Evening Republican, Volume 16, Number 234, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 30 September 1912 — The Progressive Issue [ARTICLE]

The Progressive Issue

DECLARATION OF PRINCIPLES OF THE PROGRESSIVE PARTY. The conscience of the people, in a time of grave national problems, has called into being a new party, born of the nation’s awakened sense of justice. We of the Progressive party here dedicate ourselves to the fulfillment of the dutylaid upon usby _our fathers to maintain that government of the people, by the -people and for the people whose foundations they laid.

We hold with Thomas Jefferson and Abraham Lincoln that the people are masters of their constitution, to fulfill its purposes and to safeguard it from those who,, by perversion of its intent, would convert it into an instrument of injustice. In accordance with the needs of each generation the people must use their sovereign powers to establish and maintain equal opportunity and industrial justice, to secure which this government was founded and without which no republic can endure.

This country belongs to the people who inhabit it. Its resources, its business, its institutions and its laws should be utilized, maintained or altered in whatever manner will best promote the general interest It is time to set the public welfare in the first place. THE OLD PARTIES. Political parties exist to secure, responsible government and to execute the will of the people. From these great tasks both of the old parties have turned aside. Instead of instruments to promote the general welfare, they have become the tools of corrupt interests which use them impartially to serve theif selfiish purposes. Behind the ostensible government sits enthroned an invisible government, owing no allegiance and acknowledging no responsibility to the people. To destroy tills ivisible government, to dissolve the nnholy alliance between corrnpt business and corrupt politics is the first task of the statesmanship of the day. The deliberate betrayal of its trust by the Republican party, and the fatal incapacity of the Democratic party to deal with the new issues of the new time, have compelled the people to forge a new instrument of government through which to give effect to their will in laws and institutions. ’Unhampered by tradition, uncorrupted by power, undismayed by the magnitude of the task, the new party offers itself as the instrument of the people to sweep away old abuses, to build a new and nobler commonwealth.

A COVENANT WITH THE PEOPLE This declaration is our covenant with the people, and we hereby bind the party and its candidates in state and nation to the pledges made herein. THE RULE OF^THE PEOPLE The Progressive party, committed to the principle of government by a self-controlled democracy expressing its will through representatives of the people, pledges itself to secure such alterations in the fundamental law of the several states and of the United States as shall insure the representative character of the government. In particular, the party declares for direct primaries for the nomination of state and national officers, for nation-wide preferential primaries for candidates for the presidency, for the direct election of United States senators by the people; and we urge on the states the policy of the short ballot, with responsibility to the people secured by the initiative, referendum and recall.

TARIFF. We believe in a protective tariff which shall equaliz —conditions of completion between the United States and foreign countries, both for the fanner and the manufacturer and which shall maintain for labor an adequate standard es living. Primarily the benefit of any tariff should be disclosed in the pay envelope of the laborer. We declare that no industry deserves protection which is unfair to labor or which is operating in violation of federal law. We believe that the presumption is always in favor of the consuming public.

We demand tariff revision because the present tariff is unjust to the people of the United States. Fairdealing toward the people requires an immediate downward revision of those schedules wherein duties are shown to be unjust or excessive. We pledge ourselves to the establishment of a non-partisan scientific tariff commission, reporting both to the President and to either branch of Congress, which shall report first as

Contributed and Paid for by the Progressive forty of Jasper County

to the costs of production, efficiency of labor, capitalization, industrial organization and efficiency and the general competitive position in this country and abroad of industries seeking protection from Congress; second, as to the revenue-producing power of the tariff and its relation to the resources of government; and third, as to the effect of the tariff on prices, operations of middlemen, and on the purchasing power of the consumer. We believe that this commission should have plenary power to elicit information, and for this purpose to prescribe a uniform system of accounting for the great protected industries. The work of the commission should not prevent the immediate adoption of acta reducing those schedules generally recognized as excessive. We condemn the Payne-Aldrich bill as unjust to the people. The Republican organization is in the hands of those who have broken, and cannot again be trusted to keep, the promise of necessary downward revision. The Democratic party is committed to the destruction of the protective system through a tariff for revenue only—a policy which would Inevitably produce widespread Industrial and commercial disaster. We demand the immediate repeal of the Canadian reciprocity act. HIGH COST OF LIVING. The high cost of living is due partly to world-wide and partly to local causes; partly to natural and partly to artificial causes. The measures proposed in this platform on various subjects such as the tariff, the trusts and conservation, will of themselves tehd to remove the artificial causes. There will remain other elements such as the tendency to leave the country for the city, waste, extravagance, bad system of taxation, poor methods of raising crops and bad business methods in marketing crops. To remedy these conditions requires* the fullest information and based on this information, effective government supervision and control to remove all the artificial causes. We pledge ourselves to such full and immediate inquiry and to Immediate action to deal ! with every need such inquiry discloses.

The Republicans were addressed by one, Dent Atkinson, at the Princess Theatre, Friday evening. There were Just 147 persons present. One faithful one had the courage to applaud, whereupon the speaker said: “It that, the best you can do?” Then perhaps twenty persons applauded, whereupon the speaker said, “Try again,’ ’and after repeated efforts the applause became general. Time and again he invited applause, but it did not come. And the reason was plain. He did not discuss a single live issue. His whole theme was “Let • well enough alone.” That is the standpat position in a nutshell. They will not face the issues. Not a word about conservation, child labor, regulation of business, the minimum wage for women, initiative, referendum and recall, except that he referred to the recall of judges; not a word about how Taft and the bosses had refused to carry out the pledges of the Republican platform, meagre as they were; but he did have a good deal of denunciation of Roosevelt., His speech demonstrated the fact that the Republican party will not meet the issues, just let “well enough alone.” He said that the high prices of farm products were due to the good times brought about by the Republican party. He then proceeded to contradict himself by saying that we should not blame Taft for the thgh prices, for they were due to natural cause, supply and demand. The speech shows that the Republican party has ceased to be aggressive, that it has refused to meet the issues, but will “stand pat" in the face of the people. Denunciation is not convincing and ’standpatlsm” is out of harmony with the ever advancing thought of the people. The Progressives will hold the following meetings this week: Parr Wednesday evening; DeMotte Friday evening; Wheatfield, Saturday afternoon. .