We therefore call upon the wage-workers of the United States, and upon all other honest citizens, to organize under the banner of the Socialist Labor party into a class-conscious body, aware of its rights and determined to conquer them by taking possession of the public powers; so that, held together by an indomitable spirit of solidarity under the most trying conditions of the present class struggle, we may put a summary end to that barbarous struggle by the abolition of classes, the restoration of the land, and of all the means of production, transportation, and distribution to the people as a collective body, and the substitution of the coöperative commonwealth for the present state of planless production, industrial war, and social disorder; a commonwealth in which every worker shall have the free exercise and full benefit of his faculties, multiplied by all the modern factors of civilization. With a view to immediate improvement in the condition of labor we present the following demands: :

1. Reduction of the hours of labor in proportion to the progress of production.

2. The United States to obtain possession of the mines, railroads, canals, telegraphs, telephones, and all other means of public transportation and communication; the employees to operate the same coöperatively under control of the federal government and to elect their own superior officers, but no employee shall be discharged for political reasons.

3. The municipalities to obtain possession of the local railroads, ferries, water-works, gas-works, electric plants, and all industries requiring municipal franchises; the employees to operate the same coöperatively under control of the municipal administration and to elect their own superior officers, but no employee shall be discharged for political reasons.

4. The public lands to be declared inalienable. Revocation of all land grants to corporations or individuals, the conditions of which have not been complied with.

5. The United States to have the exclusive right to issue money. 6. Congressional legislation providing for the scientific management of forests and waterways, and prohibiting the waste of the natural resources of the country.

7. Inventions to be free to all; the inventors to be remunerated by the nation.

8. Progressive income tax and tax on inheritances; the smaller incomes to be exempt.

9. School education of all children under fourteen years of age to be compulsory, gratuitous, and accessible to all by public assistance in meals, clothing, books, etc., where necessary.

10. Repeal of all pauper, tramp, conspiracy, and sumptuary laws. Unabridged right of combination.

11. Prohibition of the employment of children of school age, and the employment of female labor in occupations detrimental to health or morality. Abolition of the convict labor contract system.

12. Employment of the unemployed by the public authorities (county, city, state, and nation).

13. All wages to be paid in lawful money of the United States. Equalization of women's wages with those of men where equal service is performed.

J 14. Laws for the protection of life and limb in all occupations, and an efficient employers' liability law.

15. The people to have the right to propose laws and to vote upon all measures of importance, according to the referendum principle.

16. Abolition of the veto power of the executive (national, state, and municipal) wherever it exists.

17. Abolition of the United States Senate and all upper legislative chambers.

18. Municipal self-government.

19. Direct vote and secret ballots in all elections. Universal and equal right of suffrage without regard to color, creed, or sex. Election days to be legal holidays. The principle of proportional representation to be introduced.

20. All public officers to be subject to recall by their respective constituencies.

21. Uniform civil and criminal law throughout the United States. Administration of justice to be free of charge. Abolition of capital punishment.

On the sixth day of the session, July 9, the convention made its nominations. It is reported that there was a serious - in the sense of sober, it is to be presumed, as well as in the sense of active contest for the nomination for President; not that either of the candidates expected to be elected, but because the victory of the party not later than the year 1925 was confidently expected, and it was to be an honor to be the standard-bearer of the party in 1896. Mr. Charles H. Matchett, of New York, was nominated, receiving 43 votes to 23 for Matthew Maguire, of New Jersey, and 4 for William Watkins, of Ohio. Matthew Maguire, of New Jersey, was nominated by acclamation for Vice-President.

The result of the Republican convention intensified public interest in the Democratic national convention, which met at Chicago on July 7. The explicit declaration at St. Louis in favor of the gold standard strengthened the position of the

Silver wing of the Democratic party, which, having a sufficient majority of the delegates, intended in any event to use its power to the utmost. Meanwhile the control of the national committee was in the hands of the anti-Silver wing, and most of the "old-liners" of the North and West were on the same side. A strenuous effort was determined on to prevent, if possible, the adoption of a free-coinage resolution. All the arts known to politicians were resorted to; as the event proved, without avail. The national committee proposed as temporary chairman Senator David B Hill, of New York. His election was challenged on the foor of the convention, and after a heated debate Senator John W. Daniel, of Virginia, the candidate of the Free Silver men, was chosen in his stead by a vote of 556 to 349. On this, as on most other votes in the convention, the unit rale was observed; that is, the majority of a state delegation cast the whole vote of the State for or against a motion, or for a particular candidate. On the second day of the session the Silver forces were augmented by three changes in the membership proposed in the report of the Committee on Credentials: (1) the representation of each Territory was increased from two members to six; (2) the Gold Standard delegation from Nebraska was unseated and a delegation favorable to Silver, headed by Mr. William J. Bryan, was admitted; and (3) four Silver delegates were substituted for four Gold delegates from Michigan, which gave the Silver party the control of the twenty-eight votes of that State. After these changes' had been made, Senator Stephen M. White, of California, was made permanent president of the convention.

