NATIONAL PLATFORMS OF POLITICAL PARTIES-Continued.

under the covenants of our treaties of friendship and commerce; and if under existing treaties the right of travel and sojourn is denied to American citizens, or recognition is withheld from American passports by any countries on the ground of race or creed, we favor the beginning of negotiations with the governments of such countries to secure by new treaties the removal of these unjust discriminations. We demand that all over the world a duly authenticated passport issued by the Government of the United States to an American citizen shall be proof of the fact that he is an American citizen, and shall entitle him to the treatment due him as such.

Election of Senators by the People.-We favor the election of United States Senators by the direct vote of the people.

Statehood for Territories.-We favor the admission of the Territory of Oklahoma and the Indian Territory. We also favor the immediate admission of Arizona and New Mexico as separate States, and a territorial government for Alaska and Porto Rico, We hold that the officials appointed to administer the government of any Territory, as well as with the district of Alaska, should be bona fide residents at the time of their appointment of the Territory or district in which their duties are to be performed.

Condemnation of Polygamy. We demand the extermination of polygamy within the jurisdiction of the United States and the complete separation of church and State in political affairs.

Merchant Marine.-We denounce the ship subsidy bill recently passed by the United States Senate as an iniquitous appropriation of public funds for private purposes and a wasteful, illogical, and useless attempt to overcome by subsidy the obstructions raised by Republican legislation to the growth and development of American commerce on the sea.

We favor the upbuilding of a merchant marine without new or additional burdens upon the people and without bounties from the public treasury. Reciprocity. We favor liberal trade arrangements with Canada, and with peoples of other countries, where these can be entered into with benefit to American agriculture, manufactures, mining, or commerce.

Monroe Doctrine.-We favor the maintenance of the Monroe Doctrine in its full integrity.

Army. We favor the reduction of the army and of army expenditure to the point historically demonstrated to be safe and sufficient.

Pensions and Our Soldiers and Sailors.-The Democracy would secure to the surviving soldiers and sailors and their dependents generous pensions, not by an arbitrary executive order, but by legislation which we grateful people stand ready to enact. Our soldiers and sailors who defend with their lives the Constitution and the laws have a sacred interest in their just administration. They must therefore share with us the humiliation with which we have witnessed the exaltation of court favorites, without distinguished service, over the scarred heroes of many battles; or aggrandized by legislative appropriation out of the treasuries of a prostrate people, in violation of act of Congress, which fixes the compensation and allowances of the military officers.

Civil Service.-The Democratic party stands committed to the principles of civilservice reform, and we demand their honest, just and impartial enforcement. We denounce the Republican party for its continuous and sinister encroachments upon the spirit and operation of civil-service rules, whereby it has arbitrarily dispensed with examinations for office in the interests of favorites and employed all manner of devices to overreach and set aside the principles upon which the civil service was established.

School and Race Questions.-The race question has brought countless woes to this country. The calm wisdom of the American people should see to it that it brings no more. To revive the dead and hateful race and sectional animosities in any part of our common country means confusion, distraction of business, and the reopening of wounds now happily healed. North, South, East, and West have but recently stood together in line of battle from the walls of Peking to the hills of Santiago, and as sharers of a common glory and a common destiny we should share fraternally the common burdens. We, therefore, deprecate and condemn the bourbonlike, selfish, and narrow spirit of the recent Republican convention at Chicago, which sought to kindle anew the embers of racial and sectional strife, and we appeal from it to the sober common sense and patriotic spirit of the American people.

The Republican Administration.-The existing Republican administration has been spasmodic, erratic, sensational, spectacular, and arbitrary. It has made itself a satire upon the Congress, the courts, and upon the settled practices and usages of national and international law.

