People's Pilot, Volume 4, Number 47, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 16 May 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 spirit enter into all hearts for the salvation of the republic and the uplifting of mankind. Second.—Wealth belongs to him who creates it, and every dollar taken from industry without an equivalent is robbery. ‘Tf 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 plan of the Farmers’Alliance or a better system; also by payments in discharge of its obligations for public Improvements. We demand free and unlimited (coinage of silver at the preseut legal ratio of lb to' 1. • Dm: j. •> We demand that the amount of circulating medium be speedily Increased to not less than 160 Acr 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 bank 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 I.eld by railroads and other corporations in < xcess of their actual needs and all la nds 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 uuperverted Australian or secret ballot system.

Resolved, That the revenue derived from a graduated income tax should he applied to the reduction of the burden of taxation, now levied upou the domestic industries of tills country. Resolved, That we pledge our support to fair and liberal pensions toex-Union soldiers and sailors. Resolved, That we condemn the fallacy of protecting American labor under the present system, which opens our ports to the pauper and criminal classes of the world arm crowds out our Wage ' earners; and we denounce the present ineffective laws against cm tract labor and demand the further restriction of undesirable immigration. Resolved, That we cordially sympathize witu the efforts of organized workmen to shorten the hours ot tabor and demand a rig d enforcement of the existing eight hour la on government work and ask that a penalty clause be added to the said Law. RusOlved. That we regard the mainteJtauce of a large standing army 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 ttired 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 purDose.

It ia said that the Standard Oil Company is making a clean million dollars a day by Its advance In the price of coal oil, while the beef trust haa already made over fifty million dollars by cornering meats. Train and bank robberies are honorable compared with these gigantic hold-ups of the people by these robber trusts. Let plutocracy give the screw a few more turns; many people have not had enough yet * • • Attorney General Olney Is having a fine opportunity to apply the anti-trust law to the various combines and trusts now robbing the people with more daring and outrageous scoundrelism than ever characterized the James and Younger brothers, or the Dalton gang, but he and Cleveland have never been able to find any place where that law would fit except to assist the railway managers at Chicago In whipping their employes into submission in the great strike last year. As the anti-trust law bears the John Sherman brand, what else can it be expected to be than a miserable fraud?

* * • The whole country is laughing over the hot griddle dance the gold bugs are doing over the free silver movement in Illinois. As was to be expected, this Illinois "breaking out” is assuming the form of an epidemic, and despite the efforts of Wall street, Cleveland and his cuckoos to quarantine against it, it is spreading like a prairie fire, as the whole country has been inoculated with the free coinage disease of 16 to 1. • * * Here is a sample of how the “blight of Populism” is striking the country in spots; For years the associated banks of Seattle, Wash., have controlled the school board and county treasurer, and by manipulating the school fund to their own Interest caused the teachers to have to discount their warrants from 2 to 10 per cent. The Populist upheaval last fall caused a change, and recently—and for the first time for a number of years, the 140 teachers of Seattle walked up to the county treasurer’s office and received the face value of their warrants without any discount. This is the way Populism Is “blighting” many spots around the country.

• • • Well, old Democratic friend, what have you left to tack your party faith to? “Where are you at?” in other words. Have you a party at all, only In name? What does Democracy stand for to-day? Can you name a principle upon which it is united? What are you going to do about it? Better do a little thinking, hadn’t you? • • * If the churcheß vtere not largely under the control of the wealthy classes led by a stall-fed clergy, who are seeking their own ease and comfort, there would be no need of the earnest appeals for the church to come to the rescue of the people In their present anomalous condition. Christ will as readily rebuke Phariseeism to-day as he did nineteen centuries ago. • • • The country is waiting in breathless suspense for the book that Cleveland’s monkey—Eckles, Is to write in answer to Coin’s Financial School. Eckles serves his masters in Wall street as comptroller of the currency well—in fact he is as clay in the hands of the potter to the habitues of that infamous quarter, but when he essays to teach the people monetary science he will soon find himself in deep water. There are scores of farmers and laboring men in every county in the union who know more of true monetary science than Eckles will ever learn.

* * * It Is comforting to know that at last the money question is to be met “fairly and squarely,” as suggested in Mr. Cleveland’s letter, but you old fellows who have been demanding this for years, and got “protection” and "tariff reform” rot instead, need not throw up your hats yet awhile. Wait until you see or hear some argument—some of the “fair” and “square” business. We are several weeks removed from Cleveland’s letter, but as yet no logical arguments appear—same old rot, same old lies and stilted phrases about “sound money,” “parity,” etc. * * * It is beginning to gradually percolate through the minds of the fellows in Wall street and plutocracy generally that the great common people are doing a little thinking for themselves, and care very little about what bank ers, members of boards of trade, and the wealthy classes think or say, amt hence, we do not find bankers’ associations, boards of trades and other commercial bodies rushing into print just now with voluminous resolutions on the silver question. They are beginning to realize that so far as the people are concerned all such is but a waste of wind. * * * Won’t somebody try to discover a legislature that has done somethin*; besides draw its salary.