Part 37

We arraign the present Democratic administration for its weak and unpatriotic treatment of the fisheries question, and its pusillanimous surrender of the essential privileges to which our fishing vessels are entitled in Canadian ports under the treaty of 1818, the reciprocal maritime legislation of 1830, and the comity of nations, and which Canadian fishing vessels receive in the ports of the United States. We condemn the policy of the present administration and the Democratic majority in Congress toward our fisheries as unfriendly and conspicuously unpatriotic, and as tending to destroy a valuable national industry and an indispensable resource of defence against a foreign enemy.

The name of American applies alike to all citizens of the Republic and imposes upon all alike the same obligation of obedience to the laws. At the same time that citizenship is and must be the panoply and safeguard of him who wears it, and protects him, whether high or low, rich or poor, in all his civil rights, it should and must afford him protection at home and follow and protect him abroad, in whatever land he may be, on a lawful errand.

The men who abandoned the Republican party in 1884, and continue to adhere to the Democratic party, have deserted not only the cause of honest government, of sound finance, of freedom, of purity of the ballot, but especially have deserted the cause of reform in the civil service. We will not fail to keep our pledges because they have broken theirs, nor because their candidate has broken his. We therefore repeat our declaration of 1884, to wit: “The reform of the civil service auspiciously begun under the Republican administration should be completed by the further extension of the reform system already established by law, to all the grades of the service to which it is applicable. The spirit and purpose of the reform should be observed in all executive appointments, and all laws at variance with the object of existing reform legislation should be repealed, to the end that the dangers to free institutions, which lurk in the power of official patronage, may be wisely and effectively avoided.”

The gratitude of the nation to the defenders of the Union cannot be measured by laws. The legislation of Congress should conform to the pledge made by a loyal people, and be so enlarged and extended as to provide against the possibility that any man who honorably wore the Federal uniform shall become an inmate of an almshouse, or dependent upon private charity. In the presence of an overflowing treasury, it would be a public scandal to do less for those whose valorous services preserved the Government. We denounce the hostile spirit shown by President Cleveland, in his numerous vetoes of measures for pension relief, and the action of the Democratic House of Representatives in refusing even a consideration of general pension legislation.

In support of the principles herewith enunciated, we invite the co-operation of patriotic men of all parties, and especially of all workingmen, whose prosperity is seriously threatened by the free-trade policy of the present administration.

The first concern of all good government is the virtue and sobriety of the people, and the purity of their homes. The Republican party cordially sympathizes with all wise and well-directed efforts for the promotion of temperance and morality.

There were two distinct Labor parties in existence in 1888, and they both called their national conventions to meet at Cincinnati on the 15th of May. The Union Labor party was the only one whose candidate figured in the contest. Mr. Streeter, its nominee for President, received 146,935 votes, with only 2418 for Cowdrey, who was the candidate of the United Labor party. The Union Labor Convention had representatives from twenty States, and John Seitz was permanent president. There was no ballot for President, as Alson J. Streeter, of Illinois, was nominated by acclamation, and Samuel Evans, of Texas, was selected for Vice-President on the 1st ballot, receiving 124 votes, to 44 for T. P. Rynders, of Pennsylvania, and 32 for Charles R. Cunningham, of Arkansas. The following platform was unanimously adopted:

General discontent prevails on the part of the wealth-producer. Farmers are suffering from a poverty which has forced most of them to mortgage their estates, and the prices of products are so low as to offer no relief, except through bankruptcy, and laborers are sinking into greater dependence. Strikes are resorted to without bringing relief, because of the inability of employers, in many cases, to pay living wages, while more and more are driven into the street. Business men find collections almost impossible, and, meantime, hundreds of millions of idle public money, which is needed for relief, is locked up in the United States Treasury, or placed without interest in favored banks in grim mockery of distress. Land monopoly flourishes as never before, and more owners of the soil are daily becoming tenants. Great transportation corporations still succeed in extorting their profits on watered stock through unjust charges. The United States Senate has become an open scandal, its membership being purchased by the rich in open defiance of the popular will. Various efforts are made to squander the public money, which are designed to empty the Treasury without paying the public debt. Under these and other alarming conditions, we appeal to the people of our country to come out of old party organizations, whose indifference to the public welfare is responsible for this distress, and aid the Union Labor party to repeal existing class legislation, and relieve the distress of our industries by establishing the following principles:

_Land._—While we believe that the proper solution of the financial question will greatly relieve those now in danger of losing their homes by mortgages and foreclosures, and enable all industrious persons to secure a home as the highest result of civilization, we oppose land monopoly in every form, demand the forfeiture of unearned grants, the limitation of land ownership, and such other legislation as will stop speculations in lands, and holding it unused from those whose necessities require it.