It summoned the Congress into hasty and futile extra session, and virtually adjourned it, leaving behind in its flight from Washington uncalled calendars and unaccomplished tasks. It has made war, which is the sole power of Congress, without its authority, thereby usurping one of its fundamental prerogatives. It violated a plain statute of the United States as well as plain treaty obligations, international usages, and constitutional law; and has done so under pretence of executing a great public policy, which could have been more easily effected lawfully, consitutionally, and with honor.

It forced strained and unnatural constructions upon statutes, usurping judicial interpretation and substituting Congressional enactment decree. It withdrew from Congress their customary duties of investigation, which have heretofore_made the representatives of the people and the States the terror of evildoers.

It conducted a secretive investigation of its own and boasted of a few sample convicts, while it threw a broad coverlet over the bureaus which had been their chosen field of operative abuses, and kept in power the superior officers under whose administration the crimes had been committed.

It ordered assault upon some monopolies, but, paralyzed by its first victory, it flung out the flag of truce and cried out that it would not "run amuck"-leaving its future purposes beclouded by its vacillations.

Appeal to the Country.-Conducting the campaign upon this declaration of our principles and purposes, we invoke for our candidates the support, not only of our great and time-honored organization, but also the active assistance of all our fellow-citizens

NATIONAL PLATFORMS OF POLITICAL PARTIES-Continued.

who, disregarding past differences upon questions no longer in issue, desire the perpetuation of our Constitutional Government as framed and established by the fathers of the republic.

PLATFORM OF THE

REPUBLICAN PARTY, ADOPTED AT CHICAGO, ILL.,
JUNE 22, 1904.

Fifty years ago the Republican party came into existence, dedicated, among other purposes, to the great task of arresting the extension of human slavery. In 1860 it elected its first President. During twenty-four of the forty-four years which have elapsed since the election of Lincoln, the Republican party has held complete control of the Government. For eighteen more of the forty-four years it has held partial control through the possession of one or two branches of the Government. while the Democratic party during the same period has had complete control for only two years.

This long tenure of power by the Republican party is not due to chance. It is a demonstration that the Republican party has commanded the confidence of the American people for nearly two generations to a degree never equalled in our history, and has displayed a high capacity for rule and government which has been made even more conspicuous by the incapacity and infirmity of purpose shown by its opponents.

The Republican party entered upon its present period of complete supremacy in 1897. We have every right to congratulate ourselves upon the work since then accomplished, for it has added lustre even to the traditions of the party which carried the Government through the storms of civil war. We then found the country, after four years of Democratic rule, in evil plight, oppressed with misfortune, and doubtful of the future. Pub ic credit had been lowered, the revenues were declining, the debt was growing, the Administration's attitude toward Spain was feeble and mortifying, the standard of values was threatened and uncertain, labor was unemployed, business was sunk in the depression which had succeeded the panic of 1893, hope was faint, and confidence was gone.

We met these unhappy conditions vigorously, effectively, and at once. We replaced a Democratic tariff law based on free-trade principles and garnished with sectional protection by a consistent protective tariff, and industry, freed from suppression and stimulated by the encouragement of wise laws, has expanded to a degree never before known, has conquered new markets and has created a volume of exports which has surpassed imagination. Under the Dingley Tariff labor has been fully employed, wages have risen and all industries have revived and prospered.

The Gold Standard Established.-We firmly established the gold standard, which was then menaced with destruction. Confidence returned to business, and with confidence and unexampled prosperity.

For deficient revenues supplemented by improvident issues of bonds we gave the country an income which produced a large surplus, and which enabled us only four years after the Spanish war had closed to remove over one hundred millions of annual war taxes, reduce the public debt and lower the interest charges of the Government.

The public credit, which had been so lowered that in time of peace a Democratic administration made large loans at extravagant rates of interest in order to pay current expenditures, rose under Republican administration to its highest point, and enabled us to borrow at 2 per cent., even in time of war.

We refused to palter longer with the miseries of Cuba. We fought a quick and victorious war with Spain. We set Cuba free, governed the island for three years, and then gave it to the Cuban people with order restored, with ample revenues, with education and public health established, free from debt, and connected with the United States by wise provisions for our mutual interests.

