can people. No other course was possible than to destroy Spain's sovereignty throughout the Western Indies and in the Philippine Islands.

"That course created our responsibility before the world, and with the unorganized population whom our intervention had freed from Spain, to provide for the maintenance of law and order, and for the establishment of good government, and for the performance of international obligations.

"Our authority could not be less than our responsibility, and wherever sovereign rights were extended it became the high duty of the government to maintain its authority, to put down armed insurrection, and to confer the blessings of liberty and civilization upon all the rescued peoples.

"The largest measure of self-government consistent with their welfare and our duties shall be secured to them by law."

The same voice which declared war with Spain granted independence to Cuba and it was pledged that the boon should be secured to her.

The principles of the two leading political parties of the country in the presidential contest of 1900 have been laid before you. The real contest was to be between Democrats and Republicans, and it was noteworthy that each had the same leader as four years before. But there never can be anything like unanimity among the people themselves. A certain number are sure to be dissatisfied with the policy of each of the great parties and not only refuse to vote with either, but nominate candidates of their own. It matters nothing to them that there is not even a remote chance of success, nor do they often deceive themselves with any such hope. The ground they take is that they are voting for their principles and no one has the right to question their course, for it is the duty of us all to obey the prompting of conscience. A practical argument in favor of their course is that their conduct compels a deference to their views by the leading political organizations. It has happened more than once that when they have been ignored they have mustered enough votes to defeat the very party thus ignoring them. With no little reason, therefore, the dissatisfied insist that by nominating their own candidates, when those of the leading parties are unsatisfactory, they often secure at least a partial acceptance and adoption of their principles.

No more significant proof of the broad and varying sentiments of the American people can be given than by the platforms of the different parties which asked the votes of their fellow citizens. The strongest organization outside of the two leading ones was the Prohibition Party, which held its convention at Chicago, June 27 and 28, and placed in nomination John G. Woolley, of Illinois, and Henry B. Metcalf, of Ohio. No one can gainsay that the curse of strong drink is one of the most destructive foes of mankind. The Prohibitionists naturally made this question the greatest issue of the campaign, using the following language:

"We declare that there is no principle now advocated by any other party which could be made a fact in government with such beneficent, moral and material results as the principle of prohibition applied to the beverage liquor traffic; that the national interest could be promoted in no other way so surely and so widely as by its adoption and assertion through a national policy and a coöperation therein by every State, for

bidding the manufacture, sale, exportation, importation and transportation of intoxicating liquors for beverage purposes; that we stand for this as the only principle proposed by any party anywhere for the settlement of a question greater and graver than any other before the American people, and involving more profoundly than any other their moral future and financial welfare; and that all the patriotic citizenship of this country agreed upon this principle, however much disagreement there may be as to minor considerations and issues, should stand together at the ballot-box from this time forward until prohibition is the established policy of the United States, with a party in power to enforce it and to insure its moral and material benefits.

"We insist that such a party agreed upon this principle and policy, having sober leadership, without any obligation for success to the saloon vote and to those demoralizing political combinations, can successfully cope with all other and lesser problems of government, in legislative halls and in the executive chair, and that it is useless for any party to make declarations in its platform as to any questions concerning which there may be serious differences of opinion in its own membership, and because of such differences the party could legislate only on a basis of mutual concessions when coming into power."

The Democratic and Republican parties were declared to be insincere in their assumed hostility to trusts and monopolies, and afraid to attack the most dangerous of them all, the liquor power. The Prohibitionists asserted that as a first step in the financial problem of the nation they purposed to save more than a billion dollars annually, which was expended in the support of the liquor traffic, after which it would be time enough to address themselves to the other questions that the parties made prominent. A striking statement was the quotation from William Windom, Secretary of the Treasury under President Arthur: "Considered socially, financially, politically or morally, the licensed liquor traffic is or ought to be the overwhelming issue of American politics, and the destruction of this iniquity stands next on the calendar of the world's progress."

