people's toil are depressed in price till they no longer repay the cost of production. We demand a return to that simplicity and economy which best befits a democratic government and a reduction in the number of useless offices, the salaries of which drain the substance of the people.

FEDERAL INTERFERENCE.

We denounce arbitrary interference by Federal authorities in local affairs as a violation of the Constitution of the United States and a crime against free institutions, and we especially object to government by injunction as a new and highly dangerous form of oppression, by which Federal judges, in contempt of the laws of the States and rights of citizens, become at once legislators, judges, and executioners, and we approve the bill passed at the last session of the United States Senate, and now pending in the House, relative to contempts in Federal courts, and providing for trials by jury in certain cases of contempt

PACIFIC FUNDING BILL.

No discrimination should be indulged by the Government of the United States in favor of any of its debtors. We approve of the refusal of the Fifty-third Congress to pass the Pacific Railroad funding bill, and denounce the effort of the present Republican Congress to enact a similar measure.

PENSIONS.

Recognizing the just claims of deserving Union soldiers, we heartily indorse the rule of the present Commissioner of Pensions that no names shall be arbitrarily dropped from the pension roll, and the fact of an enlistment and service should be deemed conclusive evidence against disease or disability before enlistment.

CUBA.

We extend our sympathy to the people of Cuba in their heroic struggle for liberty and independence.

THE CIVIL SERVICE.

We are opposed to life tenure in the public service. We favor appointments based upon merits, fixed terms of office, and such an administration of the civil-service laws as will afford equal opportunities to all citizens of ascertained fitness.

NO THIRD TERM.

We declare it to be the unwritten law of this Republic, established by custom and usage of one hundred years, and sanctioned by the examples of the greatest and wisest of those who founded and have maintained our Government, that no man should be eligible for a third term of the Presidental office.

CORPORATE WEALTH.

The absorption of wealth by the few, the consolidation of our leading railroad systems, and formation of trusts and pools require a stricter control by the Federal Government of those arteries of commerce. We demand the enlargement of the powers of the Interstate Commerce Commission, and such restrictions and guaranties in the control of railroads as will protect the people from robbery and oppression.

ADMISSION OF TERRITORIES.

We favor the admission of the Territories of New Mexico and Arizona into the Union of States, and we favor the early admission of all the Territories giving the necessary population and resources to entitle them to Statehood, and while they remain Territories we hold that the officials appointed to administer the gov ernment of any Territory, together with the District of Columbia and Alaska, should be bona fide residents of the Territory or District in which their duties are to be performed. The Democratic party believes in home rule and that all public lands of the United States should be appropriated to the establishment of free homes for American citizens.

We recommend that the Territory of Alaska be granted a Delegate in Congress, and that the general land and timber laws of the United States be extended to said Territory.

MISSISSIPPI RIVER IMPROVEMENTS.

The Federal Government should care for and improve the Missisippi River and other great waterways of the Republic, so as to secure for the interior people easy and cheap transportation to tidewater. When any waterway of the Republic is of sufficient importance to demand aid of the Government, such aid should be extended upon a definite plan of continuous work until permanent improvement is secured.

Confiding in the justice of our cause and the necessity of its success at the polls, we submit the foregoing declaration of principles and purposes to the considerate judgment of the American people. We invite the support of all citizens who approve them, and who desire to have them made effective through legislation for the relief of the people and the restoration of the country's prosperity.

PLATFORM PEOPLE'S PARTY.

[Adopted by the Populist convention at St. Louis, July 24, 1896.]

The People's Party, assembled in national convention, reaffirms its allegiance to the principles declared by the founders of the Republic, and also to the fundamental principles of just government as enunciated in the platform of the party in 1892.

We recognize that through the connivance of the present and preceding Administrations the country has reached a crisis in its national life, as predicted in our declaration four years ago, and that prompt and patriotic action is the supreme duty of the hour. We realize that, while we have political independence, our financial and industrial independence is yet to be attained by restoring to our country the constitutional control and exercise of the functions necessary to a people's government, which functions have been basely surrendered by our public servants to corporate monopolies. The influence of European money changers has been more potent in shaping legislation than the voice of the American people. Executive power and patronage have been used to corrupt our legislatures and defeat the will of the people, and plutocracy has been enthroned upon the ruins of democracy.

To restore the government intended by the fathers and for the welfare and prosperity of this and future generations, we demand the establishment of an economic and financial system which shall make us masters of our own affairs and independent of European control, by the adoption of the following declarations of principles:

AS TO MONEY, BONDS, AND INCOME TAX.

