People’s ( Fusion Faction ) Party Platform of 1900

The People’s party of the United States, in convention assembled, congratulating its supporters on the wide extension of its principles in all directions, does hereby reaffirm its adherence to the fundamental principles proclaimed in its two prior platforms and calls upon all who desire to avert the subversion of free institutions by corporate and imperialistic power to unite with it in bringing the Government back to the ideals of Washington, Jefferson, Jackson, and Lincoln.

It extends to its allies in the struggle for financial and economic freedom, assurances of its loyalty to the principles which animate the allied forces and the promise of honest and hearty cooperation in every effort for their success.

To the people of the United States we offer the following platform as the expression of our unalterable convictions:

That we denounce the act of March 14, 1900, as the culmination of a long series of conspiracies to deprive the people of their constitutional rights over the money of the nation and relegate to a gigantic money trust the control of the purse and hence of the people.

We denounce this act, first, for making all money obligations, domestic and foreign, payable in gold coin or its equivalent, thus enormously increasing the burdens of the debtors and enriching the creditors.

For refunding "coin bonds" not to mature for years into long-time gold bonds, so as to make their payment improbable and our debt perpetual.

For taking from the Treasury over $50,000,000 in a time of war and presenting it, at a premium, to bond-holders, to accomplish the refunding of bonds not due.

For doubling the capital of bankers by returning to them the face value of their bonds in current money notes so that they may draw one interest from the Government and another from the people.

For allowing banks to expand and contract their circulation at pleasure, thus controlling prices of all products.

For authorizing the Secretary of the Treasury to issue new gold bonds to an unlimited amount whenever he deems it necessary to replenish the gold hoard, thus enabling usurers to secure more bonds and more bank currency by drawing gold from the Treasury, thereby creating an "endless chain" for perpetually adding to a perpetual debt.

For striking down the greenback in order to force the people to borrow $346,000,000 more from the banks at an annual cost of over $20,000,000.

While barring out the money of the Constitution this law opens the printing mints of the Treasury to the free coinage of bank paper money, to enrich the few and impoverish the many.

We pledge anew the People’s party never to cease the agitation until this great financial conspiracy is blotted from the statute-books, the Lincoln greenback restored, the bonds all paid, and all corporation money forever retired.

We affirm the demand for the reopening of the mints of the United States to the free and unlimited coinage of silver and gold at the present legal ratio of 16 to 1, the immediate increase in the volume of silver coins and certificates thus created to be substituted, dollar for dollar, for the bank notes issued by private corporations under special privilege granted by law of March 14, 1900, and prior National banking laws, the remaining portion of the bank notes to be replaced with full legal-tender Government paper money, and its volume so controlled as to maintain at all times a stable money market and a stable price-level.

We demand a graduated income and inheritance tax, to the end that aggregated wealth shall bear its just proportion of taxation.

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.

With Thomas Jefferson we declare the land, including all natural sources of wealth, the inalienable heritage of the people. Government should so act as to secure homes for the people and prevent land monopoly. The original home stead policy should be enforced, and future settlers upon the public domain should be entitled to a free homestead, while all who have paid an acreage price to the Government under existing laws should have their homestead rights restored.

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 a non-partisan basis, to the end that all may be accorded the same treatment in transportation, and that the extortion, 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 in a manner consistent with sound public policy.

Trusts, the overshadowing evil of the age, are the result and culmination of the private ownership and control of the three great instruments of commerce—money, transportation, and the means of transmission of information—which instruments of commerce are public functions, and which our forefathers declared in the Constitution should be controlled by the people through their Congress for the public welfare. The one remedy for the trusts is that the ownership and control be assumed and exercised by the people.

We further demand that all tariffs on goods controlled by a trust shall be abolished.

To cope with the trust evil, the people must act directly, without the intervention of representatives, who may be controlled or influenced. We therefore demand direct legislation, giving the people the law-making and veto power under the initiative and referendum. A majority of the people can never be corruptly influenced.

Applauding the valor of our army and navy in the Spanish war, we denounce the conduct of the Administration in changing a war for humanity into a war of conquest. The action of the Administration in the Philippines is in conflict with all the precedents of our National life; at war with the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, and the plain precepts of humanity. Murder and arson have been our response to the appeals of the people who asked only to establish a free government in their own land. We demand a stoppage of this war of extermination by the assurance to the Philippines of independence and protection under a stable government of their own creation.

The Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, and the American flag are one and inseparable. The island of Porto Rico is a part of the territory of the United States, and by levying special and extraordinary customs duties on the commerce of that island the Administration has violated the Constitution, abandoned the fundamental principles of American liberty, and has striven to give the lie to the contention of our fore-fathers that there should be no taxation without representation.

Out of the Imperialism which would force an undesired domination on the people of the Philippines springs the un-American cry for a large standing army. Nothing in the character or purposes of our people justifies us in ignoring the plain lesson of history and putting our liberties in jeopardy by assuming the burden of militarism, which is crushing the people of the Old World. We denounce the Administration for its sinister efforts to substitute a standing army for the citizen soldiery, which is the best safeguard of the Republic.

We extend to the brave Boers of South Africa our sympathy and moral support in their patriotic struggle for the right of self-government, and we are unalterably opposed to any alliance, open or covert, between the United States and any other nation that will tend to the destruction of human liberty.

And a further manifestation of imperialism is to be found in the mining districts of Idaho. In the Coeur d’Alene soldiers have been used to overawe miners striving for a greater measure of industrial independence. And we denounce the State Government of Idaho and the Federal Government for employing the military arm of the Government to abridge the civil rights of the people, and to enforce an infamous permit system which denies to laborers their inherent liberty and compels them to forswear their manhood and their right before being permitted to seek employment.

The importation of Japanese and other laborers under co tract to serve monopolistic corporations is a notorious and flagrant violation of the immigration laws. We demand that the Federal Government shall take cognizance of this menacing evil and repress it under existing laws. We further pledge ourselves to strive for the enactment of more stringent laws for the exclusion of Mongolian and Malayan immigration.

We indorse municipal ownership of public utilities, and declare that the advantages which have accrued to the public under that system would be multiplied a hundredfold by its extension to natural inter-State monopolies.

We denounce the practice of issuing injunctions in the cases of dispute between employers and employees, making criminal acts by organizations which are not criminal when performed by individuals, and demand legislation to restrain the evil.

We demand that United States Senators and all other officials as far as practicable be elected by direct vote of the people, believing that the elective franchise and untrammeled ballot are essential to a government for and by the people.

The People’s party condemns the wholesale system of disfranchisement by coercion and intimidation, adopted in some States, as un-republican and un-democratic. And we declare it to be the duty of the several State Legislatures to take such action as will secure a full, free, and fair ballot, and an honest count.

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

We denounce the expensive red-tape system, political favoritism, cruel and unnecessary delay and criminal evasion of the statutes in the management of the Pension Office, and demand the simple and honest execution of the law, and the fulfillment by the nation of its pledges of service pension to all its honorably discharged veterans.