"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

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.

in every way appropriate for national legisIlation with a view of safeguarding the lives of miners, lessening the waste of essential resources, and promoting the economic development of mining, which, along with agriculture, must in the future, even more than in the past, serve as the very foundation of our national prosperity and welfare, and our international commerce.

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. To 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.

The Progressive party declares for di rect primaries for the nomination of state and national officers, for nation wide pref

"We urge upon Congress the speedy enactment of laws for the greater security of life and property at sea; and we favor the repeal of all laws, and the abrogation of so much of our treaties with other nations as provide for the arrest and imprisonment of seamen charged with desertion and violation of their contract of service. Such laws and treaties are un-American, and violate the spirit, if not the letter, of the Constitution of the United States.

"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."

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

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

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.

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.

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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 Servants 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.