transportation service both for the present and future can be furnished more certainly, economically and efficiently through private ownership and operation under proper regulation and control.

There should be no speculative profit in rendering the service of transportation; but in order to do justice to the capital already invested in railway enterprise, to restore railway credit, to induce future investment at a reasonable rate, and to furnish a large facility to meet the requirements of the constantly increasing development and distribution a fair return upon actual value of the railway property used in transportation should be made reasonably sure, and at the same time to provide constant employment to those engaged in transportation service, with fair hours and favorable working conditions, at wages or compensation at least equal to those prevailing in similar lines of industry.

We endorse the transportation act of 1920 enacted by the Republican Congress as a most constructive legislative achievement.

Waterways

We declare it to be our policy to encourage and develop water transportation service and facilities in connection with the commerce of the United States.

Regulation of Industry and Commerce

We approve in general the existing Federal Legislation against monopoly and combinations in restraint of trade, but since the known certainty of a law is the safety of all, we advocate such amendment as will provide American business men with better means of determining in advance whether a proposed combination is or is not unlawful. The Federal Trade Commission, under a Democratic Administration, has not accomplished the purpose for which it was created. This commission properly organized and its duties efficiently administered should afford protection to the public and legitimate business interests. There should be no persecution of honest business; but to the extent that circumstances warrant we pledge ourselves to strengthen the law against unfair practices.

We pledge the party to an immediate resumption of trade relations with every nation with which we are at peace.

International Trade and Tariff

The uncertain and unsettled condition of international balances, the abnormal economic and trade situation of the world, and the impossibility of forecasting accurately even the near future, preclude the formulation of a definite program to meet conditions a year hence. But the Republican party reaffirms its belief in the protective principles and pledges itself to a revision of the tariff as soon as conditions shall make it necessary for the preservation of the home market for American labor, agriculture and industry.

Merchant Marine

The National defense and our foreign commerce require a merchant marine of the best type of modern ship, flying the American flag, and manned by American seamen, owned by private capital, and operated by private energy. We endorse the sound legislation recently enacted by the Republican Congress that will insure the promotion and maintenance of the American Merchant Marine.

We favor the application of the workmen's compensation act to the Merchant Marine.

We recommend that all ships engaged in coastwise trade and all vessels of the American Merchant Marine shall pass through the Panama Canal without payment of tolls.

Immigration

The standard of living and the standard of citizenship of a nation are its most precious possessions, and the preservation and the elevation of those standards is the first duty of our government. The immigration policy of the U. S. should be such as to insure that the number of foreigners in the country at any one time shall not exceed that which can be assimilated with reasonable rapidity, and to favor immigrants whose standards are similar to ours.

The selective tests that are at present applied should be improved by requiring a higher physical standard, a more complete exclusion of mental defectives and of criminals, and a more effective inspection applied as near the source of immigration as possible, as well as at the port of entry. Justice to the foreigner and to ourselves demands provision for the guidance, protection and better economic distribution of our alien population. To facilitate government supervision, all aliens should be required to register annually until they become naturalized.

The existing policy of the United States for the practical exclusion of Asiatic immigrants is sound, and should be maintained.

Naturalization

There is urgent need of improvement in our naturalization law. No alien should become a citizen until he has become genuinely American, and adequate tests for determining the alien's fitness for American citizenship should be provided for by law.

We advocate, in addition, the independent naturalization of married women. An American woman, resident in the United States, should not lose her citizenship by marriage to an alien.

Free Speech and Alien Agitation

We demand that every American citizen shall enjoy the ancient and constitutional right of free speech, free press and free assembly and the no less sacred right of the qualified voted [sic] to be represented by his duly chosen representatives; but no man may advocate resistance to the law, and no man may advocate violent overthrow of the government.

Aliens within the jurisdiction of the United States are not entitled of right to liberty of agitation directed against the government of American institutions

Every government has the power to exclude and deport those aliens who constitute a real menace to its peaceful existence. But in view of the large numbers of people affected by the immigration acts and in view of the vigorous malpractice of the Departments of Justice and Labor, an adequate public hearing before a competent administrative tribunal should be assured to all.

Lynching

We urge Congress to consider the most effective means to end Iynching in this country which continues to be a terrible blot on our American civilization.

Public Roads and Highways

We favor liberal appropriations in co-operation with the States for the construction of highways, which will bring about a reduction in transportation costs, better marketing of farm products, improvement in rural postal delivery, as well as meet the needs of military defense.

In determining the proportion of Federal aid for road construction among the States, the sums lost in taxation to the respective States by the setting apart of large portions of their area as forest reservations should be considered as a controlling factor.

Conservation

Conservation is a Republican policy. It began with the passage of the Reclamation Act signed by President Roosevelt. The recent passage of the coal, oil and phosphate leasing act by a Republican Congress and the enactment of the waterpower bill fashioned in accordance with the same principle, are consistent landmarks in the development of the conservation of our national resources. We denounce the refusal of the President to sign the waterpower bill, passed after ten years of controversy. The Republican party has taken an especially honorable part in saving our national forests and in the effort to establish a national forest policy. Our most pressing conservation question relates to our forests. We are using our forest resources faster than they are being renewed. The result is to raise unduly the cost of forest products to consumers and especially farmers, who use more than half the lumber produced in America, and in the end to create a timber famine. The Federal Government, the States and private interests must unite in devising means to meet the menace.

Reclamation

We favor a fixed and comprehensive policy of reclamation to increase national wealth and production.

