CHAPTER XXXVI.

NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF DEMOCRATIC CLUBS. ·

THE IMPORTANT WORK TO BE DONE BY YOUNG MEN WHO BELIEVE IN LOW TAXES, ECONOMY IN PUBLIC EXPENDITURES, AND IN THE TEACHINGS OF JEFFERSON, JACKSON AND TILDEN.

I.

After the triumphant return of the Democratic party to power in the Federal Government in 1885, the young men of the country naturally turned their attention to the devising of methods to extend a knowledge of the principles of the party and of its founders and of the honored men who have illustrated and embodied these principles through nearly a century of the existence of the Government of the United States.

Indeed the necessity for this earnest work of education had been recognized as early as 1882 by Chauncey F. Black, of York, Pennsylvania, who organized what is known as the Jefferson Democratic Association in his own town as well as in many neighboring places throughout the State of Pennsylvania. In May last these societies, and all others in Pennsylvania having a kindred object, held a State convention at Harrisburg and organized the Democratic Society of Pennsylvania.

The Young Men's Democratic Club, of the city of New York, had also been moving in the same direction for some time, and in April last a conference was held at the rooms of that club in New York. A temporary organization was then effected and a committee appointed with power to call a national convention of clubs. The committee fixed upon July 4, 1888, as the time and Baltimore, Md., as the place for holding the convention. More than five hundred clubs accepted the invitation by sending upwards of 2,400 delegates.

The convention met at noon on July 4, and adjourned sine die on the afternoon of the following day. The greatest enthusiasm and harmony characterized the proceedings, which were marked throughout with earnestness and patriotism. The work done by the several committees was painstaking and careful, and unanimous reports were submitted and accepted.

A constitution was adopted and a permanent organization formed under the name of "The National Association of Democratic Clubs." Chauncey F. Black, of Pennsylvania, was elected President of the association; Edward B. Whitney, Esq., New York, Secretary; and George H. Lambert, Esq., New Jersey, Treasurer. A Vice President from each State and Territory was elected, and four members from each State and Territory were chosen for a General Committee.

Since the convention and the organization of the association at Baltimore many new clubs and societies have been organized and State associations formed.

II.

THE CONSTITUTION ADOPTED BY THE CONVENTION AT BALTIMORE.

We, the Democratic Clubs of the United States, in convention assembled, associate ourselves together under the following constitution :

1. The name of the Association shall be THE NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF DEMOCRATIC CLUBS.

2. The objects of this Association are as follows:

To foster the formation of permanent Democratic Clubs and Societies throughout the United States, and insure their active co-operation in disseminating Jeffersonian principles of government;

To preserve the Constitution of the United States, the autonomy of the States, local self-government and freedom of elections;

To resist revolutionary changes and the centralization of power;

To oppose the imposition of taxes beyond the necessities of government economically administered;

To promote economy in all branches of the public service;

To oppose unnecessary commercial restrictions for the benefit of the few at the expense of the many;

To oppose class legislation, which despoils labor and builds up monopoly; To maintain inviolate the fundamental principle of Democracy-"Equality before the law;" and

To co-operate with the regular organization of the Democratic party in support of Democratic men and Democratic measures.

3. All political clubs and societies which concur in the objects of this Association are eligible to membership.

4. The officers of this Association shall consist of a President, a Vice-President from each State and Territory and the District of Columbia, a Secretary and a Treasurer, who shall have the usual power of such officers, subject to the regulalations of the General Committee.

5. The affairs of this Association when not in convention assembled shall be managed by a General Committee consisting of four members from each State and Territory and the District of Columbia, together with the officers of this Association, all of whom shall be ex-officio members of the General Committee, which shall have the power to designate an Executive Committee.

6. The officers of this Association shall be elected at each regular convention. The members of the General Committee shall be elected at each regular convention by the several States. Such officers and members of the General Committee shall hold cffice until their successors are elected or named.

7. The General Committee may fill any vacancies in their own body and in any of the offices of this Association, and are also authorized to admit clubs and societies to membership, but a convention shall have power to overrule any action of this Committee.

8. The Executive Committee shall raise funds by voluntary subscriptions to carry out purposes and objects of this Association.

9. The regular convention of this Association shall be held once in every four years, subsequent to the National Democratic Convention, the time and place to be fixed by the General Committee. Notice of at least two months shall be given by the Secretary to every member of this Association.

10. The General Committee may by a two thirds vote call a special convention of this Association, of which two months' notice shall be given.

11. In convention the members of this Association shall be entitled to representation as follows: Each club or society shall be entitled to one delegate and one additional delegate for every hundred members in good standing. But no club or society shall be entitled to more than five delegates.

12. When the clubs or societies of any State or Territory or the District of Columbia, not less than ten in number, shall have formed a State or Territorial or District Association, such Association shall be entitled to eleven delegates at large.

