II. HIS POSITION JUSTIFIED. HOW THE SUPREME COURT HAS AFFIRMED HIS VIEWS IN DECISIONS ON IMPORTANT QUESTIONS OF LAW AND PUBLIC POLICY. From the New York Evening Post, Independent, June 7, 1888. The nomination of Allen G. Thurman for Vice-President illustrates anew the weakness of our electoral system, so far as it affects that office. Theoretically, the man who is elected to the second place ought to be qualified in every respect for the first, since experience has shown that there is one chance in six of his being called upon to fill the higher position. Mr. Thurman would not for a moment be considered, under any circumstances, a candidate for President, because everybody would say that a man in his seventy-fifth year is too old for the Presidency. Yet a convention nominates a man who is in his seventy-fifth year to an office whose bolder is liable at any time during his term to become President. It nominates him in accordance with the traditional custom of selecting the candidate for Vice-President on the ground of his "availability" as a help to the Presidential nominee during the canvass. That Mr. Thurman is a strong nominee for campaign purposes will be generally admitted. His name will warm the hearts of a good many old Democrats who have never had much symyathy with the new generation which Mr. Cleveland represents. His very age in itself is a help to his candidacy in one aspect, since it appeals to the pride which all well-regulated party men feel in an "old Roman." Moreover, it will be extremely embarrassing for the Republicans to make an issue of Mr. Thurman's age. If they say that a man who was born in November, 1813, is too old to be Vice-President, it follows necessarily that a man who was born in March, 1813, is too old to be a member of the Supreme Court, and Judge Bradley should at once resign his seat on the bench and allow Mr. Cleveland to appoint a Democratic successor. Practically, the age issue will not count for much. The voter who thinks that Mr. Cleveland is a better man for President than the Republican candidate, will not be deterred from voting for him because he thinks that a younger man ought to have been nominated for Vice President. Except in the matter of age, Mr. Thurman is the best man whom the Democracy could present for the Vice-Presidency. His public career has been a long and honorable one, the only spot upon which was made by his yielding, with so many other good men of both parties, to the soft-money craze which swept over the West fifteen years ago. He was elected to the lower branch of Congress in 1844, was judge of the Ohio Supreme Court from 1851 to 1854, and its Chief Justice for the next two years, and United States Senator from 1869 to 1881. The historian whose judgments every good Republican unhesitatingly accepts has bestowed upon him the highest praise. In his "Twenty Years of Congress," Mr. Blaine says of Mr. Thurman that "his rank in the Senate was established from the day he took his seat and was never lowered during the period of his service. His retirement from the Senate was a serious loss to his party-a loss, indeed, to the body. He left behind him the respect of all with whom he had been associated during his twelve years of honorable service." If Mr. Thurman is sent back to the capital, he will return with the unique satisfaction of finding the sound doctrines of the Constitution, for which he made a gallant but hopeless fight against a Republican majority in the Senate, established for all time by the decisions of a Republican Supreme Court overthrowing the acts which he vainly protested were unconstitutional. Since his retirement in 1881 the highest judicial tribunal has rendered a series of decisions which fully sustain Mr. Thurman's position on the great issue of State rights, and which indeed sometimes read almost like extracts from his own speeches. When he entered the Senate in 1869, there were but nine other Democrats in the body, the House was Republican more than two to one, and the school represented by Oliver P. Morton in the Senate and Benjamin F. Butler in the House were carrying through laws based upon the theory that the new amendments to the Constitution had worked a revolution in the relations of the States to the Federal Government. The history of the Civil Rights Act shows how Mr. Thurman was beaten by numbers in Congress, but saw his position ultimately adopted by the Supreme Court. This act was based upon the theory that Congress possessed the right to interfere in the States and punish persons who denied blacks equal rights with whites in hotels, conveyances, etc. The claim was made that Congress had been given this right by the fourteenth amendment. Mr. Thurman earnestly contested this claim. He pointed out that the amendment only gave Congress the right to interfere when a "State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privi leges or immunities of citizens of the United States," whereas it was not pretended that any State had made or enforced any such law. It is interesting to see how closely the reasoning upon this point of the Republican Supreme Court in the decision of 1883, declaring the act unconstitutional, agreed with that of Mr. Thurman in his arguments of 1874: MR. THURMAN. "No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States," says