We believe the earth was made for the people, and not to enable an idle aristocracy to subsist, through rents, upon the toil of the industrious, and that corners in land are as bad as corners in food, and that those who are not residents or citizens should not be allowed to own lands in the United States. A homestead should be exempt, to a limited extent, from execution or taxation.

_Transportation._—The means of communication and transportation should be owned by the people, as is the United States postal service.

_Money._—The establishment of a national monetary system in the interest of the producer, instead of the speculator and usurer, by which the circulating medium, in necessary quantity and full legal tender, shall be issued directly to the people, without the intervention of banks, or loaned to citizens upon land security at a low rate of interest, to relieve them from extortions of usury and enable them to control the money supply. Postal savings banks should be established. While we have free coinage of gold, we should have free coinage of silver. We demand the immediate application of all the money in the United States Treasury to the payment of the bonded debt, and condemn the further issue of interest-bearing bonds, either by the National Government or by States, Territories, or municipalities.

_Labor._—Arbitration should take the place of strikes and other injurious methods of settling labor disputes. The letting of convict labor to contractors should be prohibited, the contract system be abolished in public works, the hours of labor in industrial establishments be reduced, commensurate with the increased production by labor-saving machinery, employés protected from bodily injury, equal pay for equal work for both sexes, and labor, agricultural, and co-operative associations be fostered and encouraged by law. The foundation of a republic is in the intelligence of its citizens, and children who are driven into workshops, mines, and factories are deprived of the education which should be secured to all by proper legislation.

_Pensions._—We demand the passage of a service pension bill to every honorably discharged soldier and sailor of the United States.

_Income Tax._—A graduated income tax is the most equitable system of taxation, placing the burden of Government on those who can best afford to pay, instead of laying it on the farmers and producers, and exempting millionaire bondholders and corporations.

_United States Senate._—We demand a constitutional amendment making United States Senators elective by a direct vote of the people.

_Contract Labor._—We demand the strict enforcement of laws prohibiting the importation of subjects of foreign countries under contract.

_Chinese._—We demand the passage and enforcement of such legislation as will absolutely exclude the Chinese from the United States.

_Woman Suffrage._—The right to vote is inherent in citizenship, irrespective of sex, and is properly within the province of State legislation.

_Paramount Issues._—The paramount issues to be solved in the interests of humanity are the abolition of usury, monopoly, and trusts, and we denounce the Democratic and Republican parties for creating and perpetuating these monstrous evils.

The United Labor party had a limited attendance at its convention. William B. Ogden was made president, and Rev. Edward McGlynn, of New York, a priest noted for his discussion of labor problems, prepared and reported the platform. Robert H. Cowdrey, of Illinois, was nominated for President, and W. H. T. Wakefield, of Kansas, for the second place on the ticket without the formality of a ballot. The following platform was unanimously adopted:

We, the delegates of the United Labor party of the United States, in national convention assembled, hold that the corruptions of Government and the impoverishment of the masses result from neglect of the self-evident truths proclaimed by the founders of this Republic, that all men are created equal and are endowed with inalienable rights. We aim at the abolition of the system which compels men to pay their fellow-creatures for the use of the common bounties of nature, and permits monopolizers to deprive labor of natural opportunities for employment.

We see access to farming land denied to labor, except on payment of exorbitant rent or the acceptance of mortgage burdens, and labor, thus forbidden to employ itself, driven into the cities. We see the wage-workers of the cities subjected to this unnatural competition, and forced to pay an exorbitant share of their scanty earnings for cramped and unhealthful lodgings. We see the same intense competition condemning the great majority of business and professional men to a bitter and often unavailing struggle to avoid bankruptcy; and that, while the price of all that labor produces ever falls, the price of land ever rises.

We trace these evils to a fundamental wrong—the making of the land on which all must live the exclusive property of but a portion of the community. To this denial of natural rights are due want of employment, low wages, business depressions, that intense competition which makes it so difficult for the majority of men to get a comfortable living, and that wrongful distribution of wealth which is producing the millionaire on one side and the tramp on the other.

To give all men an interest in the land of their country; to enable all to share in the benefits of social growth and improvement; to prevent the shutting out of labor from employment by the monopolization of natural opportunities; to do away with the one-sided competition which cuts down wages to starvation rates; to restore life to business, and prevent periodical depressions; to do away with that monstrous injustice which deprives producers of the fruits of their toil while idlers grow rich; to prevent the conflicts which are arraying class against class, and which are fraught with menacing dangers to society—we propose so to change the existing system of taxation that no one shall be taxed on the wealth he produces, nor any one suffered to appropriate wealth he does not produce by taking to himself the increasing values which the growth of society adds to land.