13. At a convention of this Association the vote on any question shall be taken by States, Territories and the District of Columbia, and each State and Territory and the District of Columbia shall be entitled to cast the same number of votes as in the National Convention of the Democratic party.

III.

THE WORK BEFORE THE ASSOCIATION TO BE

ACCOMPLISHED DURING THE

PRESENT AND FUTURE CAMPAIGNS.

The Democratic party, in a position to make the coming fight on lines of its own choosing, has boldly taken Tariff Reform as the issue of the campaign, forcing the opposition into their present attitude of favoring free whiskey and tobacco rather than any reduction of import duties upon the necessaries of life and raw materials used in our manufactures.

But in advocating this most-needed reform, and in pledging ourselves to the support of measures which will relieve the people of pernicious and unnecessary tariff burdens, we have encountered the opposition of ignorance and prejudice and aroused the active antagonism of those receiving direct benefits from the present system of unequal and unjust taxation.

To remove this ignorance and overcome this prejudice, much educational work must be done. Proper documents and reading matter must be brought to every doubtful voter, and every Democrat should be prepared to demonstrate the truth of the principles we have adopted, as well as to urge the necessity of the measures to which we are pledged. The National Association of Democratic Clubs will do this work to the full extent of its means.

From the General Committee of the Association, an Executive Committee has been appointed, and headquarters opened in New York, in the building of the Democratic National Committee, No. 10 West 29th Street. For the routine work of the Association an office has been taken at No. 52 William Street, where communications may be addressed to the Secretary or the Chairman of the Executive Committee, and all inquiries received will be promptly answered. Campaign literature will be here kept in stock, ready to be shipped in bulk to members of the Association sending orders.

Every club or society belonging to the Association is expected to be in active and continual correspondence, and to report.

IV.

THE PURPOSES OF THE ASSOCIATION.

The objects of the Association can not be more explicitly stated than in the following extracts from the address by its president ex-Lieut.-Governor Chauncey F. Black, of Pennsylvania.

"We are entering upon a new era in American politics. The administration of Presi dent Cleveland has met the expectations of the country; it has redeemed all its pledges; purified every branch of the government; reformed the grosser abuses of patronage; elevated the civil service, and replaced extravagance, corruption and partisan excess in every department with economy, integrity and legal accountability. These reforms are the necessary sequence of Democratic doctrines. They follow the application of Democratic fundamental principles-that is to say, a strict construction of the constitution upon the rule embodied in the 10th Amendment, taxation only for the support of government economically administered, and expenditures only for objects specifically enumerated-as naturally and inevitably as right living follows the adoption of Christian truth into the heart of the individual man. They have, in every instance, been the immediate results-the flower and the fruit-of Democratic rule. When Jefferon and his associates were chosen in 1800 they found a task of reformation before them almost precisely like that which confronted Grover Cleveland and his associates in 1884, and what Thomas Jefferson did Grover Cleveland has done.

"Mr.Jefferson was re-elected, and Jefferson Democrats continued to be elected for half a century-the golden age of the Republic-through which the country flourished in peace and unexampled prosperity. In like manner will Grover Cleveland be re elected in November, and in like manner will a long line of Democratic successors, following his glorious example, planting their firm steps in the prints of his, bring to this people peace and honor, reform in public morals, freedom in trade and business, and every blessing which flows directly from the restriction of the general government to its proper and limited sphere. Let no man doubt. The President will be re-elected-and the only question is one of majorities in the controlling States.

"Let us hail, then, with welcome and applause, the formation of State and Federal associations of Democratic societies to maintain the essential principles of our political system; but let us not neglect the institution and the regular maintenance of these societies in all the political subdivisions of county, ward and township, so that the constituencies of those central representative bodies shall be the Democratic people, in truth and in fact. Such an organization, permanent and enduring as the party itself, would insure the ascendency of the successors of Jefferson for an indefinite period.

WHAT SUCH SOCIETIES MAY DO.

"Let me illustrate: We are confronted, to-day, by the tariff question, and President Cleveland, like Mr. Jefferson, recognizing the paramount importance and vital character of the issue, as involving nothing less than the power of Government to lay the masses under tribute for the support of special interests and favored classes, has summoned the people to vote upon it, naked and alone, and thus to determine, once for all, whether the producers of this country are to be free or slave.

