and the prompt payment of the public debt. We want that money which saved our country in time of war, and which has given it prosperity and happiness in peace. We condemn the retirement of the fractional currency and the small denomination of green backs and demand their restoration. We demand the issue of the hoards of money now locked up in the United States Treasury, by applying them to the payment of the public debt now due.

2. We denounce as dangerous to our Republican institutions, those methods and policies of the Democratic and Republican parties which have sanctioned or permitted the establishment of land, railroad, money and other gigantic corporate monopolies; and we demand such governmental action as may be necessary to take from such monopolies the powers they have so corruptly and unjustly usurped and restore them to the people, to whom they belong.

3. The public lands being the natural inheritance of the people, we denounce that policy which has granted to corporations vast tracts of land, and we demand that immediate and vigorous measures be taken to reclaim from such corporations, for the people's use and benefit, all such land grants as have been forfeited by reason of non-fulfilment of contract, or that may have been wrongfully acquired by corrupt legislation, and that such reclaimed lands and other public domain be henceforth held as a sacred trust, to be granted only to actual settlers in limited quantities; and we also demand that the alien ownership of land, individual or corporate, shall be prohibited.

4. We demand congressional regulation of inter-state_commerce. We denounce "pooling," stock-watering and discrimination in rates and charges, and demand that Congress shall correct these abuses, even if necessary, by the construction of national railroads. We also demand the establishment of a government postal telegraph system.

5. All private property, all forms of money and obligations to pay money, should bear their just proportion of the public taxes. We demand a graduated income tax.

6. We demand the amelioration of the condition of labor by enforcing the sanitary law in industrial establishments, by the abolition of the convict labor system, by a rigid inspection of mines and factories, by a reduction of the hours of labor in industrial estsblishments, by fostering educational institutions and by abolishing child labor.

7. We condemn all importations of contracted labor, made with a view of reducing to starvation wages the workingmen of this country, and demand laws for its prevention.

8. We insist upon a constitutional amendment reducing the terms of United States Senators.

9. We demand such rules for the government of Congress as shall place all representatives of the people upon an equal footing, and take away from committees a veto power greater than that of the President.

10. The question as to the amount of duties to be levied upon various articles of import has been agitated and quarreled over and has divided communities for nearly a hundred years. It is not now and never will be settled unless by the abolition

of indirect taxation. It is a convenient issue-always raised when the people are excited over abuses in their midst. While we favor a wise revision of the tariff laws, with a view to raising a revenue from luxuries rather than necessaries, we insist that as an economic question its importance is insignificant as compared with financial issues; for whereas we have suffered our worst panics under low and also under high tariff, we have never suffered from a panic nor seen our factories and workshops closed while the volume of money in circulation was adequate to the needs of commerce. Give our farmers and manufacturers money as cheap as you now give it to our bankers, and they can pay high wages to labor, and compete with all the world.

11. For the purpose of testing the sense of the people upon the subject, we are in favor of submitting to a vote of the people an amendment to the Constitution in favor of suffrage regardless of sex, and also on the subject of the liquor traffic.

12. All disabled soldiers of the late war should be equitably pensioned, and we denounce the policy of keeping a small army of office-holders whose only business is to prevent, on technical grounds, deserving soldiers from obtaining justice from the government they helped to save.

13. As our name indicates, we are a National party, knowing no East, no West, no North, no South. Having no sectional prejudices, we can properly place in nomination for the high offices of state as candidates, men from any section of the Union.

14. We appeal to all people who believe in our principles to aid us by voice, pen and votes.

NATIONAL PROHIBITION PLATFORM.

ADOPTED AT PITTSBURG, PA., JULY 23, 1884.

First The Prohibition Home Protection party, in national convention assembled, acknowledge Almighty God as the rightful sovereign of all men, from whom the first powers of government are derived, to whose laws human enactments should conform, and that peace, prosperity and happiness only can come to the people when their laws of the National and State Government are in accord with the divine will.

Second-That the importation, manufacture, supply and sale of alcoholic beverages, created and maintained by the laws of the National and State Governments, during the entire history of such laws, is everywhere shown to be the promoting cause of intemperance, with resulting crime and pauperism, making large demands upon public and private charity, imposing large and unjust taxation and public burdens for penal and sheltering institutions upon thrift, industry, manufactures, and commerce, endangering the public peace, desecration of the Sabbath, corrupting our politics, legislation and administration of the laws, shortening lives, impairing health, and diminishing productive industry, causing education to be neglected and despised, nullifying the teachings of the Bible, the Church and the school, the standards and guides of our

fathers, and their children in the founding and growth under God of our widely-extended country, and while imperiling the perpetuity of our civil and religious liberty, are baleful fruits by which we know that these laws are alike contrary to God's laws and contravene our happiness, and we call upon our fellow-citizens to aid in the repeal of these laws, and the legal suppression of this baneful liquor traffic.

The fact that during the twenty-four years in which the Republican party has controlled the general government and that of many of the States no effort has been made to change this policy. Territories have been created from the National domain and governments for them established, and States from them admitted into the Union, in no instance in either of which has this traffic been forbidden or the people of these Territories or States been permitted to prohibit.