What we propose is not the disturbing of any man in his holding or title; but, by taxation of land according to its value and not according to its area, to devote to common use and benefit those values which arise, not from the exertion of the individual, but from the growth of society, and to abolish all taxes on industry and its products. This increased taxation of land values must, while relieving the working farmer and small homestead owner of the undue burdens now imposed upon them, make it unprofitable to hold land for speculation, and thus throw open abundant opportunities for the employment of labor and the building up of homes. We would do away with the present unjust and wasteful system of finance which piles up hundreds of millions of dollars in treasury vaults while we are paying interest on an enormous debt; and we would establish in its stead a monetary system in which a legal tender circulating medium should be issued by the Government, without the intervention of banks.

We wish to abolish the present unjust and wasteful system of ownership of railroads and telegraphs by private corporations—a system which, while failing to supply adequately public needs, impoverishes the farmer, oppresses the manufacturer, hampers the merchant, impedes travel and communication, and builds up enormous fortunes and corrupting monopolies that are becoming more powerful than the Government itself. For this system we would substitute Government ownership and control for the benefit of the whole people instead of private profit.

While declaring the foregoing to be the fundamental principles and aims of the United Labor party, and while conscious that no reform can give effectual and permanent relief to labor that does not involve the legal recognition of equal rights to natural opportunities, we, nevertheless, as measures of relief from some of the evil effects of ignoring those rights, favor such legislation as may tend to reduce the hours of labor, to prevent the employment of children of tender years, to avoid the competition of convict labor with honest industry, to secure the sanitary inspection of tenements, factories, and mines, and to put an end to the abuse of conspiracy laws.

We desire also to simplify the procedure of our courts and diminish the expense of legal proceedings, that the poor may therein be placed on an equality with the rich, and the long delays which now result in scandalous miscarriages of justice may be prevented. Since the ballot is the only means by which, in our Republic, the redress of political and social grievances is to be sought, we especially and emphatically declare for the adoption of what is known as the Australian system of voting, in order that the effectual secrecy of the ballot, and the relief of candidates for public office from the heavy expenses now imposed upon them, may prevent bribery and intimidation, do away with practical discriminations in favor of the rich and unscrupulous, and lessen the pernicious influence of money in politics.

We denounce the Democratic and Republican parties as hopelessly and shamelessly corrupt, and, by reason of their affiliation with monopolies, equally unworthy of the suffrages of those who do not live upon public plunder; we therefore require of those who would act with us that they sever all connection with both.

In support of these aims, we solicit the co-operation of all patriotic citizens, who, sick of the degradation of politics, desire by constitutional methods to establish justice, to preserve liberty, to extend the spirit of fraternity, and to elevate humanity.

The Prohibition Convention of 1888 was the most notable assembly of Prohibitionists ever held in the country. It met at Indianapolis on the 20th of May, with several thousands in attendance outside of the delegates. According to the report of the committee on credentials there were 1029 delegates present. Among those who participated in the proceedings of the convention were James Black, the party candidate for President in 1872, Neal Dow, who was the nominee in 1880, and John P. St. John, who led the Prohibitionists in the Presidential contest of 1884. John P. St. John was the permanent president, and Clinton B. Fisk, of New Jersey, was nominated for President, and John A. Brooks, of Missouri, for Vice-President by acclamation without the formality of a ballot. The following platform was adopted with great enthusiasm:

The Prohibition party, in national convention assembled, acknowledging Almighty God as the source of all power in government, do hereby declare:

1. That the manufacture, importation, exportation, transportation, and sale of alcoholic beverages should be made public crimes, and punished as such.

2. That such prohibition must be secured through amendments of our National and State Constitutions, enforced by adequate laws adequately supported by administrative authority; and to this end the organization of the Prohibition party is imperatively demanded in State and nation.

3. That any form of license, taxation, or regulation of the liquor traffic is contrary to good government; that any party which supports regulation, license, or tax enters into alliance with such traffic and becomes the actual foe of the State’s welfare, and that we arraign the Republican and Democratic parties for their persistent attitude in favor of the licensed iniquity, whereby they oppose the demand of the people for prohibition, and, through open complicity with the liquor cause, defeat the enforcement of law.

4. For the immediate abolition of the internal revenue system, whereby our National Government is deriving support from our greatest national vice.

