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The one hundred and twelve million dollars Government funds deposited in banks should be withdrawn and loaned to the several States on deposit of State bonds.

Transportation.-Constantly recurring accidents on all lines of railroad, causing great loss of life and the crippling and mangling of hundreds of passengers, demand the most searching investigation and prompt and efficient legal remedies whereby railroads shall be operated for the safety and convenience of the public, rather than for the purpose of declaring the usual dividend on watered stock.

During the year 1901 the railroads of England, which are owned and operated by the Government, transported an immense number of passengers without a single fatality. In this country a person virtually takes his life in his hand when he steps aboard a train of cars. We believe that the fatalities of railroad travel in the United States can be traced directly to the employment of cheap and careless employes, the overworking of engineers and conductors, and the neglect to take proper precautions against accidents, with a view to "cut down operating expenses," and thus enable railroad officials to declare the usual dividends to stockholders.

As a remedy for such abuses we demand the prosecution for manslaughter of the principal officers of a railroad company on whose line the death of a passenger shall be traced directly to the carelessness or incompetency of their employes, or to their incapacity caused by long hours of continuous labor.

Government Railroads.-To give work to the unemployed, furnish cheaper and more equitable rates of transportation, insure the safety and convenience of the travelling public, and test the practicability of government ownership of railroads, the United States Government should at once proceed to construct equip and operate one or more lines of four-track_railway, extending from the Atlantic to the Pacific coast, and one or more similar lines from the Gulf of Mexico to points near our northern boundary.

Labor. We believe in the right of labor to organize for the benefit and protection of those who toil. Capital is organized, and has no right to deny labor the privilege which it claims for itself. Intelligent organization of labor is demanded to preserve the rights of the laborer. It raises the standard of workmanship and promotes the efficiency, intelligence, independence and character of the wage earner.

We believe with Abraham Lincoln that labor is prior to capital and is not its slave, but its companion, and we plead for that broad spirit of tolerance and justice which will promote industrial peace through the observance of just principles of arbitration.

We favor the enactment of legislation looking to the improvement in conditions for wage earners, the abolition of child labor, the suppression of sweat-shops and of convict labor in competition with free labor, and the exclusion from American shores of foreign pauper labor and Asiatic labor of every nationality.

We favor the shorter workday, and declare that eight hours

should constitute the maximum workday in all manufacturing establishments, workshops, mines and all other industrial establishments, and that where great skill and responsibliity are required of an employe, as in the case of railroad engineers, train despatchers, steamboat employes, etc., no person should be cantinuously employed more than six hours of the twentyfour.

Trusts and Corporations.-All railroad and other corporations doing business in two or more States should be chartered by Congress, and then only after a close scrutiny of their capitalization, a strict investigation revealing their intentions, and a most guarded restriction of their powers and operations. The creating of "corners" and the establishing of exorbitant prices for products necessary to human existence should be made a criminal offence against the officers, directors and stockholders of a corporation so offending, subjecting them to the severest penalties. A man is no less a robber because he is able to hold up his victim by due process of law.

The Philippines.-The Philippines, the same as Cuba, should be guaranteed ultimate independence and a stable government under the protection of the United States.

The Electoral College.-The Congressional district, instead of the State, should be made the unit in the Electoral College, apportioning to each district one Presidential elector, to be chosen by the voters of that district.

Taxation.-We demand such legislation as will place the burdens of government upon that class of people who have been most favored by special acts of government, and to this end we favor a graduated property tax, exempting from its provisions property of the individual to the amount of $10,000 or less. We also demand that a 10 per cent. tax be levied annually upon all unoccupied and unimproved land.

New Primary Law.-We demand the enactment by the sev eral States of a primary election law, by which all candidates for public office shall be selected by direct vote of the people, without the aid of a delegate convention.

We denounce government by the gavel in party conventions and demand the elimination of the party "boss" from politics, by whatever method it can be brought about.

Initiative and Referendum.-The election, laws of the several States should be changed, by constitutional amendment when necessary, so as to provide for direct legislation by the method known as the initiative and referendum.

Qualifications of Electors.-Each State should possess the sole right to determine by legislation the qualifications required of voters within its jurisdiction, irrespective of race, color or

sex.

Constitutional Revision.-The Constitution of the United States should be revised and amended in accordance with the method provided in Article V., that our fundamental law may answer the demands of a century of civilization and progress.

Appeal to Independent Voters.-Believing our demands to be practicable and just, we appeal to all who believe in majority rule, to all who are weary of Standard Oil government, to all

who are opposed to gavel government in party politics, and to all others who desire the welfare of all the people, to unite with us in advocating the principles herein enunciated until they shall be enacted into laws for the government of this Republica Republic founded by Washington and Jefferson and the Continental Congress, and first defended and protected by the Continental Army of the United States.

PARTY PLATFORMS.

1908.

DEMOCRATIC, REPUBLICAN, INDEPENDENT, SOCIALIST,

PROHIBITION.

NATIONAL DEMOCRATIC PLATFORM.

ADOPTED AT DENVER, COLO., JULY 9, 1908.

We, the representatives of the Democrats of the United States, in National convention assembled, reaffirm our belief in and pledge our loyalty to the principles of the party.