the Fourteenth Amendment. Does this bill deal with any such law of a State? No, sir, it does not profess to do so. It is not aimed at any law of a State. It is aimed against the acts of individuals. There is not one single sentence in the whole bill which is levelled against any law made or enforced by a State. Why, sir, if it is constitutional rea soning that supports this bill, then I confess that all my studies of the Constitution have been wholly in vain. THE SUPREME COURT. An inspection of the law shows that it makes no reference whatever to any supposed or apprehended violation of the Fourteenth Amendment on the part of the States. It is not predicated on any such view. It proceeds ex directo to declare that certain acts committed by individuals shall be deemed offences, and shall be prosecuted, and punished by proceedings in the courts of the United States. We are of opinion that no countenance of authority for the passage of the law in question can be found either in the Thirteenth or Fourteenth Amendment of the Constitution, and no other ground of authority for its passage being suggested, it must necessarily be declared void. It has seldom been allowed a man to enjoy such a triumph as Mr. Thurman must feel in the decisions of a Supreme Court controlled by his political opponents, asserting his views of the Constitution, and annulling act after act which he had fought on the ground that they were unconstitutional. The fact shows most strikingly how complete is the settlement of the State-rights issue. No Republican dares dissent from the position laid down by a Republican Supreme Court, while every Democrat applauds the assertion by that tribunal of the doctrines which Mr. Thurman so ably maintained. CHAPTER XXIX. THE DEMOCRACY AND LABOR. RECORD OF THE PARTY AND ITS CANDIDATE.-EFFORTS TO LIGHTEN THE TAXES AND RELIEVE THE BURDENS OF THE POOR. Stirring Words in Behalf of those who Toil-Mr. Cleve- Measures Looking to the Elevation I. AN HONEST DAY'S WAGES FOR AN HONEST DAY'S WORK. During the hundred years' existence of this Government, and from the time when the Democratic Party was established to maintain our institutions, that organization has ever been true to its name. It is emphatically the party of the people; and as the great majority of the American people is composed of those who labor with their hands, the interests of Democracy and of labor have always been identical. The professions of the party, as expressed in its platforms, have been realized in the legislation effected whenever and wherever it was in control of the law-making power. In no campaign in the history of American politics was this better illustrated than at present, when the declaration of principles, the record of the candidate and the conduct of the President upon every occasion when the rights of labor were at stake, combine to attest the devotion of the Democracy to the interests of the workingman. Grover Cleveland, himself a man of laborious habit and unshirking industry, is a genuine American-the product of our own soil and institutions. He has never been even a visitor to foreign countries. In his veins flows the blood of Englishmen, of Irishmen, and of Germans. These are the races which have peopled the United States and made them great. He represents them all. He has a strong man's love for the land where he was born, and in which his parents are buried. His kindred have lived here many generations; they have been soldiers, and farmers, and mechanics, and preachers of the Gospel. His ancestry is the best that can be found, an ancestry of frugal, laborious and patriotic men and women, II. CLEVELAND'S LABOR RECORD AS GOVERNOR. HOW HE PROMOTED THE INTERESTS OF LABOR DURING HIS SERVICE TO THE PEOPLE OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK. The highest labor body in the State of New York is the State Trades Assembly. It is not organized for political purposes, but has for its sole object the advancement of the condition of the workingmen in all things. It has for years applied to the great political organizations for assistance and consideration. It has received these only from the Democratic party. Organization in this branch of endeavor has had its effect, as it does everywhere; and so it came about that in 1882, as a result of organization, and for the first time, it presented well defined contentions, with which it appeared before the two great parties of the State-the Democratic and the Republican. The Republican party gave no heed whatever to its requests. The Democratic party listened; and believing in them, embraced them in their platform of that year. Upon this platform Grover Cleveland was placed by the Democracy of the State, and upon it he was elected to be Governor. His. faithful adherence to the pledges and promises of that platform is known of all men, and so faithful as to be regarded the beginning of a new era in politics, when candidates would regard the obligations of formulated party utterances. THE LABOR PLANK OF 1882. The plank relating to labor was the twelfth and read as follows: Twelfth. We reaffirm the policy always maintained by the Democratic party that it is of the first importance that labor should be made free, healthful and secure of just remuneration. That convict labor should not come into