plutocracy, labor is robbed of the wealth which it alone produces, is denied the means of self-employment, and, by compulsory idleness in wage slavery, is even deprived of the necessaries of life. Human power and natural forces are thus wasted, that the plutocracy may rule. Ignorance and misery, with all their concomitant evils, are perpetuated, that the people may be kept in bondage. Science and invention are diverted from their humane purpose to the enslavement of women and children. Against such a system the Socialist Labor Party once more enters its protest. Once more it reiterates its fundamental declaration that private property in the natural sources of production and in the instruments of labor is the obvious cause of all economic servitude and political dependence. The time is fast coming when, in the natural course of social evolution, this system, through the destructive action of its failures and crises on the one hand, and the constructive tendencies of its trusts and other capitalistic combinations on the other hand, shall have worked out its own downfall. 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 Co-operative 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. Proceedings of the Tenth National Convention. p. 255. CAMPAIGN OF 1904 In 1904 there were the two major parties, the factions having been absorbed. The Social Democratic Party of 1900 now appears as the Socialist Party, along with the other well-established minor parties, the Prohibitionists and the Social Labor Party. The People's Party of this year was the Middle-of-the-Road Faction of 1900. Democratic Platform of 1904 The Democratic party of the United States, in National Convention assembled, declares its devotion to the essential principles of the Democratic faith which bring us together in party communion. Under these principles local self-government and National unity and prosperity were alike established. They underlaid our independence, the structure of our free Republic, and every Democratic expansion from Louisiana to California, and Texas to Oregon, which preserved faithfully in all the States the tie between taxation and representation. They yet inspirit the masses of our people, guarding jealously their rights and liberties, and cherishing their fraternity, peace and orderly development. They remind us of our duties and responsibilities as citizens and impress upon us, particularly at this time, the necessity of reform and the rescue of the administration of Government from the headstrong, arbitrary and spasmodic methods which distract business by uncertainty, and pervade the public mind with dread, distrust and perturbation. FUNDAMENTAL PRINCIPLES The application of these fundamental principles to the living issues of the day constitutes the first step toward the assured peace, safety and progress of our nation. Freedom of the press, of conscience, and of speech; equality before the law of all citizens; right of trial by jury; freedom of the person defended by the Writ of Habeas Corpus; liberty of personal contract untrammeled by sumptuary laws; supremacy of the civil over military authority; a well-disciplined militia; separation of Church and State; economy in expenditures; low taxes, that labor may be lightly burdened; prompt and sacred fulfillment of public and private obligations; fidelity to treaties; peace and friendship with all nations, entangling alliances with none; absolute acquiescence in the will of the majority, the vital principle of Republics-these are doctrines which Democracy has established as proverbs of the Nation, and they should be constantly invoked, and enforced. ECONOMY OF ADMINISTRATION Large reductions can easily be made in the annual expenditures of the Government without impairing the efficiency of any branch of the public service, and we shall insist upon the strictest economy and frugality compatible with vigorous and efficient civil, military and naval administration as a right of the people, too clear to be denied or withheld. HONESTY IN THE PUBLIC SERVICE We favor the enforcement of honesty in the public service, and to that end a thorough legislative investigation of those executive departments of the Government already known to teem with corruption, as well as other departments suspected of harboring corruption, and the punishment of ascertained corruptionists without fear or favor or regard to persons. The persistent and deliberate refusal of both the Senate and House of Representatives to permit such investigation to be made demonstrates that only by a change in the executive and in the legislative departments can complete exposure, punishment and correction be obtained. FEDERAL GOVERNMENT CONTRACTS WITH TRUSTS We condemn the action of the Republican party in Congress in refusing to prohibit an executive department from entering into contracts with convicted trusts or unlawful combinations in restraint of inter-State trade. We believe that one of the best methods of procuring economy and honesty in the public service is to have public officials, from the occupant of the White House down to the lowest of them, return, as nearly as may be, to Jeffersonian simplicity of living. EXECUTIVE USURPATION We favor the nomination and election of a President imbued with the principles of the Constitution, who will set his face sternly against executive usurpation of legislative and judicial functions, whether that usurpation be veiled under the guise of executive construction of existing laws, or whether it take refuge in the tyrant's plea of necessity or superior wisdom. IMPERIALISM We favor the preservation, so far as we can, of an open door for the world's commerce in the Orient without unnecessary entanglement in Oriental and European affairs, and without arbitrary, unlimited, irresponsible and absolute government anywhere within our jurisdiction. We oppose, as fervently as did George Washington, an indefinite, irresponsible, discretionary and vague absolutism and a policy of colonial exploitation, no matter where or by whom invoked or exercised. We believe with Thomas Jefferson and John Adams, that no Government has a right to make one set of laws for those "at home" and another and a different set of laws, absolute in their character, for those "in the colonies." All men under the American flag are entitled to the protection of the institutions whose emblem the flag is; if they are inherently unfit for those institutions, then they are inherently unfit to be members of the American body politic. Wherever there may exist a people incapable of being governed under American laws, in consonance with the American Constitution, the territory of that people ought not to be part of the American domain. We insist that we ought to do for the Filipinos what we have done already for the Cubans, and it is our duty to make that promise now, and upon suitable guarantees of protection to citizens of our own and other countries resident there at the time of our withdrawal to set the Filipino people upon their feet, free and independent, to work out their own destiny. The endeavor of the Secretary of War, by pledging the Govern ment's endorsement for "promoters" in the Philippine Islands to make the United States a partner in speculative exploitation of the archipelago, which was only temporarily held up by the opposition of Democratic Senators in the last session, will, if successful, lead to entanglements from which it will be difficult to escape. TARIFF The Democratic party has been, and will continue to be, the consistent opponent of that class of tariff legislation by which certain interests have been permitted, through Congressional favor, to draw a heavy tribute from the American people. This monstrous perversion of those equal opportunities which our political institutions were established to secure, has caused what may once have been infant industries to become the greatest combinations of capital that the world has ever known. These special favorites of the Government have, through trust methods, been converted into monopolies, thus bringing to an end domestic competition, which was the only alleged check upon the extravagant profits made possible by the protective system. These industrial combinations, by the financial assistance they can give, now control the policy of the Republican party. We denounce protectionism as a robbery of the many to enrich the few, and we favor a tariff limited to the needs of the Government economically, effectively and constitutionally administered and so levied as not to discriminate against any industry, class or section, to the end that the burdens of taxation shall be distributed as equally as possible. We favor a revision and a gradual reduction of the tariff by the friends of the masses and for the common weal, and not by the friends of its abuses, its extortions and its discriminations, keeping in view the ultimate end of "equality of burdens and equality of opportunities," and the constitutional purpose of raising a revenue by taxation, to wit: the support of the Federal Government in all its integrity and virility, but in simplicity. TRUSTS AND UNLAWFUL COMBINATIONS We recognize that the gigantic trusts and combinations designed to enable capital to secure more than its just share of the joint |