en doctrine of the Democratic faith, but we are TRUSTS.-"We recognize in the trusts and combinations which are designed to enable capital to secure more than its just share of the joint product of capital and labor a natural consequence of the prohibitive taxes which prevent the free competition which is the life of honest trade, but we believe their worst evils can be abated by law, and we demand the rigid enforcement of the laws made to prevent and control them, together with such further legislation in restraint of their abuses as experience may show to be necessary. PUBLIC LANDS. "The Republican party, while professing a policy of reserving the public land for small holdings by actual settlers, has given away the people's heritage, till now a few railroads and non-resident aliens, individual and corporate, possess a larger area than that of all our farms between the two seas. The last Democratic Administration reversed the improvident and unwise policy of the Republican party touching the public domain, and reclaimed from corporations and syndicates, abroad and domestic, and restored to the people nearly one hundred million acres of valuable land to be sacredly held as homesteads for our citizens, and we pledge ourselves to continue this policy until every acre of land so unlawfully held shall be reclaimed and restored to the people. SILVER.-"We denounce the Republican legislation known as the Sherman act of 1890 as a cowardly makeshift, fraught with possibilities of danger in the future, which should make all of its supporters, as well as its author, anxious We hold to the use for its speedy repeal. of both gold and silver as the standard money of the country, and to the coinage of both gold and silver, without discriminating against either metal or charge for mintage, but the dollar unit of coinage of both metals must be of equal intrinsic and exchangeable value or be adjusted through international agreement, such safeguards of legislation as shall insure the maintenance of the parity of the two metals and the equal power of every dollar at all times in the markets and in payments of debts and we demand that all paper currency shall be kept at par We with and redeemable in such coin. insist upon this policy as especially necessary for the protection of the farmers and laboring classes, the first and most defenceless victims of unstable money and a fluctuating currency. or by BANKING.-"We recommend that the prohibitory 10 per cent tax on State bank issues be repealed. CIVIL SERVICE. "Public office is a public trust. We reaffirm the declaration of the Democratic National Convention of 1876 for the reform of the civil service, and we call for the honest enforcement of The nomiall laws regulating the same. nation of a President, as in the recent by delegations Republican Convention, composed largely of his appointees, holding office at his pleasure, is a scandalous satire upon free popular institutions and a startling illustration of the methods by which a President may gratify his ambition. We denounce a policy under which of Federal office-holders usurp control party conventions in the States, and we pledge the Democratic party to the reform of these and all other abuses which threaten individual liberty and local selfgovernment. FOREIGN POLICY.-"The Democratic party is the only party that has ever given the country a foreign policy consistent and vigorous, compelling respect abroad and inspiring confidence at home. While avoiding entangling alliances, it has aimed to cultivate friendly relations with other nations, and especially with our neighbors on the continent, American whose destiny is closely linked with our own, and we view with alarm the tendency to a policy of irritation and bluster which is liable at any time to confront us with the alternative of humiliation or war. We favor the maintenance of a navy strong enough for all purposes of National defence, and to properly maintain the honor and dignity of the country abroad. FOREIGN OPPRESSION.-"This country has always been the refuge of oppressed from every land-exiles for conscience sake-and in the spirit of the founders of our Government we condemn the oppression practised by the Russian Government upon its Lutheran and Jew. ish subjects, and we call upon our National Government, in the interests of Justice and humanity, by all just and proper means to use its prompt and best effort to bring about a cessation of these cruel persecutions in the dominions of the Czar, and to secure to the oppressed equal rights. We tender our profound and earnest sympathy to those lovers of freedom who are struggling for home rule and the great cause of local self-government in Ireland. as IMMIGRATION.-"We heartily approve all legitimate efforts to prevent the United States from being used a dumping ground for the known criminals and professional paupers of Europe, and we demand the rigid enforcement of the laws against Chinese immigration or the importation of foreign workmen under contract to degrade American labor and lessen its wages, but we condemn and denounce any and all attempts to restrict the immigration of the industrious and worthy of foreign lands. PENSIONS.