It summoned the Congress in hasty and futile extra session and virtually adjourned it, leaving behind in its flight from Washington uncalled calendars and unaccomplished tasks.

It 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 pretense of executing a great public policy which could have been more easily effected lawfully, constitutionally and with honor.

It forced strained and unnatural constructions upon statutes, usurping judicial interpretation, and substituting for congressional enactment executive decree.

It withdrew from the Congress its 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 boasting of a few sample convicts, 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 a 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 PEOPLE

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 of our fellow citizens who, disregarding past differences, desire the perpetuation of our constitutional Government as framed and established by the fathers of the Republic.

Official Report of the Proceedings of the Democratic National Convention. p. 145.

Convention at St. Louis, Mo., July 6, 1904.

People's Platform of 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 lives at its present place of meeting. We renew our allegiance to the oldfashioned 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 corner-stone 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 illadvised 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 gigantic 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:

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.

We demand that postal-savings banks be established by the Government for the safe deposit of the savings of the people.

We believe in the right of labor to organize for the benefit and protection of those who toil; 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.

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

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.

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.

To prevent unjust discrimination and monopoly the Government 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 enables 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 privileges granted. We demand that Congress shall enact a general law uniformly regulating the power and duties of all incorporated companies doing interstate business.

World Almanac for 1905.

p. 106.

Convention at Springfield, Ill., July 4, 1904.

Prohibition Platform of 1904

The Prohibition party, in national convention assembled, at Indianapolis, June 30, 1904, recognizing that the chief end of all government is the establishment of those principles of righteousness and justice which have been revealed to men as the will of the everliving God, desiring His blessing upon our national life, and believing in the perpetuation of the high ideals of government of the people, by the people and for the people, established by our fathers, makes the following declaration of principles and purposes:

The widely prevailing system of the licensed and legalized sale of alcoholic beverages is so ruinous to individual interests, so inimical to public welfare, so destructive of national wealth and so subversive of the rights of great masses of our citizenship, that

the destruction of the traffic is, and for years has been, the most important question in American politics.

We denounce the lack of statesmanship exhibited by the leaders of the Democratic and Republican parties in their refusal to recognize the paramount importance of this question, and the cowardice with which the leaders of these parties have courted the favor of those whose selfish interests are advanced by the continuation and augmentation of the traffic, until to-day the influence of the liquor traffic practically dominates national, State and local government throughout the nation.

We declare the truth, demonstrated by the experience of half a century, that all methods of dealing with the liquor traffic which recognize its right to exist, in any form, under any system of license or tax or regulation, have proved powerless to remove its evils, and useless as checks upon its growth, while the insignificant public revenues which have accrued therefrom have seared the public conscience against a recognition of its iniquity.

We call public attention to the fact, proved by the experience of more than fifty years, that to secure the enactment and enforcement of prohibitory legislation, in which alone lies the hope of the protection of the people from the liquor traffic, it is necessary that the legislative, executive and judicial branches of government should be in the hands of a political party in harmony with the prohibition principle, and pledged to its embodiment in law, and to the execution of those laws.

We pledge the Prohibition party, wherever given power by the suffrages of the people, to the enactment and enforcement of laws prohibiting and abolishing the manufacture, importation, transportation and sale of alcoholic beverages.

We declare that there is not only no other issue of equal importance before the American people to-day, but that the so-called issues upon which the Democratic and Republican parties seek to divide the electorate of the country are, in large part, subterfuges under the cover of which they wrangle for the spoils of office.

Recognizing that the intelligent voters of the country may properly ask our attitude upon other questions of public concern, we declare ourselves in favor of:

The impartial enforcement of all law.