THE FARMER'S WAR AGAINST MONOPOLIES. 513 



labor in the shops and factories of the State as will give the laboring people 

 opportunity for moral and mental improvement. 



Sixteenth : That we demand a State law that will pay out of the public funds 

 the costs and charges of all suits brought by individuals to enforce the laws 

 of the State against railroad corporations. 



Seventeenth : That we can sympathize with all attempts for the moral im- 

 provement of the people, and that we regard the temperance societies of the 

 land which are working by moral suasion for the advancement of the cause as 

 deserving of the consideration of good men everywhere. 



Eighteenth : That the honor of our State demands that the delegation in 

 Congress from this State call for a thorough investigation into the equitable 

 settlement, so-called, of the transfer of the Fort Snelling property. 



Nineteenth : That the subserving of the present candidate for Governor on 

 the Republican State ticket to the interest of railroads, shows him to be an 

 enemy to the rights of farmers and laborers, and a friend of monopoly. 



The Farmers' Anti-Monopoly Convention, which 

 met at Des Moines, Iowa, on the 13th of August, 1873, 

 adopted the following platform : 



Whereas, Both political parties have discharged the obligations assumed at 

 their organization, and being no longer potent as instruments for the reform 

 of abuses which have grown up in them, we deem it inconsistent to attempt to 

 accomplish a political reform by acting with and in such organizations; 

 therefore, 



Resolved, That we, in free Convention, do declare as a basis of our future 

 political action, that all corporations are subject to legislative control ; that 

 those created by Congress should be restricted and controlled by Congress, and 

 that those under State laws should be subject to the control respectively of the 

 States creating them ; that such legislative control should be an express abro- 

 gation of the theory of the inalienable nature of chartered rights, and that it 

 should be at all times so used as to prevent moneyed corporations from becom- 

 ing engines of oppression. 



Resolved, That the Legislature of Iowa should by law fix the maximum 

 rates of freight to be charged by the railroads of the State, leaving them free 

 to compete below the rates. 



Resolved, That we demand a general revision of the present Tariff law that 

 should give us free salt, iron, lumber, and cotton and woollen fabrics, and 

 reduce the whole system to a revenue basis only. 



Resolved, That we demand the repeal of the back salary act, and the return 

 to the United States Treasury of all money drawn therefrom by members of 

 the last Congress, and of the members of the present Congress we demand the 

 repeal of the law increasing salaries and the passage of a law fixing a lower 

 and more reasonable compensation for public officers, believing that until the 

 33 