We have organized the government of Porto Rico, and its people now enjoy peace, freedom, order, and prosperity. Accomplishments in Philippines.-In the Philippines we have suppressed insurrection, established order, and given to life and property a security never known there before. We have organized civil government, made it effective and strong in administration, and have conferred upon the people of those islands the largest civil liberty they have ever enjoyed. By our possession of the Philippines we were enabled to take prompt and effective action in the relief of the legations at Peking, and a decisive part in preventing the partition and preserving the integrity of China.

The Panama Canal Begun.-The possession of a route for an Isthmian canal, so long the dream of American statesmanship, is now an accomplished fact. The great work of connecting the Pacific and Atlantic by a canal is at last begun, and is due to the Republican party.

Other Accomplishments.-We have passed laws which will bring the arid lands of the United States within the area of cultivation.

We have reorganized the army and put it in the highest state of efficiency.

We have passed laws for the improvement and support of the militia.

We have pushed forward the building of the navy, the defence and protection of our honor and our interests.

Our administration of the great departments of the Government has been honest and efficent, and wherever wrongdoing has been discovered the Republican administration has not hesitated to probe the evil and bring offenders to justice without regard to party or political ties.

Anti-Trust Laws Enforced.-Laws enacted by the Republican party which the Democratic party failed to enforce, and which were intended for the protection of the public against the unjust discrimination or the illegal encroachments of vast aggregations of capital. have been fearlessly enforced by a Republican President, and new laws insuring reasonable publicity as to the operations of great corporations and providing additional remedies for the prevention of discrimination in freight rates have been passed by a Republican Congress.

In this record of achievement during the past eight years may be read the pledges which the Republican party has fulfilled. We promise to continue these policies and we declare our constant adherence to the following principles:

The Tariff.-Protection which guards and develops our industries is a cardinal policy

NATIONAL PLATFORMS OF POLITICAL PARTIES--Continued.

of the Republican party. The measure of protection should always at least equal the difference in the cost of production at home and abroad. We insist upon the maintenance of the principles of protection, and therefore rates of duty should be readjusted only when conditions have so changed that the public interest demands their alteration, but this work cannot safely be committed to any other hands than those of the Republican party. To intrust it to the Democratic party is to invite disaster.

Whether, as in 1892, the Democratic party declared the protective tariff unconstitutional, or whether it demands tariff reform or tariff revision, its real object is always the destruction of the protective system. However specious the name, the purpose is ever the same. A Democratic tariff has always been followed by business adversity: a Republican tariff by business prosperity. To a Republican Congress and a Republican President this great question can be safely intrusted. When the only free-trade country among the great nations agitates a return to protection, the chief protective country should not falter in maintaining it.

Commercial Reciprocity Secured.-We have extended widely our foreign markets, and we believe in the adoption of all practicable methods for their further extension. including commercial reciprocity wherever reciprocal arrangements can be effected consistent with the principles of protection, and without injury to American agriculture, American labor or any American industry.

Integrity of the National Currency. We believe it to be the duty of the Republican party to uphold the gold standard and the integrity and value of our national currency. The maintenance of the gold standard, established by the Republican party. cannot safely be committed to the Democratic party, which resisted its adoption, and has never given any proof since that time of belief in it or fidelity to it.

Upbuilding the Merchant Marine.-While every other industry has prospered under the fostering aid of Republican legislation, American shipping engaged in fore.gn trade, in competition with the low cost of construction, low wages, and heavy subsidies of foreign governments, has not for many years received from the Government of the United States adequate encouragement of any kind. We therefore favor legislation which will encourage and build up the American merchant marine, and we cordially approve the legislation of the last Congress, which created the Merchant Marine Commission to investigate and report upon this subject.

A Navy for Defence.-A navy powerful enough to defend the United States against any attack, to uphold the Monroe Doctrine, and to watch over our commerce, is essential to the safety and the welfare of the American people. To maintain such a navy is the fixed policy of the Republican party.

