treated with rigid impartiality, and that injunctions should not be issued in any case in which an injunction would not issue if no industrial disputes were involved. ""The expanding organization of industry makes it essential that there should be no abridgment of the right of the wageearners and producers to organize for the protection of wages and the improvement of labor conditions, to the end that such labor organizations, and their members, should not be regarded as illegal combinations in restraint of trade. "We pledge the Democratic party to the enactment of a law creating a department of labor, represented separately in the President's cabinet, in which department shall be included the subject of mines and mining.' "We pledge the Democratic party, so far as the Federal jurisdiction extends, to an employes' compensation law providing adequate indemnity for injury to body or loss of life. "We rejoice in the inheritance of mineral resources unequaled in extent, variety, or value, and in the development of a mining industry unequaled in its magnitude and importance. We honor the men who, in their hazardous toil underground, daily risk their lives in extracting and preparing for our use the products of the mine, so essential to the industries, the commerce, and the comfort of the people of this country. And we pledge ourselves to the extension of the work of the Bureau of Mines "The law pertaining to the civil service should be honestly and rigidly enforced, to the end that merit and ability shall be the standard of appointment and promotion. rather than service rendered to a political party; and we favor a reorganization of the civil service, with adequate compensation commensurate with the class of work performed, for all officers and employes; we also recommend the extension to all classes of civil service employes of the benefits of the provisions of the employers' liability law; we also recognize the right of direct petition to Congress by employes for the redress of grievances." PROGRESSIVE PARTY'S We of the Progressive party here dedi. cate ourselves to the fulfillment of the duty laid upon us by our fathers to maintain that government of the people, by the people and for the people, whose foundations they laid. This country belongs to the people who inhabit it. Political parties exist to secure responsible government and to execute the will of the people. From these great tasks both the old parties have Behind the ostensible govturned aside. ernment sits enthroned an invisible government, owing no allegiance and acknowledging no responsibility to the people. destroy this invisible government, to dissolve the unholy alliance between corrupt business and corrupt politics, is the first task of the statesmanship of the day. To The Progressive party declares for di rect primaries for the nomination of state and national officers, for nation wide pref DECLARATION. erential primaries for candidates for the presidency, for the direct election of United States senators by the people, and we urge on the states the policy of the short ballot with responsibility to the people, secured by the initiative, referendum and recall. The Progressive party, believing that no people can justly claim to be a true de mocracy which denies political rights on account of sex, pledges itself to the task of securing equal suffrage to men and women alike. The Progressive party demands such restrictions of the power of the courts as shall leave to the people the ultimate authority to determine fundamental questions of social welfare and public policy. To secure this end it pledges itself to provide: First. That when an act passed under the police power of the state is held unconstitutional under the state constitution by the courts the people, after an ample interval for deliberation, shall have an opportunity to vote on the question whether they desire the act to become law notwithstanding such decision. Second. That every decision of the highest appellate court of a state declaring an act of the legislature unconstitutional on the ground of its violation of the federal constitution shall be subject to the same review by the supreme court of the United States as is now accorded to decisions sustaining such legislation. We believe that the issuance of injunctions in cases arising out of labor disputes should be prohibited when such injunctions would not apply when no labor disputes existed. We also believe that a person cited for contempt in labor disputes, except when such contempt was committed in the actual presence of the court or so near thereto as to interfere with the proper administration of justice, should have a right to trial by jury. The supreme duty of the nation is the conservation of human resources. We pledge ourselves to work unceasingly for: Effective legislation looking to the prevention of industrial accidents, occupational diseases, overwork, involuntary unemployment and other injurious effects incident to modern industry. The fixing of minimum safety and health standards for the various occupations, the prohibition of child labor, minimum wage standards for working women, the general prohibition of night work for women and the establishment of an eight hour day for women and young persons, one day's rest in seven for all wageworkers, the eight hour day in continuous twenty-four hour industries, the abolition of the convict contract labor system, substituting a system of prison production for governmental consumption only and the application of prisoners' earnings to the support of their dependent families, publicity as to wages, hours and conditions of labor, full reports upon industrial accidents and diseases and the opening to public inspection of all tallies, weights, measures and check systems on labor products. We pledge our party to establish a department of labor. SOCIALIST PARTY'S DECLARATION. All political parties are the expression of economic class interests. All other parties than the Socialist party represent one or another group of the ruling