POLITICAL PLATFORMS AND COMMITTEES. DEMOCRATIC PLATFORM. State Convention, 1894. 1. We, the democrats of Wisconsin, in convention assembled, reaffirm the principles of the national democratic platform of 1892. 2. The present financial distress under which the country has suffered and is still suffer. ing, is the logical and necessary consequence of republican class legislation and misman. agement. 3. The new tariff affords the country substantial relief and is a broad stride in the direc tion of accomplishing the results that the democratic party has so long contended for. 4. By the repeal of the republican measure known as the Sherman silver law, the money of the country is restored to a sound basis, and no proposed legislation should be enter tained which does not provide that every dollar issued by the government should be of equal intrinsic and interchangeable value. 5. The constitution forbids discrimination based on religious tests. The A. P. A. and like societies violating this fundamental principle, find their natural place in the ranks of republicans, who are careless of constitutional rights, and will meet with the same rebuke at the hands of the people as the kindred movement which found expression in the Bennett law: and the democratic party is unalterably opposed to the principles of the so-called American Protective Association and kindred un-American organizations. 6. We emphasize the fact that labor has the same right to legal organization and protection as capital, and that provision should be made by arbitration or otherwise for equitable and peaceable adjustment of the differences between the wage earner and his employer 7. We denounce as unjust and oppressive the system of maintaining Pullman stores practiced by many employers of labor and recommend the enactment of stringent prohibitory laws calculated to prevent a continuance thereof. 8. The income tax feature of the tariff bill meets our approval. 9. The administration of President Cleveland has been wise, patriotic and courageous, and commends itself to the democracy of this state. 10. The action of the democratic senators and representatives of Wisconsin has our hearty approbation. We brand as treasonable to democratic pledges, the action of those senators who were elected as tariff reformers but who deserted the principles of our party and allied themselves with our enemies to thwart the expressed will of the people demanding wholesome and effective tariff legislation. 11. The democracy of Wisconsin has completely fulfilled its pledges to the people in its business- ike management of state affairs. It has returned to the treasury of the state the sum of $427, 902,55 of the money unlawfully taken by republican ex-treasurers and has put into judgment the further sum of $181,015.68, making a total of $608,918.23, thus evidencing its intention that no rights of the people be relinquished. It has reduced the state tax for the present year in the sum of $742,570.00, or over 75 per cent.-an accomplishment heretofore unheard of in the history of any state, and doubly welcome in these hard times, induced by republican misrule. It has paid into the treasury as interest received on public funds deposited in bank the sum of $100,000. By wise and judicious investments and permitting no selfish interest to come in conflict with duty, it has increased the earnings upon the school funds since it has been in power in the sum of $161,364, over the earnings of the preceding four years of republican mismanagement. It has shown its devotion to the "The little school house," by expending in the advancement of our educational interests $1,174,765 more than the republican administration expended for the same purpose in the preceding four years. It has levied by way of taxes $147,345 less than the republicans levied from 1887 to 1890. Of this magnificent record every democrat of the state may feel justly proud. PEOPLE'S PARTY STATE PLATFORM Adopted July 4, 1894. Our country, blessed with an abundance of natural wealth and all products needed to maintain life, presents the strange anomaly of widespread misery and destitution in the midst of plenty. When men, women and children starve during bountiful harvests, it furnishes positive evidence that our system of law and society must be radically wrong to permit such barbarous conditions, and that it is the imperative duty of every humane and progressive person to study the cause of the evil and apply the proper remedy. When the people's party in national convention in Omaha, declared that the nation had "been brought to the verge of moral, political and material ruin," and that "corruption dominates the ballot box, the legislatures, the congress, and touches even the ermine of the bench," the declaration was met with shouts of derision and our party was denounced as "calamity howlers." But after two short years events have justified our statement and demonstrated also what was said at that time, that the two old parties in their struggle for power and plunder "have permitted the existing dreadful conditions to develop without serious effort to prevent or restrain them," and that "they propose to drown the outcries of a plundered people with the uproar of a sham battle over the tariff." We assert that both the old parties are equally responsible for the existing state of affairs, as their leaders are of one mind on all public questions except the offices and the tariff; but, as the collections for customs duties in the last report show only $203.355.017, or, estimating our population at 68,000,000, less than $3 per capita per annum, the tariff discussion can have little bearing on the disturbed condition of the country. A radical evolution into better conditions is absolutely necessary, and this can be brought about in a civilized state only by peaceable means in the judicious use of the ballot. Strikes and boycotts, like wars and other violent methods of settling disputes, though often deemed necessary, always result in great harm and injury to all concerned, and could be entirely abolished under a system of universal co-operation as is thoroughly demonstrated in our post-office system, in which neither strikes or boycotts ever occurred. Neither would there be occasion for striking or boycotting on our railroads if they were owned by the government. The people's party of Wisconsin demand equal rights and equal privileges for all the men and women of the country and endorses the platform of the national convention adopted at Omaha, Neb., July 4, 1892, as quoted below: "We demand a national currency, sound, safe and flexible, issued by the general govern. ment, a full legal tender for all debts, public and private, and that without the use of banking corporations; a just, equitable and efficient means of distribution