Chinese Exclusion.-We cordially approve the attitude of President Roosevelt and Congress in regard to the exclusion of Chinese labor and promise a continuance of the Republican policy in that direction.

Civil Service Law Enforced.-The Civil Service Law was placed on the statute books by the Republican party, which has always sustained it, and we renew our former declarations that it shall be thoroughly and honestly enforced.

We are always mindful of the country's debt to the soldiers and sailors of the United States, and we believe in making ample provision for them, and in the liberal administration of the pension laws.

International Arbitration.-We favor the peaceful settlement of international differences by arbitration.

We commend the vigorous efforts made by the Administration to protect American citizens in foreign lands and pledge ourselves to insist upon the just and equal protection of all our citizens abroad. It is the unquestioned duty of the Government to procure for all our citizens, without distinction, the rights of travel and sojourn in friendly countries, and we declare ourselves in favor of all proper efforts tending to that end.

Our great interests and our growing commerce in the Orient render the condition of China of high importance to the United States. We cordially commend the policy pursued in that direction by the Administrations of President McKinley and President Roosevelt.

Negro Disfranchisement.-We favor such Congressional action as shall determine whether by special discriminations the elective franchise in any State has been unconstitutionally limited, and if such is the case, we demand that representation in Congress and in the Electoral College shall be proportionately reduced as directed by the Constitution of the United States.

Capital and Labor.-Combinations of capital and labor are the results of the economic movement of the age, but neither must be permitted to infringe upon the rights and interests of the people. Such combinations, when lawfully formed for lawful purposes, are alike entitled to the protection of the laws, but both are subject to the laws, and neither can be permitted to break them.

Tribute to McKinley -The great statesman and patriotic American, William McKinley, who was re-elected by the Republican party to the Presidency four years ago. was assassinated just at the threshhold of his second term. The entire nation mourned his untimely death, and did that justice to his great qualities of mind and character which history will confirm and repeat.

President Roosevelt Eulogized.-The American people were fortunate in his successor, to whom they turned with a trust and confidence which have been fully justified. President Roosevelt brought to the great responsibilities thus sadly forced upon him a clear head. a brave heart, an earnest patriotism, and high ideals of public duty and public service. True to the principles of the Republican party and to the policies which that party had declared, he has also shown himself ready for every emergency and has met new and vital questions with ability and with success.

The confidence of the people in his justice, inspired by his public career, enabled him to render personally an inestimable service to the country by bringing about a settlement of the coal strike, which threatened such disastrous results at the opening of Winter in 1902. Our foreign policy under his administration has not only been able, vigorous, and dignified, but in the highest degree successful. The complicated questions which aroser in Venezuela were settled in such a way by President Roosevelt that the Monroe Doctrine was signally vindicated, and the cause of peace and arbitration greatly advanced.

His prompt and vigorous action in Panama, which we commend in the highest terms.

A

NATIONAL PLATFORMS OF POLITICAL PARTIES—Continued.

not only secured to us the canal route, but avoided foreign complications which might have been of a very serious character.

He has continued the policy of President McKinley in the Orient and our position in China, signalized by our recent commercial treaty with that empire, has never been so high. He secured the tribunal by which the vexed and perilous question of the Alaskan boundary was finally settled.

Whenever crimes against humanity have been perpetrated which have shocked our people, his protest has been made and our good offices have been tendered, but always with due regard to international obligations.

Under his guidance we find ourselves at peace with all the world, and never were we more respected or our wishes more regarded by foreign nations.

Pre-eminently successful in regard to our foreign relations, he has been equally fortunate in dealing with domestic questions. The country has known that the public credit and the national currency were absolutely safe in the hands of his Administration. In the enforcement of the laws he has shown not only courage, but the wisdom which understands that to permit laws to be violated or disregarded opens the door to anarchy, while the just enforcement of the law is the soundest conservatism. He has held firmly to the fundamental American doctrine that all men must obey the law; that there must be no distinction between rich and poor, between strong and weak; but that justice and equal protection under the law must be secured to every citizen without regard to race, creed or condition.