That there are now over two hundred thousand distilleries, breweries, wholesale and retail dealers in these drinks, holding certificates and claiming the authority of the government for the continuation of a business which is so destructive to the moral and material welfare of the people, together with the fact that they have turned a deaf ear to remonstrance and petition for the correction of this abuse of civil government, is conclusive that the Republican party is insensible to or impotent for the redress of those wrongs, and should no longer be intrusted with the powers and responsibilities of government; that although this party in its late National Convention was silent on the liquor question, not so its candidates, Messrs. Blaine and Logan. Within the year past Mr. Blaine has publicly recommended that the revenues derived from the liquor traffic shall be distributed among the States, and Senator Logan has by a bill proposed to devote these revenues to the support of the schools; thus both virtually recommend the perpetuation of the traffic, and that the State and its citizens shall become partners in the liquor crime.

The fact that the Democratic party has, in its national deliverance of party policy, arrayed itself on the side of the drinkmakers and sellers by declaring against the policy of prohibition of such traffic under the false name of "Sumptuary Laws," and when in power in some of the States in refusing remedial legislation, and in Congress of refusing to permit the creation of a Board of Inquiry to investigate and report upon the effects of this traffic, proves that the Democratic party should not be intrusted with power or place.

That there can be no greater peril to the nation than the existing competition of the Republican and Democratic parties for the liquor vote. Experience shows that any party not openly opposed to the traffic will engage in this competition, will court the favor of the criminal classes, will barter away the public morals, the purity of the ballot and every trust and object of good government for party success, and patriots and good citizens should find in this practice sufficient cause for immediate withdrawal from all connection with their party. That we favor reforms in the administration of the government, in the abolition of all sinecures, useless offices and officers, in the election of the post-office officers of the government instead of appointment by the President; that compe

tency, honesty and sobriety are essential qualifications for holding civil office, and we oppose the removal of such persons from mere administrative offices, except so far as it may be absolutely necessary to secure effectiveness to the vital issues on which the general administration of the government has intrusted to a party; that the collection of revenues from alcohol, liquors and tobacco should be abolished as the vices of men and not a proper subject for taxation; that revenues for customs duties should be levied for the support of the government economically administered, and when so levied the fostering of American labor, manufactures and industries should constantly be held in view; that the public land should be held for homes for the people and not for gifts to corporations, or to be held in large bodies for speculation upon the needs of actual settlers.

That all money, coin and paper, shall be made, issued and regulated by the general government, and shall be a legal tender for all debts, public and private.

That grateful care and support should be given to our soldiers and sailors, their dependent widows and orphans, disabled in the service of the country.

That we repudiate as un-American, contrary to and subversive of the principles of the Declaration of Independence, from which our government has grown to be the government of fifty-five millions of people and a recognized power among the nations, that any person or people shall or may be excluded from residence or citizenship, with all others who may desire the benefits which our institutions confer upon the oppressed of all nations.

That while there are important reforms that are demanded for purity of administration and the welfare of the people, their importance sinks into insignificance when compared with the reform of the drink traffic, which annually wastes $800,000,000 of the wealth created by toil and thrift and drags down thousands of families from comfort to poverty; which fills jails, penitentiaries, insane asylums, hospitals and institutions for dependency; which destroys the health, saps industry and causes loss of life and property to thousands in the land, lowers intellectual and physical vigor, dulls the cunning hand of the artisan, is the chief cause of bankruptcy, insolvency and loss in trade, and by its corrupting power endangers the perpetuity of free institutions.

That Congress should exercise its undoubted power, and prohibit the manufacture and sale of intoxicating beverages in the District of Columbia, the Territories of the United States, in all places over which the government has exclusive jurisdiction; that hereafter no State shall be admitted into the Union until its Constitution shall expressly prohibit polygamy and the manufacture and sale of intoxicating beverages.

We earnestly call the attention of the laborer and the mechanic, the miner and manufacturer, and ask investigation of the baneful effects upon labor and industry caused by the needless liquor business, which will be found the robber who lessens wages and profits, the destroyer of the happiness and family welfare of the laboring man; and that labor and all

legitimate industry demand deliverance from taxation and loss which this traffic imposes; and that no tariff or other legislation can so healthily stimulate production, or increase a demand for capital and labor, or produce so much of comfort and content as the suppressing of this traffic would bring to the laboring man, mechanic or employer of labor throughout our land.

That the activity and co-operation of the women of America for the promotion of temperance has, in all the history of the past, been a strength and encouragement, which we gratefully acknowledge and record. In the latter and present phase of the movement for prohibition of the licensed traffic by the abolition of the drink saloon, the purity of purpose and method, the earnestness, zeal, intelligence and devotion of the mothers and daughters of the Women's Christian Temperance Union have been eminently blessed by God. Kansas and Iowa have been given her as "sheafs" of rejoicing, and the education and arousing of the public mind, and the demand for constitutional amendment now prevailing, are largely the fruit of her prayers and labors, and we rejoice to have our Christian women unite with us in sharing the labor that shall bring the abolition of traffic to the polls. She shall join in the grand "Praise God, from whom all blessings flow," when by law our boys and friends shall be free from legal drink and tempta

tion.

That we believe in the civil and political equality of the sexes, and that the ballot in the hand of woman is a right for her protection, and would prove a powerful ally for the abolition of the drink saloon, the execution of law, the promotion of reform in civil affairs, and the removal of corruption in public life; and thus believing, we relegate the practical outworking of this reform to the discretion of the Prohibition party in the several States, according to the condition of public sentiment in those States. That, gratefully, we acknowledge and praise God for the presence of His Spirit, guiding our counsels and granting the success which has been vouchsafed in the progress of temperance reform; and looking to Him from whom all wisdom and help come, we ask the voters of the United States to make the principles of the above declaration a ruling principle in the government of the Nation and of the States.

Resolved, That henceforth the Prohibition Home Protection party shall be called by the name of the Prohibition party.