Does any man suppose, that, if the Democracy of the United States had at any time since 1880 been organized into Jefferson associations or Democratic societies, acknowledging the name and authority of Jefferson, there could have been the smallest division of opinion among us on this grave question? It would have been impossible. Errors and misconceptions would have been winnowed away in the keen blast of popular discussion in the voluntary Democratic assemblies. False doctrine would have been detected by the infallible touchstone of the Jeffersonian test, and the fallacies of the Bourbon protectionist. seeking to enslave labor to build up monopoly, would have been uniformly met by us as they were by our fathers. It would not have required the trumpet of our great leader-the fearless and invincible man of the people-who stands to-day where Jefferson and Jackson stood, to summon us to this critical contest for American Liberty; we would have been there long before he called, and the battle would have been won before it was joined.

"Mr. Jefferson said in the beginning, that this question of the alleged power of Congress to subsidize some at the expense of the whole, was a question between a limited and an unlimited government; between strong government and constitutional government; between freedom and slavery; between the right of a man to enjoy his own earnings, and the duty to pay it over to support the luxury of another. Mr. Jefferson believed that no man could be a protectionist, for the sake of protection, and be a Democrat. President Cleveland agrees with Mr. Jefferson and I believe I am safe in the statement that every enlightened Democrat in the United States agrees with President Cleveland. Had we been properly educated by means of Democratic societies, there never would have been any dissent. Let us now repair the deficiency; multiply the Democratic societies; circulate the Democratic scriptures; array the party of the people upon settled principles; and defend the constitution against the assaults of the Federalist in the future as in the past. President Cleveland will be re-elected, of course. Let us prepare now for the election of his successor; for just as cectain as the time comes the Bourbon Federalist will be here in 1892 under a new name, and with a new ruse, to oppose the immortal Democracy, whose history is, and must ever be, consistent with the Union.'

V.

A SUCCINCT STATEMENT OF WHAT DEMOCRATIC FAITH IS FOUNDED ON.

The temporary chairman of the Baltimore Convention, William E. Russell, Mayor of Cambridge, Massachusetts, still further expressed the purpose of the Asso-ciation and then enunciated the principles which should guide the young men of the party, in his speech on taking the chair, from which the following extracts are taken :

"Thank God, we enter the fight with a living faith, founded upon principles that are Just, enduring, as old as the nation itself, yet ever young, vigorous and progressive, because there is ever work for them to do. Our party was not founded for a single mission, which accomplished, left it drifting with no fixed star of principle to guide it. It was born and has lived to uphold great truths of Government that need always to be enforced. The influence of the past speaks to us in the voice of the present. Jefferson and Jackson still lead us, not because they are a glorious reminiscence, but because the philosophy of the one, the courage of the other, the Democracy of both are potential factors in determining Democracy to-day.

"Their faith and ours rest upon an abiding trust in the people, a belief that power can safely be put in their hands, and the broader the foundation the safer the structure of our Government. We believe in the freedom and equality of all men in the affairs of State and before the altar of their God; in the freedom of the individual from unnecessary restric tions and unnecessary burdens; that taxation with its enormous power and burdens is not to be used to take from one to give to another, nor to enrich the few at the expense of the many; that of itself it is not a blessing which excuses and demands a wild extravagance, but a necessary evil, to be lessened by prudence and economy: that it should be levied justly, equally, according to men's means, and not their necessities; upon luxuries, that endanger the home and the Republic, and not upon those comforts that make the humblest fireside more cheerful, and in its happiness and strength reflects a nation's prosperity.

THE DOCTRINES OF THE DEMOCRATIC CREED.

"We believe that a Government which controls the lives, liberties and property of a people, in its administration should be honest, economical and efficient, and in its form of local self-government kept near to the power that makes and obeys it. To safeguard the rights and liberty of the individual, the Democratic party demands home rule. Democracy stands beside the humblest citizen to protect him from oppressive government; it is the bulwark of the silent people, to resist having the power and purpose of government warped by the clamorous demands of selfish interests. Its greatest good, its highest glory, is that it is, and is to be, the people's party. Toit government is a power to protect and encourage men to make the most of themselves, and not something for men to make the most out of. "And, lastly, we believe in the success, the glory and the grand destiny of this great Republic. It leaped into life from the hands of Democrats. More than three-quarters of a century it has been nurtured and strengthened by Democratic rule. Under Democratic administrations, in its mighty sweep, it has streched from ocean to ocean, and is to-day not a North and South, and East and West, but a glorious union of thirty-eight sovereign States, re-united in love and loyalty, the great nation of sixty million loyal subjects. And now, under the last and best of Democratic administrations, the courage, fidelity, patriotism and Democracy of Grover Cleveland are holding it true to the principles of its founders."

The Association has entered upon its work under the most favorable auspices. It has secured the support and encouragement of the leaders of the party in every State where it has perfected its organization. It is working in perfect harmony with the recognized party organizations, National, State and local. So that its opportunities for doing good work are quite equal to the enthusiasm with which it has entered upon it. It is not a mere marching organization, but will devote itself to an intelligent effort to educate young men and all men in the political way they should go