His administration throughout has been vigorous and honorable, high-minded and patriotic. We commend it without reservation to the considerate judgment of the American people.

PLATFORM OF THE PEOPLE'S PARTY, ADOPTED AT SPRINGFIELD, ILL., JULY 4, 1904.

The People's party reaffirms its adherence to the basic truths of the Omaha platform of 1892, and of the subsequent platforms of 1896 and 1900. In session in its fourth national convention on July 4, 1904, in the city of Springfield, Ill., it draws inspiration from the day that saw the birth of the nation as well as its own birth as a party, and also from the soul of him who lived at its present place of meeting. We renew our allegiance to the old-fashioned American spirit that gave this nation existence, and made it distinctive among the peoples of the earth. We again sound the key-note of the Declaration of Independence, that all men are created equal in a political sense, which was the sense in which that instrument, being a political document, intended that the utterance should be understood. We assert that the departure from this fundamental truth is responsible for the ills from which we suffer as a nation, that the giving of special privileges to the few has enabled them to dominate the many, thereby tending to destroy the political equality which is the cornerstone of democratic government.

Holding fast to the truths of the fathers, we vigorously protest against the spirit of mammonism and of thinly veiled monarchy that is invading certain sections of our national life, and of the very administration itself. This is a nation of peace, and we deplore the appeal to the spirit of force and militarism which is shown in ill-advised and vainglorious boasting and in more harmful ways in the denial of the rights of man under martial law.

A political democracy and an industrial despotism cannot exist side by side, and nowhere is this truth more plainly shown than in the gigantie transportation monopolies which have bred all sorts of kindred trusts, subverted the governments of many of the States, or established their official agents in the National Government. We submit that it is better for the Government to own the railroads than for the railroads to own the Government, and that one or the other alternative seems inevitable.

We call the attention of our fellow-citizens to the fact that the surrender of both of the old parties to corporative influences leaves the People's party the only party of reform in the nation.

Therefore we submit the following platform of principles to the American people: Money and Banks.-The issuing of money is a function of government, and should never be delegated to corporations or individuals. The Constitution gives to Congress alone power to issue money and regulate its value.

We therefore demand that all money shall be issued by the Government in such quantity as shall maintain a stability in prices, every dollar to be full legal tender, none of which shall be a debt redeemable in other money.

Savings Banks. We demand that postal savings banks be established by the gov ernment for the safe deposit of the savings of the people.

Labor.-We believe in the right of labor to organize for the benefit and protection of those who toll, and pledge the efforts of the People's party to preserve this right inviolate. Capital is organized and has no right to deny to labor the privilege which it claims for itself. We feel that intelligent organization of labor is essential; that it raises the standard of workmanship; 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 toleration and justice which will promote industrial peace through the observance of the principles of voluntary arbitration.

We favor the enactment of legislation looking to the improvement of 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.

We favor the shorter work day, and declare that if eight hours constitute a day's labor in Government service, that eight hours should constitute a day's labor in factories, workshops and mines,

Initiative and Referendum.-As a means of placing all public questions directly under the control of the people, we demand that legal provision be made under which the

NATIONAL PLATFORMS OF POLITICAL PARTIES—Continued,

people may exercise the initiative, referendum, and proportional representation, and direct vote for all public officers with the right of recall.

The Land.-Land, including all the natural sources of wealth, is a heritage of all the people, and should not be monopolized for speculative purposes, and alien ownership of land should be prohibited..

Human Rights. We demand a return to the original interpretation of the Constitution and a fair and impartial enforcement of laws under it, and denounce government by injunction and imprisonment without the right of trial by jury.