On the third day of the session the platform was reported as follows:

We, the Democrats of the United States in national convention assembled, do reaffirm our allegiance to those great essential principles of justice and liberty, upon which our institutions are founded, and which the Democratic party has advocated from Jefferson's time to our own, - freedom of speech, freedom of the press, freedom of conscience, the preservation of personal rights, the equality of all citizens before the law, and the faithful observance of constitutional limitations.

During all these years the Democratic party has resisted the tendency of selfish interests to the centralization of governmental power, and steadfastly maintained the integrity of the dual

scheme of government established by the founders of this republic of republics. Under its guidance and teachings, the great principle of local self-government has found its best expression in the maintenance of the rights of the States, and in its assertion of the necessity of confining the general government to the exercise of the powers granted by the Constitution of the United States.

The Constitution of the United States guarantees to every citizen the rights of civil and religious liberty. The Democratic party has always been the exponent of political liberty and religious freedom, and it renews its obligations and reaffirms its devotion to these fundamental principles of the Constitution.

Recognizing that the money question is paramount to all others at this time, we invite attention to the fact that the federal Constitution names silver and gold together as the money metals of the United States, and that the first coinage law passed by Congress under the Constitution made the silver dollar the money unit, and admitted gold to free coinage at a ratio based upon the silver dollar unit.

We declare that the act of 1873 demonetizing silver without the knowledge or approval of the American people has resulted in the appreciation of gold and a corresponding fall in the prices of commodities produced by the people; a heavy increase in the burden of taxation and of all debts, public and private; the enrichment of the money-lending class at home and abroad; the prostration of industry and impoverishment of the people.

We are unalterably opposed to monometallism, which has locked fast the prosperity of an industrial people in the paralysis of hard times. Gold monometallism is a British policy, and its adoption has brought other nations into financial servitude to London. It is not only un-American, but anti-American, and it can be fastened on the United States only by the stifling of that spirit and love of liberty which proclaimed our political independence in .776 and won it in the war of the Revolution.

We demand the free and unlimited coinage of both silver and gold at the present legal ratio of sixteen to one without waiting for the aid or consent of any other nation. We demand that the standard silver dollar shall be a full legal tender, equally with gold, for all debts, public and private, and we favor such legislation as will prevent for the future the demonetization of any kind of legal tender money by private contract.

We are opposed to the policy and practice of surrendering to the holders of the obligations of the United States the option reserved by law to the government of redeeming such obligations in either silver coin or gold coin.

We are opposed to the issuing of interest-bearing bonds of the United States in time of peace, and condemn the trafficking with banking syndicates, which, in exchange for bonds and at enormous profit to themselves, supply the federal treasury with gold to maintain the policy of gold monometallism.

Congress alone has the power to coin and issue money, and President Jackson declared that this power could not be delegated to corporations or individuals. We therefore denounce the issuance of notes intended to circulate as money by national banks as in derogation of the Constitution, and we demand that all paper which is made a legal tender for public and private debts, or which is receivable for duties to the United States, shall be issued by the government of the United States and shall be redeemable in coin.

We hold that tariff duties should be levied for purposes of revenue, such duties to be so adjusted as to operate equally throughout the country, and not discriminate between class or section, and that taxation should be limited by the needs of the government honestly and economically administered.

We denounce as disturbing to business the Republican threat to restore the McKinley law, which has twice been condemned by the people in national elections, and which, enacted under the false plea of protection to home industry, proved a prolific breeder of trusts and monopolies, enriched the few at the expense of the many, restricted trade, and deprived the producers of the great American staples of access to their natural markets.

Until the money question is settled we are opposed to any agitation for further changes in our tariff laws, except such as are necessary to meet the deficit in revenue caused by the adverse decision of the Supreme Court on the income tax. But for this decision by the Supreme Court, there would be no deficit in the revenue under the law passed by a Democratic Congress in strict pursuance of the uniform decisions of that court for nearly one hundred years, that court having in that decision sustained constitutional objections to its enactment which had previously been overruled by the ablest judges who have ever sat on that bench. We declare that it is the duty of Congress to use all the constitutional power which remains after that decision, or which may come from its reversal by the court as it may hereafter be constituted, so that the burdens of taxation may be equally and impartially laid, to the end that wealth may bear its due proportion of the expenses of the government.

We hold that the most efficient way of protecting American labor is to prevent the importation of foreign pauper labor to compete with it in the home market, and that the value of the home market to our American farmers and artisans is greatly