President McKinley was denounced for wine-drinking, as were the liquor traffic in the Philippines, the attorney-general for his interpretation of the law regarding the army canteen, and the administration for repealing the prohibitory law in Alaska, and a final appeal was made to Christian voters, accompanied by the declaration that there were but two real parties to-day concerning the liquor traffic-Perpetuationists and Prohibitionists.

The next party in strength was the Social Democratic, which convened as early as March 7 and placed in nomination Eugene V. Debs, of Indiana, and Job Harriman, of California. These people, although comparatively few in numbers, are active, aggressive and determined, and it would be unwise to give them no attention, for they are liable to make their power felt at the most unexpected times. It cannot be denied that there is widespread discontent among the laborers and the impoverished, who are ready to welcome any policy that promises relief, even though the means may be revolu tionary. Mr. Debs, the standard bearer, had undergone imprisonment for his course. during the formidable strikes already referred to, and many looked upon him as a martyr to their most cherished principles.

The Social Democrats declared that life, liberty and happiness depend upon equal political and economic rights; that in our economic development an industrial revolution has taken place, the individual tool of former years having become the social tool of the present. "The individual tool was owned by the worker, who employed himself and was master of his product. The social tool, the machine, is owned by the capitalist, and the worker is dependent upon him for employment. The capitalist thus becomes the master of the worker and is able to appropriate to himself a large share of the product of his labor."

After a severe arraignment of capital the Social Democratic Party declared its object to be:

“First-The organization of the working classes into a political party to conquer the public powers now controlled by capitalists.

"Second-The abolition of wage-slavery by the establishment of a national system of coöperative industry, based upon the social or common ownership of the means of production and distribution, to be administered by society in the common interest of all its members, and the complete emancipation of the socially useful classes from the domination of capitalism."

As steps in this direction it was demanded that the Federal Constitution should be so amended as to permit universal suffrage, including both sexes; the public ownership of all industries controlled by monopolies, trusts and combines; the public ownership of all railroads, telegraphs and telephones, all means of transportation and communication, all water works, gas and electric plants, and other public utilities; the public ownership of all gold, silver, copper, lead, iron, coal and other mines, and all oil and gas wells; the reduction of the hours of labor in proportion to the increasing facilities of production; the inauguration of a system of public works and improvements for the employment of the unemployed, the public credit to be utilized for that purpose; useful inventions to be free, the inventor to be remunerated by the public; labor legislation to be national instead of local, and international when possible; national insurance of working people against accidents, lack of employment and want in old age; equal civil and political rights for men and women, and the abolition of all laws discriminating against women; the adoption of the initiative and referendum, proportional representation and the right of recall of representatives by voters; abolition of war and the introduction of international arbitration.

The next party in order of strength was the People's Party, known also as the Middle of the Road, which met at Cincinnati on the 10th of May and placed in nomination Wharton Barker, of Pennsylvania, and Ignatius Donnelly, of Minnesota. Their platform was brief, consisting of the following demands:

The initiative and referendum and such changes of laws as would make the people supreme and enable them to recall unfaithful representatives; the public ownership and operation of those means of communication, transportation and production which the people may elect, such as railroads, telegraph and telephone lines, coal mines, etc.; alĺ lands held by railroads and other corporations in excess of their actual needs, and all lands owned by aliens, to be reclaimed by the government and held for actual settlers

only; a scientific and absolute paper money, based upon the entire wealth and population of the nation, not redeemable in any specific commodity, but made a full legal tender for all debts, and receivable for all taxes and public dues, and issued by the government only without the intervention of banks, and in sufficient quantity to meet the demands of commerce; until such financial system is secured there should be free and unlimited coinage of silver and gold at the legal ratio of 16 to 1; a graduated tax on incomes and inheritances; the direct vote of the people for the election of President, Vice-President, Federal Judges and United States Senators; opposition to trusts, the contention between the old parties on this question being declared a sham battle.

Next we have the Socialist Labor Party, which assembled in convention at New York City, June 2-8, and nominated Joseph F. Maloney, of Massachusetts, and Valentine Remmel, of Pennsylvania. After a declaration of views on the questions of the day a call was made upon the wage workers of the United States and all other honest citizens to organize under the banner of the Socialist Labor Party into a classconscious 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, a summary end may be put to that barbarous struggle by the abolition of classes, the restoration of the land and 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."

