People's Pilot, Volume 4, Number 44, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 27 April 1895 — People’s Parly Platform. [ARTICLE]

People’s Parly Platform.

FOUNDATION PRINCIPLES. First. —That the union of the labor forces of the United States this day consummated shall be permanent and perpetual; may its Bpirit enter into all hearts for the salvation of the republic and the uplifting of mankind. Becond.—Wealth belongs to him who creates its and every dollar taken from industry without an equivalent is robbery. “If any will not work, neither shall he eat.” The interests of civic and rural labor are the same; their interests are identical. Third—We believe that the time has come when the railroad corporations will either own the people or the people must own the railroads, and should the government enter upon the work of owning and managing any or all railroads, we should favor an amendment to the constitution by which all persons engaged in the government service shall be placed under a civil service regulation of the most rigid character, so as to prevent an increase of the power of the national administration by the use of such additional government employes. FINANCE First—We demand a national currency, safe, sound and flexible, issued by the general government only, a full legal tender for all debts public and private, and that without the use of banking corporations, a just, equitable, and efficient means of distribution direct to the people at a tax not to exceed 2 per cent, per annum to be provided as set forth in the sub-treasury pian of the Farmers’Alliance or a better system; also by payments in discharge of it.“ obligations for public improvements . We demand free and unlimited coinage of sliver at the present local ratio of 16 to 1. We demand that the amount of circulating medium be speedily increased to not less than 160 per capita. We demand a graduated income tax. We believe that the money of the country should be kept as much as possible in the hands of the people, and hence we demand that all state and national revenues shall be limited to the necessary expenses of the government, economically and honestly administered. We demand that postal savings hank be established by the government for the safe deposit of the earnings of the people and to facilitate exchange. TRANSPORTATION. Second— Transportation being a means of exchange and a public necessity, the government should own and operate the railroads In the interests of the people. The telegraph and telephone, like the postoffice system, being a necessity for the transmission of news, should be owned and operated by the Government in the interest of the people.

LANDS. Third— The land, including all the natural sources of wealth, is the heritage of the people, and should not be monopolized for speculative purposes, and alien ownership of land should be prohibited. All lands now held by railroads and other corporations in excess of their actual needs and all lands now owned by aliens should be reclaimed by the government and held for actual settlers only. SUPPLEMENTARY RESOLUTIONS. Whereas, Other questions have been presented for our consideration, we hereby submit the following, not as a part of the platform of the People’s Party, but as resolutions expressive of the convention. Resolved, That we demand a free ballot and a fair count in all elections and pledge ourselves to secure it to every legal voter without federal intervention through the adoption by the States of the uhperverted Australian or secret ballot system. Resolved, That the revenue derived from a graduated income tax should be, applied to the reduction of the burden of taxation, now levied upon the domestic industries of this country. Resolved. That we pledge our support to fair and liberal pensions to ex-Union soldiers and sailors. Resolved, That we condemn the fallacy ol protecting American labor under the present Bystcnt, which opens <>ur ports to the pauper and criminal classes of the world and crowds out our wage earners; and we denounce the present ineffective laws against contract labor and demand the further restriction of undesirable immigration. Resolved. That we cordially sympathize with the efforts of organized workmen to shorten the hours of labor and demand a rigid enforcement of the existing eight hour law on government work and ask that a penalty clause be added to the said law. Resolved. That we regard the maintenance of a large standing ai my of mercenaries, known as the Pinkerton system, asa menace to our liberties and we demand its abolition and we condemn the recent invasion of the Territory of Wyoming by the A'red assassins of plutocracy, assisted by federal officers. Resolved, That we commend to the thoughtful consideration of the people and the reform press the legislative system known as the initiative and referendum. Resolved. That we favor a Constitutional provision limiting the office of President and Vice President to one term and providing for the election of senators of the United states by a direct vote of the people. Resolved. That we oppose any subsidy or national aid to any private corporation for any purpose.

But one-third of Uncle Sam’s people own their own homes. Those who recognize their condition of slavery are well mgh free. We are doing all we can. friends, to spread the truth. Kindly bear a hand. Nine per cent of the families of the United States own 71 per cent of the total wealth. This a campaign of quiet education. and the active reform worker is a host within himself. Twenty-two cents is what it costs in Colorado to dig a dollar's worth of gold. Demonetize the 22c dollar and be consistent. Nine per cent of the -wealth of the United States is owned by 64 per cent of the people, who ,are tenants, or practically so. ; As this is the seed time just plant a copy of the People’s Pilot in your neighbors’ political garden and note the harvest. Marietta Holley, “Josiah Allen’s Wife.” contributes a bright and breezy sketch to the April Arena, called “Beyond the Shadow’s.” When the people as a whole realize the unjustness of the present financial system they will understand and inaugerate a better one. You can get rich by law. if it is good law. and you are moderately industrious, but under our present favoriteism law’s industry does not keep you from starving. I. E. Dean, one of the most able writers on money and finance in the United States to-day, discusses in the April Arena “An American Financial System.” Evidently the final struggle of the race for freedom approaches. The powers of light and darkness marshal their hosts for the contest; the end of the epoch of time prophesied of old is at hand. What is it to be?

The Legislature should not be clothed with power to enact laws that are distasteful to the people. There should be an appeal on any great question to the voters of the state. That is what the Referendum system would accomplish. “Every form of deception by which men get the advantage of each other in business is theft.” And every form of business by which men take advantage of each other is theft. The road agent does not stoop to deception but he is a theif nevertheless. In all this broad land there is not one daily paper, and painfully few other public prints, that does not support and defend that financial system which is founded upon usury—usury, the very meaning of which every philosopher of every age has denounced as leading to destruction any people who practice it; for the practice of which Jesus of Nazareth scourged those who thus defiled the temple, and against wh / ‘ , h the early church hurled its "itterest anathemas, and which has brought to poverty and serfdom the masses of every nation that has permitted its practice, even as - it did the mass of Jewish race in the time of Nehemiah.