capitalist class. Their political conflicts reflect merely superficial rivalries between competing capitalist groups. However they result, these conflicts have no issue of real value to the workers. Whether the Democrats or Republicans win politically, it is the capitalist class that is victorious economically. The Socialist party is the political expression of the economic interests of the workers. Its defeats have been their defeats and its victories their victories. It is a party founded on the science and laws of social development. It proposes that, since all social necessities today are socially produced, the means of their production and distribution shall be socially owned and democratically controlled. As measures calculated to strengthen the working class in its fight for the realization of its ultimate aim, the cooperative commonwealth, and to increase its power of resistance against capitalist oppression, we advocate and pledge ourselves and our elected officers to the following program: The collective ownership and democratic management of railroads, wire and wireless telegraphs and telephones, express services, steamboat lines and all other social means of transportation and communication and of all large-scale industries. The immediate government relief of the unemployed by the extension of all useful public works. All persons employed on such works to be engaged directly by the government under a workday of not more than eight hours and at not less than the prevailing union wages. The government also to establish employment bureaus; to lend money to states and municipalities without interest for the purpose of carrying on public works, and to take such other measures within its power as will lessen the widespread misery of the workers caused by the misrule of the capitalist class. The conservation of human resources, particularly of the lives and well-being of the workers and their families: By shortening the workday in keeping with the increased productiveness of machinery. By securing to every worker a rest period of not less than a day and a half in each week. By securing a more effective inspection of workshops, factories and mines. By forbidding the employment of children under sixteen years of age. By the cooperative organization of the industries in the federal penitentiaries for the benefit of the convicts and their dependents. By forbidding the interstate transportation of the products of child labor, of convict labor and of all uninspected factories and mines. By abolishing the profit system in government work, and substituting either the direct hire of labor or the awarding of contracts to cooperative groups of workers. By establishing minimum wage scales. By abolishing official charity and substituting a non-contributory system of oldage pensions, a general system of insurance by the state of all its members against unemployment and invalidism and a system of compulsory insurance by employers of their workers, without cost to the latter, against industrial diseases, accidents and death. Political Demands. The absolute freedom of press, speech and assemblage. The adoption of a graduated income tax, the increase of the rates of the present corporation tax and the extension of inheritance taxes, graduated in proportion to the value of the estate and to nearness of kin-the proceeds of these taxes to the employed in the socialization of industry. The abolition of the monopoly ownership of patents and the substitution of collective ownership, with direct rewards to inventors by premiums or royalties. Unrestricted and equal suffrage for men and women. The adoption of the initiative, referendum and recall and of proportional representation, nationally as well as locally. The abolition of the Senate and of the veto power of the President. The election of the President and the Vice-President by direct vote of the people. The abolition of the power usurped by the Supreme Court of the United States to pass upon the constitutionality of the legislation enacted by Congress. National laws to be repealed only by act of Congress or by a referendum vote of the whole people. The abolition of the present restrictions upon the amendment of the constitution, so that that instrument may be made amendable by a majority of the voters in the country. The granting of the right of suffrage in the District of Columbia with representation in Congress and a democratic form of municipal government for purely local affairs. The extension of democratic government to all United States territory. The enactment of further measures for general education and particularly for vocational education in useful pursuits. The Bureau of Education to be made a department. The enactment of further measures for the conservation of health. The creation of an independent bureau of health, with such restrictions as will secure full liberty to all schools of practice. The separation of the present Bureau of Labor from the Department of Commerce and Labor and its elevation to the rank of a department. Abolition of all federal district courts and the United States Circuit Courts of Appeals. State courts to have jurisdiction in all cases arising between citizens of the several states and foreign corporations. The election of all judges for short terms. The immediate curbing of the power of the courts to issue injunctions. The free administration of the law. The calling of a convention for the revision of the constitution of the United States. FOR STATE CONTROL OF RAILROADS. At the thirty-eighth annual congress of the Amalgamated Society of Railway Serv ants held in Carlisle, England, the representatives of 120,000 workers unanimously adopted the following resolutions: "That this congress having considered the report of the Parliamentary Committee on Railway Amalgamations and Working Agreements, while accepting its recommendations as a mitigation for the present situation in regard to the conditions of employes in cases of amalgamation and working agreement, considers that no satisfactory solution of the position can be found outside national ownership and control of the railroads." The congress also adopted resolutions in favor of an eight hour day, condemning the use of soldiers during strikes. Resolutions were also passed declaring for a national strike unless the government refrained from taking sides in strikes. "The men who labor spend their strength in the daily struggle for bread, to maintain the strength they struggle with. "So they live in a daily circulation of sorrow, living but to work, and working but to live, as if daily bread were the only end of wearisome life, and wearisome life the only occasion of daily bread."