The great issues before the people in the present critical campaign, however, are far more important than the personal qualifications, claims, or merits of the candidates. These issues are: (1) the constitutional right and power of Congress to protect American industries and to preserve our present industrial system; (2) the threatened overthrow of the representative system of government in state and nation by the introduction of the initiative, the referendum and the recall, and (3) the assault upon the administration of justice in American courts. Upon the tariff question, there is an irreconcilable difference between the principles of the Republican party and those of the Democratic party. The one insists that it is the legitimate duty and function of Congress in levying taxes to protect American industries and wages, whilst the other insists that Congress has neither the right nor the power under the federal Constitution to do so. I shall assume that political platforms, although they may not be binding programmes, certainly are intended to embody a declaration of the political faith and principles in which the respective candidates believe and which they intend to represent. If this be not so, then why are platforms adopted? The platform of the Republican party unqualifiedly pledges the party and its candidates to a protective tariff with duties so adjusted as adequately to protect American industries and wages. It concedes that readjustments must be made and that excessive rates should be reduced, but it insists that, in order to do so intelligently and fairly, correct information is indispensable. It favors securing this information by an expert commission and a non-partisan tariff board. It seeks the withdrawal of the tariff from politics in order that each industry may be dealt with on its merits by non-partisan commissions. It indicts the Democratic party for its refusal to provide funds for the continuance of such a tariff board and for the reckless and sectional tariff bills passed by the Democratic House of Representatives which wholly disregard the protection of American interests. Senator Root declared at the national convention that the Democratic party did not want to ascertain the facts upon which a just protective measure could be framed, but intended that there should be no protection for American industries, and he further declared that the Democratic House of Representatives had framed and passed a series of tariff bills for revenue only with complete indifference to the absolute destruction that their enactment would bring upon great American industries. He asserted that "the American people have now to pass, not upon the abuses of the tariff, but on the fundamental question between the two systems of tariff-making."