778 



UNITED STATES. 



earnings, and -would prove to be the wise and success- 

 ful way of promoting labor reform ; and we invite 

 labor and capital to unite with us for the accomplish- 

 ment thereof; that monopoly in land is a wrong to 

 the people, and the public land should be reserved to 

 actual settlers, and that men and women should re- 

 ceive equal wages for equal work. 



That our immigration laws should be so enforced as 

 to prevent the introduction into our country of all con- 

 victs, inmates of other dependent institutions, and of 

 others physically incapacitated for self-support, and 

 that no person should have the ballot in any State who 

 is not a citizen of the United States. 



Recognizing and declaring that prohibition of the 

 liquor-traffic has become the dominant issue in national 

 politics, we invite to full party fellowship all those 

 who, on this one dominant issue, are with us agreed, 

 in the full belief that this party can and will remove 

 sectional differences, promote national unity, and in- 

 sure the best welfare of our entire land. 



Union Labor and United Labor Conventions. On 



May 15 a national convention of the Union 

 Labor party, consisting of two hundred and 

 seventy-four delegates, from twenty-five States, 

 met at Cincinnati for the purpose of nominat- 

 ing presidential candidates. This party was 

 formed on Feb. 22, 1887, at a convention held 

 in the same city, to which delegates had been 

 invited from the labor and farmers' organiza- 

 tions, including the Knights of Labor, the Ag- 

 ricultural Wheelers, the Corn - growers, the 

 Homesteadry, Farmers' Alliances, Greenback- 

 ers, and Grangers. The party thus formed 

 placed a State ticket in the field, in Ohio, in 

 the autumn of 1887, and in Arkansas, Missouri, 

 and nearly all the Western States during the 

 canvass of this year. The convention nomi- 

 nated for President, Alson J. Streeter, of Illi- 

 nois; and for Vice-President, Charles E. Cun- 

 ningham, of Arkansas. The platform, after 

 reciting the existing hardships of farmers and 

 laborers, contains the following declarations : 



We oppose land monopoly in every form, demand 

 the forfeiture of unearned grants, the limitation of 

 land ownership, and such other legislation as will stop 

 speculation in lands and holding it unused from those 

 whose necessities require it. A homestead should be 

 exempt, to a limited extent, from execution or taxa- 

 tion. 



The means of communication and transportation 

 shall be owned by the people, as is the United States 

 postal system. 



The establishment of a national monetary system in 

 the interest of the producer, instead of the speculator 

 and usurer ; by which the circulating medium in neces- 

 sary quantity shall be issued directly to the people, 

 without the intervention of banks, and loaned to citi- 

 zens upon land security, at a low rate of interest, so 

 as to relieve them from the extortion of usurv, and 

 enable them to control the money supply. Postal 

 savings banks should be established, and while we 

 have free coinage of gold we should have free coinage 

 of silver. We demand the immediate application of 

 all the money in the United States Treasury to the 

 payment of the bonded debt, and condemn the further 

 issue of interest-bearing bonds, either by the national 

 Government or by States, Territories, or municipali- 

 ties. 



Arbitration should take the place of strikes and 

 other injurious methods of settling labor disputes. 

 The letting of convict labor to contractors should be 

 prohibited, the contract system be abolished on public 

 works, the hours of labor in industrial establishments 

 be reduced commensurate with the increased produc- 



tion by labor-saving machinery, employes protected 

 from bodily injury, equal pay for equal work for both 

 sexes, and labor, agricultural, and co-operative asso- 

 ciations be fostered and encouraged by law. 



We demand the passage of a service pension bill to 

 every honorably discharged soldier and sailor of the 

 United States. 



A graduated income-tax is the most equitable sys- 

 tem of taxation. 



We demand a constitutional amendment making 

 United States Senators elective by a direct vote of the 

 people. 



We demand the strict enforcement of laws prohibit- 

 ing the importation of subjects of foreign countries 

 under contracts. 



We demand the passage and enforcement of such 

 legislation as will absolutely exclude the Chinese from 

 the United States. 



The right to vote is inherent in citizenship, irre- 

 spective of sex, and is properly within the province of 

 State legislation. 



The paramount issues to be solved in the interest* 

 of humanity are the abolition of usury, monopoly, and 

 trusts, and we denounce the Democratic and Republi- 

 can parties for creating and perpetuating these mon- 

 strous evils. 



The Union Labor party drew its support 

 from the Greenbackers, the farmer organiza- 

 tions, and the older labor-reformers. In this 

 it differed from the United Labor party, which 

 was an outgrowth of the Henry George move- 

 ment of two years ago in New York city. 

 This latter organization supported Henry 

 George in the canvass of 1887 for Secretary of 

 State in New York, and, with the opening of 

 the national canvass, placed in nomination its 

 first national ticket. The National Convention, 

 consisting of ninety delegates, representing nine 

 States, was held at Cincinnati on May 16, one 

 day after the Union Labor Convention, and 

 nominated Robert H. Cowdrey, of Illinois, for 

 President; and William II. T. Wakefield, of 

 Kansas, for Vice-President. The national plat- 

 form contains the following declarations : 



We, the delegates of the United Labor party of the 

 United States, in national convention assembled, 

 hold that the corruptions of government and the im- 

 poverishment of the masses result from neglect of the 

 self-evident truths proclaimed by the founders of this 

 republic, that all men are created equal and are en- 

 dowed with inalienable rights. We aim at the aboli- 

 tion of the system which" compels men to pay their 

 fellow- creatures for the use of the common bounties of 

 nature, and permits monopolizers to deprive labor of 

 natural opportunities for employment. 



We see access to farming-land denied to labor, ex- 

 cept on payment of exorbitant rent or the acceptance 

 of mortgage-burdens, and labor, thus forbidden to 

 employ itself driven into the cities. Wo see the 

 wage-workers of the cities subjected to this unnatural 

 competition, and forced to pay an exorbitant share of 

 their scanty earnings for cramped and unhealthful 

 lodgings. We see the same intense competition con- 

 demning the great majority of business and profes- 

 sional men to a bitter and often unavailing struggle to 

 avoid bankruptcy, and that while the price of all that 

 labor produces ever falls, the price of land ever rises. 



We trace these evils to a fundamental wrong the 

 making of the land on which all must live the exclu- 

 sive property of but a portion of the community. To 

 this denial of natural rights are due want of employ - 

 ment, low wages, business depressions, that intense 

 competition which makes it so difficult for the ma- 

 jority of men to get a comfortable living, and that 

 wrongful distribution of wealth which is producing 



