DEMOCRATIC STATE PLATFORM,

Adopted at Milwaukee, August 27, 1890.

We, the democrats of Wisconsin, in convention assembled, declare our continued opposition to all forms of paternalism and centralization.

The republican party is the exponent of these dangerous principles.

By the McKinley bill it seeks to burden the masses with additional high protective charges for the benefit of the favored few.

By lavish expenditure of an immense levy of unnecessary taxes it strives to corrupt the

voters.

By the force bill it endeavors to make its political power self-perpetuating, in placing congressional elections directly under its control.

By its lavish support of the speaker of the present house of representatives in his arbitrary assumption of authority, it attempts to disfranchise its political opponents.

By these and other acts it manifests its disregard of just principles of government, its distrust of the people and its determination to override every right in its efforts to maintain its supremacy.

Extravagance everywhere marks republican rule.

The present national administration has already exhausted the large surplus received from its democratic predecessor, and now, with constantly growing revenues, is threatened with a deficit.

The whole country is burdened with oppressive war taxes, enhancing the cost of the necessaries of life.

The people, and especially the agricultural and laboring classes, ask relief from these unjust burdens imposed in the interest of monopolies.

The republican party answers this request by legislation increasing the tariff. The democratic party insists that the present tariff be reduced and taxation lowered to meet the just requirements of necessary public expenses.

REPUBLICAN EXTRAVAGANCE.

In state, as in national affairs, the republican party exhibits extravagance, corruption and unjustifiable interference with individual and constitutional rights.

The great increase in state expenses and the creation of an army of needless officers, paid out of the state treasury to perform republican party service, show that the same disposition to impose on the people and squander their money for party gain prevails in Madison as in Washington.

The appropriation by state treasurers of the interest on state funds for their own gain is an example of republican mismanagement.

The interest on these funds is the money of the people, as the interest on a private trust fund is a recognized portion of the fund by which it is earned; yet for years the republican party has permitted state treasurers of its creation to appropriate such interest to their own uses.

We pledge that the democratic party, if entrusted with the state government, will reduce state expenses to the point necessary for an economical administration of state affairs; that it will cover into the state treasury all interest on state funds and vigorously prosecute legal proceedings to recover interest moneys heretofore taken by state

treasurers.

SUMPTUARY LAWS OPPOSED.

We oppose sumptuary laws as unnecessary and unwise interference with individual liberty.

CHILD LABOR.

We oppose the employment in shops, factories or other places of business, of children under 14 years of age, and favor stringent laws prohibiting such employment.

REPEAL THE BENNETT LAW.

We oppose any division or diversion of public school funds to sectarian uses. The democratic party created the public school system of this state and will always jealously guard and maintain it.

The Bennett law is a local manifestation of the settled republican policy of paternalism. Favoring laws providing for the compulsory attendance at school of all children we believe that the school law in force prior to the passage of the Bennett law guaranteed to all children of the state an opportunity for education, and in this essential feature was stronger than the Bennett law.

The "

underlying principles " of the Bennett law is needless interference with parental rights and liberty of conscience.

The provisions for its enforcement place the accused at the mercy of the school directors and deny his right to trial by jury and according to the law of the land.

To mask this tyrannical invasion of individual and constitutional rights, the shallow plea of defense of the English language is advanced.

The history of this state, largely peopled with foreign born citizens, demonstrates the fact that natural causes and the necessities of the situation are advancing the growth of the English language to the greatest possible extent.

We, therefore, denounce the law as unnecessary, unwise, unconstitutional, un-American and undemocratic, and demand its repeal."

NATIONAL PROHIBITION PLATFORM.

[Adopted at Indianapolis, May 31, 1888.]

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

1. That the manufacture, importation, exportation, transportation and sale of alcoholic beverages shall be made public crimes, and prohibited 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 by license or tax, enters into an 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 the 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 import duties, but import duties should be so reduced that no suplus should be accumulated in the treasury, and the burdens of taxation should be removed from foods, clothing and other comforts and necessaries of life, and imposed upon such articles of import as will give protection both to the manufacturer, employer and producing labor against the competition of the world.

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 or nationality, and that where, from any cause, it has been withheld 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 mar riage and divorce.

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

10. For the preservation and defense 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 employes and employers; that the abolition of the saloon 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 accomplish ment thereof.

12. That monopoly in the land is a wrong to the people, and public land should be reserved to actual settlers, and that men and women should receive equal wages for equalwork.

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

14. 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 native land. Resolutions were adopted by the convention favoring the payment of pensions to exsoldiers and sailors, indorsing the work of the prohibition army of the blue and gray; con

demning the democratic and republican parties for denying the right of self-government to the 600,000 people of Dakota, and upon motion of a colored delegate from North Carolina, a resolution declaring "that we hold that all men are born free and equal and should be secured in their rights."

PROHIBITION STATE PLATFORM.

[Adopted at Madison July 22, 1890.]

The prohibition party of Wisconsin, in convention assembled, adopt the following platform:

1st. We declare the traffic in intoxicating liquors to be the great and constant source of crime, pauperism, insanity, municipal misrule and political corruption, the enemy of labor and agriculture, and the greatest cause of danger to American institutions.

2d. We insist on state and national prohibition, and the enforcement thereof, through a party thoroughly in sympathy with the same.

3d. We regard all forms of license as a compromise with, and legal recognition and protection of the liquor traffic.

4th. We favor legislation that will insure to the laborer and farmer a fair share of the profits of their labor, and check the tendency to divert the wealth of the many into the hands of the few.

5th. We favor a liberal public education in the English language, enforced and supervised by the state.

6th. We favor a more careful and just imposition of taxes, a vigilant supervision of corporations, the prevention of combinations to oppress the people and increase the price of the necessaries of life, the arbitration of all differences between capital and labor, and a careful execution of the new ballot law of this state.

7th. We declare that no citizen should be denied, the right of suffrage on account of

sex.

8th. We recognize the Woman's Christian Temperance Union and the other temperance organizations, as powerful allies in the suppression of the liquor traffic, and bid them God speed.