People's Pilot, Volume 6, Number 11, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 3 September 1896 — Headquarters to Be in Chicago. [ARTICLE]

Headquarters to Be in Chicago.

Canton, 0., Aug. 6.—Chicago will be the republican headquarters and New York will have only a branch. This conclusion is announced here with authority and reasons are given for the statement. It is recognized by Mr. Hanna that the main battle for votes is to be made in the west, and consequently Chicago will be more convenient as a base of supplies for campaign literature and other information incident to the work of the presidential struggle. For several years the populist and prohibitionist parties in Nebraska have had direct legislation planks in their platforms. This spring the regular democratic convention, which met at Lincoln on April 22, put the following plank in its platform: “We are in favor of the Initiative and Referendum system as an aid to securing a government of the people, for the people and by the people.” This is the third state, Massachusetts and Oregon being the other two. In which the democratic party has declared in favor of direct legislation. But in Nebraska the gold faction of the democratic party went to the other extreme and denounced the principle in the following language: “We believe in the government founded by the fathers of this republic and in the constitution, which for more than a century has been the admiration of the civilized world, and we repudiate the theories of populists and so-called democrats allied with populists, who would destroy that constitution for the socialistic experiment of Initiative and Referendum.” This is the first time any political platform has denounced direct legislation, or referred to it as “socialistic.” It is pleasing to reflect that this was only a bolting faction, however, and that it received no recognition in national convention. Direct legislation is a principle that is in no sense partisan, and should receive the earnest consideration of everybody Interested in restoring the government to the people.