The Democratic Convention.

The Democrats held their national convention at Saint Louis on 14-16 June 1916 and unanimously declared Wilson their nominee on the second evening. Taking "Americanism" as its central theme, the Democratic platform broke with Wilson's 1912 "New Freedom," declaring instead for more active, regulatory government on a limited number of domestic issues. The platform called for child-labor laws, a living wage, and workmen's compensation for federal employees. In foreign policy the Democrats held that it was "the duty of the United States to use its power . . . to make secure its just interests throughout the world . . . and . . . to assist the world in securing settled peace and justice." This note of internationalism was somewhat contradicted in the speeches delivered by party delegates. Isolationist speeches, especially those stressing that Wilson had kept the nation out of war, were repeatedly cheered, and the...