Trusts and Monopoly. To prevent unjust discrimination and monopoly the gov ernment should own and control the railroads, and those public utilities which in their nature are monopolies, To perfect the postal service, the Government should own and operate the general telegraph and telephone systems and provide a parcels post.

As to these trusts and monopolies which are not public utilities or natural monopolies, we demand that those special privileges which they now enjoy, and which alone enable them to exist, should be immediately withdrawn. Corporations being the creatures of government should be subjected to such governmental regulations and control as will adequately protect the public. We demand the taxation of monopoly privileges, while they remain in private hands, to the extent of the value of the privilege granted.

We demand that Congress shall enact a general law uniformly regulating the power and duties of all incorporated companies doing interstate business.

PLATFORM OF THE SOCIALIST PARTY, ADOPTED AT CHICAGO, ILL., MAY 5, 1904.

I. The Socialist party, in convention assembled, makes its appeal to the American people as the defender and preserver of the ideal of liberty and self-government, in which the nation was born; as the only political movement standing for the programme and principles by which the liberty of the individual may become a fact; as the only political organization that is democratic, and that has for its purpose the democratizing of the whole of society.

To this idea of liberty the Republican and Democratic parties are equally false. They alike struggle for power to maintain and profit by an industrial system which can be preserved only by the complete overthrow of such liberties as we already have, and by the still further enslavement and degradation of labor.

Our American institutions came into the world in the name of freedom. They have been seized upon by the capitalist class as the means of rooting out the idea of freedom from among the people. Our State and National Legislatures have become the mere agencies of great protected interests. These interests control the appointments and decisions of the judges of our courts. They have come into what is practically a private ownership of all the functions and forces of government. They are using these to betray and conquer foreign and weaker peoples in order to establish new markets for the surplus goods which the people make, but are too poor to buy. They are gradually so invading and restricting the right of suffrage as to take away unawares the right of the worker to a vote or voice in public affairs. By enacting new, and misinterpreting old, laws, they are preparing to attack the liberty of the individual even to speak or think for himself, or for the common good.

By controlling all the sources of social revenue, the possessing class is able to silence what might be the voice of protest against the passing of liberty and the coming of tyranny. It completely controls the university and public school, the pulpit and the press, and the arts and literature. By making these economically dependent upon itself, it has brought ali the forms of public teaching into servile submission to its own interests.

Our political institutions are also being used as the destroyers of that individual property upon which all liberty and opportunity depend. The promise of economic independence to each man was one of the faiths upon which our institutions were founded. But under the guise of defending private property, capitalism is using our political institutions to make it impossible for the vast majority of human beings ever to become possessors of private property in the means of life.

Capitalism is the enemy and destroyer of essential private property. Its development is through the legalized confiscation of all that the labor of the working class produces, above its subsistence-wage. The private ownership of the means of employment grounds society in an economic slavery which renders intellectual and political tyranny Inevitable. Socialism comes so to organize industry and society that every individual shall be secure in that private property in the means of life upon which his liberty of being, thought and action depend. It comes to rescue the people from the fast increasing and successful assault of capitalism upon the liberty of the individual.

II.-As an American socialist party, we pledge our fidelity to the principles of international socialism, as embodied in the united thought and action of the socialists of all nations. In the industrial development already accomplished, the interests of the world's workers are separated by no national boundaries. The condition of the most exploited and oppressed workers, in the most remote places of the earth, inevitably tends to drag down all the workers of the world to the same level. The tendency of the competitive wage system is to make labor's lowest condition the measure or rule of its universal condition. Industry and finance are no longer national, but international, in both organization and results. The chief significance of national boundaries, and of the so-called patriotisms which the ruling class of each nation is seeking to revive, is the power which these give to capitalism to keep the workers of the world from uniting, and to throw them against each other in the struggles of contending capitalist interests for the control of the yet unexploited markets of the world or the remaining sources of profit.

The socialist movement, therefore, is a world-movement. It knows of no conflicts of Interests between the workers of one nation and the workers of another. It stands for the