The People's Party or Fusionists assembled its representatives at Sioux Falls, S. D., May 10, and nominated Seth H. Ellis, of Ohio, and Samuel T. Nichols, of Pennsylvania. The platform condemned the currency bill on the ground that it made all money obligations, domestic and foreign, payable in gold coin or its equivalent, thus enormously increasing the burdens of the debtors and enriching the creditors; for refunding "coin bonds" not to mature for years into long-time gold bonds so as to make their payment improbable and the public debt perpetual; for taking from the treasury over $50,000,000 in a time of war and presenting it as a premium to bondholders to accomplish the refunding of bonds not due; for doubling the capital of bankers by returning to them the face value of their bonds in current money notes, so that "they may draw one interest from the government and another from the people;" for allowing banks to expand and contract their circulation at pleasure; for authorizing the Secretary of the Treasury to issue new gold bonds to an unlimited amount whenever he deems it necessary to replenish the gold hoard; for striking down the greenback in order to force the people to borrow $346,000,000 more from the banks at an annual cost of $20,000,000.

Among the demands made were: The free coinage of silver at 16 to 1; a graduated income and inheritance tax; the establishment of postal savings banks; homesteads for the people, and the government ownership of railroads.

Trusts were declared to be the overshadowing evil of the age and the result of and

1900.]

THE FUSIONIST AND UNITED CHRISTIAN PLATFORM.

95

culmination of the private ownership and control of the three great instruments of commerce-money, transportation and the means of the transmission of information which instruments of commerce were said to be public functions, which our forefathers declared in the Constitution should be controlled by the people through their Congress for the public welfare. The one remedy for the trusts was declared to be their ownership and control by the people. It was demanded that all tariffs on goods controlled by a trust should be abolished, and that in order to cope with the evil the people must act directly, without the intervention of representatives, who may be controlled or influenced. Direct legislation was demanded, thus giving the people the lawmaking and veto power under the initiative and referendum, on the basic principle that the majority of the people never can be corruptly influenced.

Declaration was made in favor of the independence of the Filipinos; the levying of special and extraordinary customs duties on the commerce of Porto Rico was condemned as a violation of the Constitution, as was what was termed militarism. Sympathy was expressed for the Boers, and the importation of Japanese and other laborers under contract to serve monopolistic corporations was pronounced a flagrant violation of the immigrant laws. The practice of issuing injunctions in disputes between employers and employes was declared to be a wrong that should be corrected by legislation. As in the case of several other minor parties, a demand was made for the election of United States Senators by direct vote of the people and condemnation was made of the disfranchisement of the negro in some of the Southern States. The platform declared in favor of home rule in the Territories and the District of Columbia, and the early admission of the Territories as States, while the pension office was censured for its red-tape system, political favoritism, unnecessary delay and evasion of the statutes.

The party which marshalled the smallest number of votes was the United Christian, which assembled in national convention at Rock Island, Illinois, May 2, 1900, and placed in nomination J. F. R. Leonard, of Iowa, and John G. Woolley, of Illinois, the latter of whom, you will remember, headed the Prohibition ticket. The organization declared against the desecration of the Sabbath; unscriptural marriage and divorce; the licensing of the manufacture and the sale of intoxicating liquors as a beverage; immoral laws; the liquor traffic; the sale of cigarettes and tobacco to minors, and against war.

Demand was made for the adoption and use of the system of legislation known as the "initiative and referendum;" the immediate abolition of the manufacture and sale of intoxicating liquors as a beverage; the daily reading of the Bible in the public schools and institutions of learning under control of the State; the government ownership of public utilities, and a direct vote in the election of the President and Vice-President and United States Senators.

The foregoing statement presents some idea of the wide diversity of sentiment among the American people, but it must be added that on July 6 the Silver Republican Party, as it called itself, issued a declaration of principles which may be summarized as follows: Adherence to the principle of bimetallism; favoring a repeal of the currency law and a graduated tax upon incomes; the election of United States Senators by the