We recognize in the development of reclamation through Federal action with its increase of production and taxable wealth a safeguard for the nation.

We commend to Congress a policy to reclaim lands and the establishment of a fixed national policy of development of natural resources in relation to reclamation through the now designated government agencies.

Army and Navy

We feel the deepest pride in the fine courage, the resolute endurance, the gallant spirit of the officers and men of our army and navy in the World War. They were in all ways worthy of the best traditions of the nation's defenders, and we pledge ourselves to proper maintenance of the military and naval establishments upon which our national security and dignity depend.

The Service Men

We hold in imperishable remembrance the valor and the patriotism of the soldiers and sailors of America who fought in the great war for human liberty, and we pledge ourselves to discharge to the fullest the obligations which a grateful nation justly should fulfill, in appreciation of the services rendered by its defenders on sea and on land.

Republicans are not ungrateful. Throughout their history they have shown their gratitude toward the nation's defenders. Liberal legislation for the care of the disabled and infirm and their dependents has ever marked Republican policy toward the soldier and sailor of all the wars in which our country has participated. The present Congress has appropriated generously for the disabled of the World War.

The amounts already applied and authorized for the fiscal year 1920-21 for this purpose reached the stupendous sum of $1,180,571,893. The legislation is significant of the party's purpose in generously caring for the maimed and disabled men of the recent war.

Civil Service

We renew our repeated declaration that the civil service law shall be thoroughly and honestly enforced and extended wherever practicable. The recent action of Congress in enacting a comprehensive civil service retirement law and in working out a comprehensive employment and wage policy that will guarantee equal and just treatment to the army of government workers, and in centralizing the administration of the new and progressive employment policy in the hands of the Civil Service Commission is worthy of all praise.

Postal Service

We condemn the present administration for its destruction of the efficiency of the postal service, and the telegraph and telephone service when controlled by the government and for its failure to properly compensate employГ©s whose expert knowledge is essential to the proper conduct of the affairs of the postal system. We commend the Republican Congress for the enactment of legislation increasing the pay of postal employlés, who up to that time were the poorest paid in the government service.

Woman Suffrage

We welcome women into full participation in the affairs of government and the activities of the Republican Party. We earnestly hope that Republican legislatures in states which have not yet acted on the Suffrage Amendment will ratify the amendment, to the end that all of the women of the nation of voting age may participate in the election of 1920 which is so important to the welfare of our country.

Social Progress

The supreme duty of the nation is the conservation of human resources through an enlightened measure of social and industrial justice. Although the federal jurisdiction over social problems is limited, they affect the welfare and interest of the nation as a whole. We pledge the Republican party to the solution of these problems through national and state legislation in accordance with the best progressive thought of the country.

Education and Health

We endorse the principle of Federal aid to the States for the purpose of vocational and agricultural training.

Wherever Federal money is devoted to education, such education must be so directed as to awaken in the youth the spirit of America and a sense of patriotic duty to the United States.

A thorough system of physical education for all children up to the age of 19, including adequate health supervision and instruction, would remedy conditions revealed by the draft and would add to the economic and industrial strength of the nation. National leadership and stimulation will be necessary to induce the States to adopt a wise system of physical training.

The public health activities of the Federal government are scattered through numerous departments and bureaus, resulting in inefficiency, duplication and extravagance. We advocate a greater centralization of the Federal functions and in addition urge the better co-ordination of the work of the Federal, State and local health agencies.

Child Labor

The Republican party stands for a Federal child labor law and for its rigid enforcement. If the present law be found unconstitutional or ineffective, we shall seek other means to enable Congress to prevent the evils of child labor.

Women in Industry

Women have special problems of employment which make necessary special study. We recommend Congress for the permanent establishment of the Women's Bureau in the United States Department of Labor to serve as a source of information to the States and to Congress.

The principle of equal pay for equal service should be applied throughout all branches of the Federal government in which women are employed.

Federal aid for vocational training should take into consideration the special aptitudes and needs of women workers.

We demand Federal legislation to limit the hours of employment of women engaged in intensive industry, the product of which enters into interstate commerce.

Housing

The housing shortage has not only compelled careful study of ways of stimulating building, but it has brought into relief the unsatisfactory character of the housing accommodations of large numbers of the inhabitants of our cities. A nation of home owners is the best guaranty of the maintenance of those principles of liberty, law and order upon which our government is founded. Both National and State governments should encourage in all proper ways the acquiring of homes by our citizens. The United States Government should make available the valuable information on housing and town planning collected during the war. This information should be kept up to date and made currently available.

Hawaii

For Hawaii we recommend Federal assistance in Americanizing and educating their greatly disproportionate foreign population; home rule; and the rehabilitation of the Hawaiian race.

Pointing to its history and relying on its fundamental principles, we declare that the Republican party has the genius, courage and constructive ability to end executive usurpation and restore constitutional government; to fulfill our world obligations without sacrificing our national independence; to raise the national standards of education, health and general welfare; to re-establish a peace time administration and to substitute economy and efficiency for extravagance and chaos; to restore and maintain the national credit; to reform unequal and burdensome taxes; to free business from arbitrary and unnecessary official control; to suppress disloyalty without the denial of justice; to repel the arrogant challenge of any class and to maintain a government of all the people as contrasted with government for some of the people, and finally, to allay unrest, suspicion and strife, and to secure the co-operation and unity of all citizens in the solution of the complex problems of the day; to the end that our country, happy and prosperous, proud of its past, sure of itself and of its institutions, may look forward with confidence to the future.