competition with the industry of law-abiding citizens. That the labor of children should be surrounded with such safeguards as their health, their rights of education and their future, as useful members of the community, demand. That work shops, whether large or small, should be under such sanitary control as will insure the health and comfort of the employed and will protect all against unwholesome labor and surroundings. That labor shall have the same rights as capital to combine for its own protection, and that all legislation which cramps industry, or which enables the powerful to oppress the weak, should be repealed; and, to promote the interests of labor, we recommend the collection of statistics and information respecting the improvements, needs and abuses of the various branches of industry. This plank Grover Cleveland accepted in its entirety, not only in the letter but in the spirit, as the subsequent record will show, in the following words, which are taken from his letter of accceptance of the gubernatorial nomination, dated at Buffalo, October 7, 1882: "The laboring classes constitute the main part of our population. They should be protected in their efforts to assert their rights when endangered by aggregated capital, and all statutes on this subject should recognize the case of the State for honest toil, and be framed with a view of improving the condition of the workingman," Having thus found the Democratic party and its candidate willing to accept. these contentions as their own, the representative laboring men proceeded to put them into effect by drafting bills to present to the Legislature. Thus in an orderly and efficient way, in fact the only way in which to put them into effect, these contentions were formulated into measures. Four bills were introduced in the Legislature of 1883, the first year of Governor Cleveland's term. 1. One was the bill providing for the establishment of a Bureau of Labor Statistics. This the labor people regarded as by far the most important of all the measures they had presented. So soon as the bill reached him, the Governor showed his intention of keeping his pledges by signing it. 2. Another was the bill prohibiting the manufacture of cigars in tenement houses, which the Governor promptly signed. This law was subsequently declared defective in title, and therefore unconstitutional by the courts; another bill was introduced in the Legislature of 1884, the defect in the title having been remedied, was passed and the Governor signed it again. 3. Another was the bill prohibiting the manufacture of woolen hats in the State prisons, penitentiaries and reformatories of the State, and this was promptly signed by the Governor. For several years ineffectual efforts had been made to pass this bill. CONVICT LABOR BILL. 4. The fourth of the series of the labor bills for 1883 was the bill to abolish convict labor in States prisons. This bill met with very great opposition from the Republicans of the Legislature and was laid aside. The question was submitted to the voters in November, 1883, and decided by a very large majority against the continuance of convict prison labor. WHAT WAS DONE IN 1884. In 1884 the labor people, encouraged by their successes in 1883, again presented themselves before the Legislature with further demands formulated into measures, as follows: The tenement house cigar bill, to which reference was made above. This was made necessary by the decision of the Court of Appeals that the bill was unconstitutional, in that its title was defective. The defect having been remedied, the Governor signed it. CONVICT LABOR AGAIN. The bill prohibiting the employment of convicts in State prisons on contract labor. This was popularly known as the "Comstock" bill, and provided no substitute for the labor the convicts were employed in. There were several defects in the bill as it reached the Governor, which would have made it inoperative, but the Governor called in Mr. Thayer, the President of the State Trades' Assembly, and pointing out the defects, among which was that penitentiaries were excepted from the provisions of the bill, suggested a recall of the bill to correct it, which was done, and then it was signed. Had not the Governor been the friend of labor, he could have defeated its object by signing it as it came to him. Subsequently, a bill known as the Howe Commission bill passed the Legislature, providing for the appointment of five commissioners, to investigate and report by May 1st, some suitable system for the employment of convicts. After an investigation of only a few days, they reported that they could not make a report within the specified time. A bill was then passed extending the time until January 1, 1885. This the Governor vetoed, and in forcible terms, declaring that it was the duty of the Legislature to provide at that session some substitute. The Republican Legislature dallied with the question and let it die. CHILD CONTRACT LABOR BILL. One of the bills introduced in the interest of labor this year, was that making it unlawful for the trustees or managers of any house of refuge, reformatory or other correctional institution, to contract, hire or let the service or labor of any child committed to or an inmate of such institutions. It was passed and signed by the Gov ernor. |