1. We demand a national money, safe and sound, issued by the General Government only, without the intervention of banks of issue, to be a full legal tender for all debts, public and private, and a just, equitable, and efficient means of distribution direct to the people and through the lawful disbursements of the Government.

2. We demand the free and unrestricted coinage of silver and gold at the present legal ratio of 16 to 1, without waiting for the consent of foreign nations.

3. We demand that the volume of circulating medium be speedily increased to an amount sufficient to meet the demands of the business population of this country and to restore the just level of prices of labor and production.

4. We denounce the sale of bonds and the increase of the public interest-bearing bond debt made by the present Administration as unnecessary and without authority of law, and that no more bonds be issued except by specific act of Congress.

5. We demand such legal legislation as will prevent the demone

tization of the lawful money of the United States by private contract.

6. We demand that the Government on payment of its obligations shall use its option as to the kind of lawful money in which they are to be paid, and we denounce the present and preceding Administrations for surrendering this option to the holders of Government obligations.

7. We demand a graduated income tax, to the end that aggregated wealth shall bear its just portion of taxation, and we denounce the recent decision of the Supreme Court relative to the income-tax law as a misinterpretation of the Constitution and an invasion of the rightful powers of Congress over the subject of taxation.

8. We demand that postal savings banks be established by the Government for the safe deposit of the savings of the people and to facilitate exchange.

GOVERNMENT OWNERSHIP OF RAILROADS AND TELEGRAPH.

1. Transportation being a means of exchange and a public necessity, the Government should own and operate the railroads in the interest of the people and on nonpartisan basis, to the end that all may be accorded the same treatment in transportation, and that the tyranny and political power now exercised by the great railroad corporations, which result in the impairment if not the destruction of the political rights and personal liberties of the citizen, may be destroyed. Such ownership is to be accomplished gradually, in a manner consistent with sound public policy.

2. The interest of the United States in the public highways built with public moneys and the proceeds of extensive grants of land to the Pacific railroads should never be alienated, mortgaged, or sold, but guarded and protected for the general welfare as provided by the laws organizing such railroads. The foreclosure of existing liens of the United States on these roads should at once follow default in the payment of the debt of the companies, and at the foreclosure sales of said roads the Government shall purchase the same if it becomes necessary to protect its interests therein, or if they can be purchased at a reasonable price; and the Government shall operate said railroads as public highways for the benefit of the whole and not in the interest of a few, under suitable provisions for protection of life and property, giving to all transportation interests equal privileges and equal rates for fares and freight.

3. We denounce the present infamous schemes for refunding those debts and demand that the laws now applicable thereto be executed and administered according to their true intent and spirit.

4. The telegraph, 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.

LAND, HOMES, AND PACIFIC RAILROAD GRANTS.

1. The true policy demands that the national and State legislation shall be such as will ultimately enable every prudent and industrious citizen to secure a home, and therefore the land should not be monopolized for speculative purposes.

All lands now held by railroads and other corporations in excess of their actual needs should by lawful means be reclaimed by the Government and held for actual settlers only, and private land monopoly, as well as alien ownership, should be prohibited.

2. We condemn the frauds by which the land grant to the Pacific railroad companies have, through the connivance of the Interior Department, robbed multitudes of bona fide settlers of their homes and miners of their claims, and we demand legislation by Congress which will enforce the exemption of mineral land from such grants after as well as before patent.

3. We demand that bona fide settlers on all public lands be granted free homes, as provided in the national homestead law, and that no exception be made in the case of Indian reservations when opened for settlement, and that all lands not now patented come under this demand.

DIRECT LEGISLATION AND GENERAL PLANKS.

We favor a system of direct legislation through the initiative and referendum under proper constitutional safeguards.

We demand the election of President, Vice-President and United States Senators by a direct vote of the people.

We tender to the patriotic people of Cuba our deepest sympathy in their heroic struggle for political freedom and independence, and we believe the time has come when the Unitd States, the great Republic of the world, should recognize that Cuba is and of right ought to be a free and independent state.

We favor home rule in the Territories and the District of Columbia and the early admission of the Territories as States.

All public salaries should be made to correspond to the price of labor and its products.

In times of great industrial depression idle labor should be employed on public works as far as practicable.

The arbitrary course of the courts in assuming to imprison citizens for indirect contempt and ruling by injunction should be prevented by proper legislation.

We favor just pensions for our disabled Union soldiers.