-Defoe in Robinson Crusoe. This expert knows decoration from mansion to cottage; from city skyscraper to country store. He knows goods and can speak from intelligent experience in their use. You know Bahlhorn and that he represents the best element in the Brotherhood, that his opinions are not for sale and cannot be purchased. Read in the December Number what he says. Alabastine The Beautiful Wall Tint has not always met the requirements of Mr. Bahlhorn. While willing to admit the many commendable features always possessed by the goods, he will tell you that in common with many other craftsmen he objected to the workings of Alabastine, particularly to the setting if left standing over night. So strong had that prejudice become that when his attention was called to the fact that this had been entirely overcome in the modern Alabastine, he "had to be shown." Some practical men today are opposing the use of Alabastine honestly thinking the goods will not work to please them and are in their working qualities the same as they may have used years ago, or that their fathers may have used. Alabastine as now manufactured spreads freely, flows together making a perfect wall and may be kept in good working condition for days. Alabastine is a time saver and a money saver. Your customers know about Alabastine, its advantages, and want it used on their walls. They are willing to pay a good price for good work. Fill out the coupon at the bottom of this page and let us tell you how we can help you get business and why it will pay you to be listed up as an Alabastine Man in your town. Do this to benefit yourself, not us. ALABASTINE COMPANY TURNING IRON INTO GOLD (The Pittsburgh Leader showed courage in publishing the following editorial. So bold a statement of plain facts, so frank an expression of elementary economic truths is not found often in the daily press. We might complain of the writer's failure to recognize the power and efficiency of labor's other weapon-the trade union-and he might retort by criticising our strange neglect of the ballot. But what's the use of fussing over the relative merits of the two weapons? We need and must use both to win the good fight. Schwab differs from other employers only in frankly admitting things they know but keep mum about. He believes the working class are so accustomed to provide food, clothing and shelter for everybody-themselves last and least-so used to "giving up" all they earn but a bare pittance, that they will continue to the end of the chapter. We think that Mr. Schwab is doing a little day dreaming-an inexcusable thing for so practical a man.--Ed.) 66 "Everything is begun by the hand of labor and finished by the hand of labor. "Labor has produced all the wealth of the world.'" "Do you think the words quoted were spoken by some labor organization orator or soap box Socialist? Doesn't it sound as if it might have come from those sources? Don't those quoted words open and close the case for labor as well as any Socialist or labor union man ever did-or better? "Those words were spoken by Charles M. Schwab, one of A. Carnegie's young partners, now owner of the Bethlehem steel works, at a dinner given in his honor a few nights ago in Philadelphia. "Mr. Schwab made his statements to try to prove that if the present piratical system of big business is changed it will be labor that will suffer, and labor only, because labor is all there is to the case. "But his position need not affect the simple straightforwardness of his exact words. "Unwittingly he made out a strong case for labor, because it comes from an open enemy of labor. "The only reason why labor doesn't get what it earns is because the laborer has not made up his mind that he wants it.. "Of course, he howls and curses because he gets so little, and then curses and howls some more because he doesn't get what he asks for for the simple asking. "When he understands that he wants more because he produces all of it and is entitled to it, and decides to get it-he will get it. "But he'll never get it for the asking, no matter in what form the question is put. He must take it. "In the hands of every laborer there is a weapon more potent and more feared than the Krag-Jorgensen rifle. Rifles can be met with rifles, but the ballot is a weapon of which the laborer holds millions more than the man who gets without earning from the man who earns without getting. "That is the weapon for the laborer to use when he wants to get his due. That will bring it. Nothing else will. "When men like Schwab declare that the laborer produces it all, and other men like Schwab applaud the words, surely the laborer ought to be willing to take them at their word, and get some of the wealth produced. "But the laborer turns it all over to the other fellows, and then howls and curses because the other fellows take it." THE GOLDEN GRAIN. The golden harvest of the year Is garnered gladly once again; But there are those that look in vain For the fair fruit of the full ear. For them no happy harvest home No weighted wains beneath the treesNo laden ship from distant seas, Swift, bearing food across the foam. What is the barrier between The hungry and the bread they crave? Can neither priest nor statesman save A people from a fate so mean? Can man, who, leaving gods behind, Has weighed the planets in his hand, Nor gather grain from off the land, And share it justly with his kind? |