5. That, an adequate public revenue being necessary, it may properly be raised by impost duties and by an equitable assessment upon the property and the legitimate business of the country, but import duties should be so reduced that no surplus shall be accumulated in the treasury, and that the burdens of taxation shall be removed from foods, clothing, and other comforts and necessaries of life.

6. That civil service appointments for all civil offices, chiefly clerical in their duties, should be based upon moral, intellectual and physical qualifications, and not upon party service or party necessity.

7. That the right of suffrage rests on no mere circumstance of race, color, sex or nationality, and that where, from any cause, it has been held from citizens who are of suitable age and mentally and morally qualified for the exercise of an intelligent ballot, it should be restored by the people through the Legislatures of the several States, on such educational basis as they may deem wise.

8. For the abolition of polygamy and the establishment of uniform laws governing marriage and divorce.

9. For prohibiting all combinations of capital to control and to increase the cost of products for popular consumption.

10. For the preservation and defence of the Sabbath as a civil institution without oppressing any who religiously observe the same on any other day than the first day of the week.

11. That arbitration is the Christian, wise, and economic method of settling national differences, and the same method should, by judicious legislation, be applied to the settlement of disputes between large bodies of employés and employers; that the abolition of the saloons would remove the burdens, moral, physical, pecuniary, and social, which now oppress labor and rob it of its earnings, and would prove to be the wise and successful way of promoting labor reform; and we invite labor and capital to unite with us for the accomplishment thereof; that monopoly in land is a wrong to the people, and the public land should be reserved to actual settlers, and that men and women should receive equal wages for equal work.

12. That our immigration laws should be so enforced as to prevent the introduction into our country of all convicts, inmates of other dependent institutions, and of others physically incapacitated for self-support, and that no person should have the ballot in any State who is not a citizen of the United States.

Recognizing and declaring that prohibition of the liquor traffic has become the dominant issue in national politics, we invite to full party fellowship all those who, on this one dominant issue, are with us agreed, in the full belief that this party can and will remove sectional differences, promote national unity, and insure the best welfare of our entire land.

Another convention was held at Washington on the 14th of August, composed of a few fragments of the old American party. The fact that it polled in the entire country only 1590 votes for its candidates showed that it was practically without constituents. It was natural enough that the national convention of a party made up almost wholly of ambitious and discordant leaders should have a split, and they managed to get up a row and have a secession of the delegates representing a number of States on the simple question of how the delegates should vote. The seceders, however, made no nominations. After the dissatisfied delegates had left the convention, only the delegates from New York and California remained, but they were 80 of the 126 delegates all told. They nominated James Langdon Curtis, of New York, for President, and James R. Greer, of Tennessee, for Vice-President. Mr. Greer declined the nomination, and I can find no record of any one having been chosen in his place. The following platform was adopted:

_Resolved_, That all law-abiding citizens of the United States of America, whether native or foreign born, are politically equals (except as provided by the Constitution), and all are entitled to, and should receive, the full protection of the laws.

_Resolved_, That the Constitution of the United States should be so amended as to prohibit the Federal and State Governments from conferring upon any person the right to vote unless such person be a citizen of the United States.

_Resolved_, That we are in favor of fostering and encouraging American industries of every class and kind, and declare that the assumed issue “Protection” _vs._ “Free Trade” is a fraud and a snare. The best “protection” is that which protects the labor and life blood of the Republic from the degrading competition with and contamination by imported foreigners; and the most dangerous “free trade” is that in paupers, criminals, communists, and anarchists, in which the balance has always been against the United States.

_Whereas_, One of the greatest evils of unrestricted foreign immigration is the reduction of the wages of the American working-man and working-woman to the level of the underfed and underpaid labor of foreign countries; therefore,

_Resolved_, That we demand that no immigrant shall be admitted into the United States without a passport obtained from the American consul at the port from which he sails; that no passport shall be issued to any pauper, criminal, or insane person, or to any person who, in the judgment of the consul, is not likely to become a desirable citizen of the United States; and that for each immigrant passport there shall be collected by the consul issuing the same the sum of one hundred dollars to be by him paid into the Treasury of the United States.

_Resolved_, That the present naturalization laws of the United States should be unconditionally repealed.

_Resolved_, That the soil of America should belong to Americans; that no alien non-resident should be permitted to own real estate in the United States; and that the realty possessions of the resident alien should be limited in value and area.

_Resolved_, That no flag shall float on any public buildings, municipal, State, or national, in the United States, except the municipal, State, or national flag of the United States—the flag of the stars and stripes.

_Resolved_, That we reassert the American principles of absolute freedom of religious worship and belief, the permanent separation of Church and State; and we oppose the appropriation of public money or property to any church, or institution administered by a church. We maintain that all church property should be subject to taxation.