-"This convention hereby renews the expression of appreciation of the patriotism of the soldiers and sailors of the Union in the war for its preservation, and we favor just and liberal pensions for all disabled Union soldiers, their widows and dependents, but we demand that the work of the Pension Office shall be done industriously, impartially and honestly. We denounce the present ad ministration of that office as incompetent, corrupt, disgraceful and dishonest. WATERWAYS.-"The Federal Government should care for and improve the Mississippi River and other great waterways of the Republic so as to secure for the interior States easy and cheap transportation to the tidewater. When any waterway of the public is of sufficient importance to demand the aid of the Government-that such aid should be extended, a definite plan of continuous work, until permanent improvement is secured. NICARAGUA CANAL.-"For purposes of National defence, the promotion of commerce between the States, we recognize the early construction of the Nicaragua Canal and its protection against foreign control as of great importance to the United States. WORLD'S FAIR. - - "Recognizing the World's Columbian Exposition as a National undertaking of vast importance, in which the General Government has invited the co-operation of all the powers of the world, and appreciating the acceptance by many of such powers of the invitation so extended, and the broadest liberal efforts being made by them to contribute to the grandeur of the undertaking, we are of the opinion that Congress should make such necessary financial provisions as shall be requisite to the maintenance of the National honor and public faith. PUBLIC SCHOOLS.-"Popular education being the only safe basis of popular suffrage, we recommend to the several States most liberal appropriations for the public schools. Free common schools are the nursery of good government, and they have always received the fostering care of the Democratic party, which favors every means of increasing intelligence. Freedom of education, being an essential of civil and religious liberty as well as a necessity for the development of intelligence, must not be interfered with under any pretext whatever. We are opposed to State interference with parental rights and rights of conscience in the education of children as an infringement of a fundamental Democratic doctrine that the largest individual liberty consistent with the rights of others insures the highest type of American citizenship and the best government. TERRITORIES.-"We approve the action of the present House of Representatives in passing bills for the admission into the Union as States of the Territories of New-Mexico and Arizona, and we favor the early admission of all the Territories having necessary population and resources to admit them to Statehood, and while they remain Territories we hold that the officials appointed to administer the Government of any Territory, together with the District of Columbia and Alaska, should be bona fide residents of the Territory or district in which their duties are to be performed. The Democratic party believe in home rule and the control of their own affairs by the people of the vicinage. LABOR.-"We favor legislation by Congress and State Legislatures to protect the Ilves and limbs of railway employes and those of other hazardous transportation companies. and denounce the inactivity of the Republican party, particularly the Republican Senate, for causing the defeat of measures beneficial and protective to this class of wage-workers. We are in favor of the enactment by the States of laws for abolishing the notorious sweating system, for abolishing contract convict labor and for prohibiting the employment in factories of children under fifteen years of age. MISCELLANEOUS.-"We are opposed to all sumptuary law as an interference with the individual rights of the citizen. Upon this statement of principles and policies the Democratic party asks the intelligent judgment of the American people. It asks a change of administration and a change of party, in order that there might be a change of system and a change of methods, thus assuring the maintenance unimpaired of institutions under which the Republic has grown great and powerful." The Platform, as reported from the Committee on Resolutions, contained this declaration, as the first paragraph of Section 3, with the heading "Revenue Tariffs": "We reiterate the oft-repeated doctrines of the Democratic party that the necessity of the Government is the only justification for taxation, and whenever a tax is unnecessary it is unjustifiable; that when custom-house taxation is levied upon articles of any kind produced in this country, the difference between the cost of labor here and labor abroad, when such a difference exists, fully measures any possible benefits to labor, and the enormous additional impositions of the existing tariff fall with crushing force upon our farmers and workingmen, and for the mere advantage of the few whom it enriches, exact from labor a grossly unjust share of the expenses of the Government, and we demand such a revision of the tariff laws as will remove their