A PROGRAM OF RADICAL DEMOCRACY 6ii 



races and sparsely populated regions, but with the exception of Africa 

 such conditions no longer obtain. Eaces must work out their own 

 destiny. India can not be ruled indefinitely for the support of the 

 younger sons of the upper classes of England. Conditions have been 

 inherited from a barbarous past, and we must make the best of them. 

 But hereafter no race and no section of a nation should be held in sub- 

 jugation by force, except for humanitarian reasons, which appear suffi- 

 cient to neutral nations. Fortunately our own complications are prac- 

 tically limited to the Philippines and are not insoluble. Political con- 

 ditions and social relations should be independent of race and color. 



11. Gradual reduction of the existing tarijf. The protective tariff 

 has been one of our most disastrous adventures ; the present opposition 

 to it is a gratifying sign of national health. The tariS has not only 

 caused boundless political corruption and waste of economic resources, 

 but has forced people from a healthy life in the country into the cities, 

 the manufactories and the mines, and has supplanted our native popu- 

 lation with immigrants. It is largely responsible for inequality of 

 wealth and industrial slavery. To meddle with the schedules of the 

 tariff will cause further corruption and industrial disorder. It should 

 be abolished gradually by a five or ten per cent, reduction annually on 

 all schedules. Desirable import taxes can be separately imposed. 



12. The government to regulate the value of money, hut not to 

 engage in borrowing or lending. If any one supposes the first part of 

 this proposition to be due to Mr. Brj^an, he is referred to the constitu- 

 tion of the United States. Mr. Bryan is essentially conservative, as 

 are the people ; but in his sympathies at least he is the best leader for a 

 democracy that the country has had since Lincoln. In the bimetallic 

 campaign he was not wrong in his aims, but only in his calculations. 

 The present increase in prices — the cost of living is another matter — 

 is in the main due to the depreciation of the value of gold, and is evi- 

 dence of the inadequacy of a monometallic standard. The net result 

 of this depreciation may not be bad, as it decreases the wealth of the 

 passively exploiting classes, though it increases the wealth of the 

 actively predatory classes and is unjust to those living on wages 

 and salaries. But an unstable monetary standard is a bad business. 

 The nation should fix a standard of value, based on the more important 

 products of the country, and be prepared to redeem its paper currency 

 in these products. It would not of course need to redeem it ; the prop- 

 erty of the nation is ample physical security. "We have in fact a paper 

 currency — checks and drafts being its most important part — but we 

 need a fixed standard of value, first national and then international. A 

 national bank is as objectionable as are the other activities of the author 

 of the scheme. Postal savings may be of use as a temporary piece of 

 paternalism, but should not be permanent. The banks, the bankers. 