We rejoice at the increasing signs of an awakening throughout the country. The various investigations have traced graft and political corruption to the representatives of predatory wealth, and laid bare the unscrupulous methods by which they have debauched elections and preyed upon a defenseless public through the subservient officials whom they have raised to place and power.

The conscience of the Nation is now aroused to free the Government from the grip of those who have made it a business asset of the favor-seeking corporations; it must become again a people's Government, and be administered in all its departments according to the Jeffersonian maxim, "Equal rights to all and special privileges to none.'

"Shall the people rule?" is the overshadowing issue which manifests itself in all the questions now under discussion. Labor and Injunctions.-The courts of justice are the bulwark of our liberties, and we yield to none in our purpose to maintain their dignity. Our party has given to the bench a long line of distinguished Judges, who have added to the respect and confidence in which this department must be jealously maintained. We resent the attempt of the Republican party to raise false issues respecting the judiciary. It is an unjust reflection upon a great body of our citizens to assume that they lack respect for the courts.

It is the function of the courts to interpret the laws, which the people create, and if the laws appear to work economic, social, or political injustice, it is our duty to change them. The only basis upon which the integrity of our courts can stand is that of unswerving justice and protection of life, personal liberty, and property. If judicial processes may be abused, we should guard them against abuse.

Experience has proved the necessity of a modification of the present law relating to injunctions, and we reiterate the pledge of our National platforms of 1896 and 1904 in favor of the measure which passed the United States Senate in 1896, but which a Republican Congress has ever since refused to enact; relating to contempts in Federal courts and providing for trial by jury in cases of indirect contempt.

Questions of judicial practice have arisen especially in connection with industrial disputes. We deem that the parties to all judicial proceedings should be treated with rigid impartiality, and that injunctions should not be issued in any cases in which injunctions would not issue if no industrial dispute were involved.

The expanding organization of industry makes it essential that there should be no abridgment of the right of wage carners and producers to organize for the protection of wages and the improvement of labor conditions, to the end that such labor organizations and their members should not be regarded as illegal combinations in restraint of trade.

We favor the eight-hour day on all Government work.

We pledge the Democratic party to the enactment of a law by Congress, as far as the Federal jurisdiction extends, for a general Employers' Liability act, covering injury to body or loss of life of employes.

We pledge the Democratic party to the enactment of a law creating a Department of Labor, represented separately in the President's Cabinet, which department shall include the subject of mines and mining.

Tariff-We welcome the belated promise of tariff reform now affected by the Republican party in tardy recognition of the righteousness of the Democratic position on this question, but the people cannot safely intrust the execution of this important work to a party which is so deeply obligated to the highly protected interests as is the Republican party. We call attention to the significant fact that the promised relief was postponed until after the coming election-an election to succeed in which the Republican party must have that same support from the beneficiaries of the high protective tariff as it has always heretofore received from them, and to the further fact that during years of uninterrupted power, no action whatever has been taken by the Republican Congress to correct the admittedly existing tariff iniquities.

We favor immediate revision of the tariff by the reduction of import duties. Articles entering into competition with trustcontrolled products should be placed upon the free list, and material reduction should be made in the tariff upon the necessaries of life, especially upon articles competing with such

American manufactures as are sold abroad more cheaply than at home, and graduate reductions should be made in such other schedules as may be necessary to restore the tariff to a revenue basis.

Existing duties have given to the manufacturers of paper a shelter behind which they have organized combinations to raise the price of pulp and of paper, thus imposing a tax upon the spread of knowledge. We demand the immediate repeal of the tariff on pulp, print paper, lumber, timber, and logs, and that these articles be placed upon the free list.

Arbitrary Power of Speaker.-The House of Representatives was designed by the fathers of the Constitution to be the popular branch of our Government, responsive to the public will.

The House of Representatives, as controlled in recent years by the Republican party, has ceased to be a deliberative and executive body, responsive to the will of a majority of its members, but has come under the absolute domination of the Speaker, who has entire control of its deliberations and powers of legislation.

We have observed with amazement the popular branch of our Federal Government helpless to obtain either the consideration or enactment of measures desired by a majority of its members.

Legislative government becomes a failure when one member, in the person of the Speaker, is more powerful than the entire body.

We demand that the House of Representatives shall again become a deliberative body, controlled by a majority of the people's representatives, and not by the Speaker, and we pledge ourselves to adopt such rules and regulations to govern the House of Representatives as will enable a majority of its members to direct its deliberations and control legislation.

Publicity of Campaign Contributions. We demand Federal legislation forever terminating the partnership which has existed between corporations of the country and the Republican party under the expressed or implied agreement that in return for the contribution of great sums of money wherewith to purchase elections, they should be allowed to continue substantially unmolested in their efforts to encroach upon the rights of the people.

Any reasonable doubt as to the existence of this relation has been forever dispelled by the sworn testimony of witnesses examined in the insurance investigation in New York, and the open admission, unchallenged by the Republican National Committee, of a single individual, that he himself, at the personal request of the Republican candidate for the Presidency, raised over $250,000 to be used in a single State during the closing hours of the last campaign. In order that this practice shall be stopped for all time, we demand the passage of a statute punishing with imprisonment any officer of a corporation who shall either contribute on behalf of, or consent to the contribution by a corporation of any money or anything of value to be used in furthering the election of a President or Vice-President of the United States, or of any member of Congress thereof.

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