iniquitous inequalities, lighten their oppressions and put them on a constitutional and equitable basis. But in making reduction in taxes it is not proposed to injure any domestic industries, but rather to promote their healthy growth. From the foundation of this Government taxes collected at the Custom House have been the chief source of Federal revenue. Such they must continue to be. Moreover, many industries have come to rely upon legislation for successful continuance, so that any change of law must be at every step regardful of the labor and capital thus involved. The process of reform must be subject in the execution of this plain dictate of justice." On motion of Lawrence T. Neal, of Ohio, the above paragraph was struck from the Platform and the following substituted: "We denounce Republican Protection as a fraud, a robbery of the great majority of the American people for the benefit of the few. We declare it to be a fundamental principle of the Democratic party that the Federal Government has no constitutional power to impose and to collect tariff duties, except for the purpose of revenue only, and we demand that the collection of such taxes shall be limited to the necessities of the Government when honestly and economically administered." The vote on striking out was-Yeas 564, nays 342, as follows: There was a minority of 15 nays in Illinois, 5 yeas in Minnesota, and 15 nays in Pennsylvania, whose Votes were counted, under the unit rule, with the majority of the delegations from those States. Mr. Patterson, of Colorado, moved to insert the word "free" before "coinage of both gold and silver," in the Silver Plank, but was voted down. DEMOCRATIC NOMINATIONS FOR PRESIDENT. Governor Leon Abbett, of New-Jersey, presented the name of Grover Cleveland, of New-York, for President; Wm. C. DeWitt, of Brooklyn, that of David B. Hill, of New-York, and John F. Dunscombe, of Iowa, that of Horace Boies, of Iowa. Mr. Cleveland was nominated on the first ballot, which resulted as follows: 20 Isaac P. Gray......:::~~ :8:82 726 000 :: 0 ::*+*** :24+0+ Adlai E. Stevenson.::::::::::::~~~~ :::::::::--Allen B. Morse......::::::::::::::00:00 ::::::::::::::::::::::: 8 North Carolina... 22 North Dakota... 10 :::::::::~::::::::::::::::::::~:::::~~~:~:: Absent one. Bourke Cockran received 5 votes, Lambert Tree 1 vote, and Horace Boies 1 vote. THE This body met at Omaha, July 2, 1892. C. H. Ellington, of Georgia, was chosen temporary chairman, and H. L. Loucks, of South Dakota, permanent chairman. THE PLATFORM. "Assembled upon the one hundred and sixteenth anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, the People's Party of America, in their first National Convention, invoking upon their action the blessing of Almighty God, puts forth, in the name and on behalf of the people of this country, the following preamble and declaration of principles: "The conditions which surround us best justify our co-operation. We meet in the midst of a nation brought to the verge of moral, political and material ruin. Corruption dominates the ballot-box, the Legislatures, the Congress, and touches even the ermine of the Bench. The people are demoralized; most of the States have been compelled to isolate the voters at the polling places to prevent universal intimidation or bribery. The newspapers are largely subsidized or muzzled, public opinion silenced, business prostrated, our homes covered with mortgages, labor impoverished, and the land concentrating in the hands of capitalists. The urban workmen are denied the right of organization for self-protection; imported pauperized labor beats down their wages; a hireling standing army, unrecognized by our laws, is established to shoot them down, and they are rapidly degenerating into European conditions. The fruits of the toil of millions are boldly stolen to build up colossal fortunes for a few, unprecedented in the history of mankind, and the possessors of these in turn despise the Republic and endanger liberty. From the same prolific womb of governmental injustice we breed the two great classes-tramps and millionaires. "The national power to create money is appropriated to enrich bondholders; a vast public debt, payable in legal tender currency, has been funded into gold-bearing bonds, thereby adding millions to the burdens of the people. Silver, which has been accepted as coin since the dawn of history, has been demonetized to add to the purchasing power of gold by decreasing the value of all forms of property as well as human labor, and the supply of currency is purposely abridged to fatten usurers, bankrupt enterprise and enslave industry. "A vast conspiracy against mankind has been organized on two continents, and it is rapidly taking possession of the world. If not met and overthrown at cnce, it forebodes terrible social convulsions, the destruction of civilization, or the establishment of an absolute despotism. We have witnessed, for more than a quarter of a century, the struggles of the two great political parties for power and plunder, while grievous wrongs have been inflicted upon the suffering people. We charge that the controlling influences dominating both these parties have