to the people, at a tax not to exceed 2 per cent. per annum, to be provided as set forth in the sub-treasury plan of the farmers' alliance, or a better system; also by payments in discharge of its obligations for public improvements. "We demand free and unlimited coinage of silver and gold at the present ratio of 10 to 1. We demand that the amount of the circulating medium be speedily increased to not less than $50 per capita. We demand a graduated income tax. We believe that the money of the country should be kept as much as possible in the hands of the people, and hence demand that all state and national revenues shall be limited to the necessary expenses of the government, economically and honestly administered. "We demand that postal savings banks be established by the government, for the safe deposit of the earnings of the people and to facilitate exchange. Transportation being a means of exchange and public necessity, the government should own and operate the railroads in the interest of the people. The telegraph and telephone, like the post office system being a necessity for the transmission of news, should be owned and operated by the government in the interest of the people. "The land, including all the natural sources of wealth, is the heritage of all the people, and should not be monopolized for speculative purposes; alien ownership of land should be prohibited All lands now held by railroads and other corporations in excess of their actual needs, and all lands now owned by aliens should be reclaimed by the government and held for actual settlers only." This convention also endorses the demands proposed by the American federation of labor at its annual session in Chicago last December, as follows: 1. Compulsory education. 2. Direct legislation. 3 A legal eight hour work day (in industrial pursuits). 4. Sanitary inspection of workshop, mine and home. 5. Liability of employers for injury to health, body and life. 6. Abolition of the contract system in all public works. 7. The abolition of the sweating system. 8. Municipal ownership of street cars, and gas and electric plants for public distribution of light, heat and power. 9. The nationalization of telegraphs, tel phones, railroads and mines. 10. The collective ownership by the people of all means of production and distribution. (By which we mean that when an industry becomes so centralized as to assume the form of a trust or monop oly and hence a menace to the best interests of the people, such industry should be con ducted by the government.) 11. The principle of referendum in all legislation. In addition we make the following demands: 1. The abolition of the system of taxing people on their debts, by providing that all mortgages be deducted from the assessment for taxes. 2. The exemption of a reasonable amount of improvements on land, so that people be no longer punished for being industrious and economical. 3. That the state furnish a uniform system of text-books to the pupils of the public schools at the cost of production. 4. That the public authorities furnish employment to all who need it at reasonable wages. 5. That convict labor be utilized in the manufacture of binding twine to be furnished to consumers at cost. PROHIBITION STATE PLATFORM, 1894. Realizing that the greatest danger in American politics to-day is the corrupt influence of the saloon, the prohibition party of Wisconsin, in convention assembled, June 13, 1894, ac knowledging our reliance upon Divine Providence and the sovereignty of the American citizenship, do demand: 1. That the traffic in intoxicating liquors as a beverage be prohibited and suppressed, and that all laws making either federal, state or municipal governments partners in its profits be repealed. 2 That residence within the nation for such time and education to such an extent as will insure intelligent citizenship, precede the right of franchise, which should not be denied on account of sex. 3. That all money necessary for the business of the country be issued directly by the federal government, in such forms and upon such basis as will give an ample circulating medium, and that the same be a legal tender for all debts. 4. That the government establish savings banks in connection with all important postoffices. 5. That our laws be so amended and enforced as to greatly restrict undesirable emigra tion. 6. That liberal public education in the English language be enforced by the state, and that no public funds be given for private schools. 7. That just pensions be granted to our disabled veterans. To the end that the reforms indicated by the foregoing principles may be insured by just legislation, through a party committed to the best interests of the people, we invite votera to join with us in the work and purposes of the prohibition party. THE REPUBLICAN STATE PLATFORM. Adopted July 25, 1894. We reaffirm the platform adopted at the national republican convention, and also the platform adopted by the state republican convention in 1892 and renew our pledges to the people as set forth therein. The present condition of the country resulting from the change in its industrial policy inaugurated by the democratic party, the hundreds of factories and workshops cl sed down, the thousands of men out of employment, are the best witnesses which can be brought to testify to the wisdom of the policy of protection to home industries which has always been sustained and fostered by the republican party. The republican party is the friend of both labor and capital. Each is indispensable to the other. The party had its origin in opposition to the enslavement and degradation of labor, and under its policy the workingmen of the United States received a higher rate of wages and attained a degree of comfort and influence such as they had never previously enjoyed. It will employ whatever authority it possesses to promote all just demands of the wageworker, and support whatever practical measures can be devised for the amelioration of his condition. We recognize the right of laborers to organize, using all honorable measures for the purpose of dignifying their condition and placing them on an equal basis with capita!, to the end that they may fully realize the fact that they are friends and are equally necessary to the prosperity of the people. The republican party is in favor of honest money. We are unalterably opposed to any scheme that will give to this country a debased or depreciated currency. We favor the use of silver as a currency to the extent only that it can be circulated on a parity with gold. The republican party is a party of religious liberty, and absolute non-sectarianism, of entire separation of church and state, of free common schools and of the utmost independence of individual thought, speech and action within the law. |