permitted the existing dreadful conditions to develop without serious H effort to prevent or restrain them. Neither do they now promise us any substantial reform. They have agreed together to ignore, in the coming campaign, every issue but one. They propose to drown the outcries of a plundered people with the uproar of a sham battle over the tariff, so that capitalists, corporations, National banks, rings, trusts, watered stock, the demonetization of silver, and the oppressions of the usurers may all be lost sight of. They propose to sacrifice our homes, lives and children on the altar of Mammon; to destroy the multitude in order to secure corruption funds from the millionaires. form this day organized will never cease to move forward until every wrong is righted, and equal rights and equal privileges securely established for all the men and women of this country. We declare, therefore, "1. 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. "2. Wealth belongs to him who creates it, and every dollar taken from industry without an equivalent is robbery. 'If any will not work, neither shall he eat.' The interests of rural and civic labor are the same; their enemies are identical. "3. We believe that the time has come when the railroad corporations will either own the people or the people must cwn the railroads; and should the Government enter upon the work of owning and managing all railroads, we should favor an to 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 the increase of the power of the National Administration by the use of such additional Government employes. "Assembled on the anniversary of the birthday of the Nation, and filled with the spirit of the grand general and chieftain who established our independence, we seek to restore the Government of the Republic to the hands of the 'plain people' with whose class it originated. We assert our purposes to be identical with the purposes of the National Constitution, form a more perfect union, and establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty for ourselves and our posterity. We declare that this Republic can only endure as a free government while built upon the love of the whole people for each other and for the Nation; that it cannot be pinned together by bayonets; that the Civil War is over, and that every passion and resentment which grew out of it must die with it, and that we must be in fact, as we are in name, one united brotherhood of freedom. We "Our country finds itself confronted by conditions for which there is no precedent in the history of the world; our annual agricultural productions amount to billions of dollars in value, which must within a few weeks or months be exchanged for billions of dollars' worth of commodities consumed in their production; the existing currency supply is wholly inadequate to make this exchange; the results are falling prices, the formation of combines and rings, the impoverishment of the producing class. pledge ourselves that, if given power, we will labor to correct these evils by wise and reasonable legislation, in accordance with the terms of cur platform. We believe that the powers of Government-in other words, of the people-should be expanded (as in the case of the postal service) as rapidly and as far as good sense of an intelligent people and the teachings of experience shall justify, to the end that cppression, injustice and poverty, shall eventually cease in the land. the "While our sympathies as a party of reform are naturally upon the side of every proposition which will tend to make men intelligent, virtuous and temperate, we nevertheless regard these questions-important as they are-as secondary to the great issues now pressing for solution, and upon which not only cur individual prosperity, but the very existence of free institutions depends; and we ask all men to first help us to determine whether we are to have a Republic to administer, before we differ as to the conditions upon which it is to be administered; believing that the forces of re MONEY.-"1. We demand a National currency, safe, sound and flexible, issued by the General Govern.nent 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. "(A) We demand free and unlimited coinage of silver and gold at the present legal ratio of 16 to 1. "(B) We demand that the amount of circulating medium be speedily increased to not less than $50 per capita. "(C) We demand a graduated income tax. "(D) 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. "(E) We demand that Postal Savings Banks be established by the Government for the safe deposit of the earnings of the people and to facilitate exchange. TRANSPORTATION.-" 2. Transportation being a means of exchange and a public necessity, the Government should own and operate the railroads in the interest 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 interests of the people. LAND.-3. The land, including all the natural sources of wealth, is the heritage of the people and should not be monopolized for speculative purposes, and allen ownership of land should be prohibited. All land now held by railroads and other corporations in excess of their actual needs, and all lands now owned by |