THE POPULIST MOVEMENT 671 



of a nation brought to the verge of moral, political, and material 

 ruin. Corruption dominates the ballot box, the legislatures, the 

 Congress, and even touches the ermine on the bench. The 

 people are demoralized. The newspapers are largely subsidized 

 or muzzled, public opinion silenced, business prostrated, our 

 homes covered with mortgages, labor impoverished, and the land 

 concentrated in the hands of the capitalists. Urban workmen 

 are denied the right of organizing ; imported pauperized labor 

 reduces their wages, while a hireling army shoots them down. 

 The toils of the millions are stolen to build up colossal fortunes. 

 From the prolific womb of governmental injustice we breed the 

 two great classes, tramps and millionaires." After this descrip- 

 tion of the condition of the country, the preamble goes on to 

 speak of the contraction of the currency and demonetization of 

 silver. It calls attention to a "conspiracy against mankind," in 

 which the currency is to be "abridged in order to fatten usurers, 

 bankrupt enterprise, and enslave industry." Then follows an 

 arraignment of the existing parties with their attempts to " drown 

 the outcries of a plundered people with the uproar of a sham 

 battle over the tariff, so that capitalists, corporations, national 

 banks, trusts, watered stock, the demonetization of silver and the 

 oppressions of the usurers may be lost sight of." After a state- 

 ment of the belief that " the republic cannot live unless based 

 upon the love of the whole people for each other and for the 

 nation," and a pledge "to correct the evils which are destroying 

 it, with wise and reasonable legislation," the preamble ends with 

 the three following doctrines : 



1. " That the union of labor forces of the United States this day consum- 

 mated shall be permanent and perpetual."' 



2. That " Wealth belongs to him who creates it, and every dollar taken 

 from industry is robbery." 



3. That the people should own the means of transportation ; and should 

 such a thing come to pass, there should be a rigid civil-service regulation, so 

 as to prevent the increase of the power of the national administration by the 

 use of such additional government employees. 



Such is the remarkable address which precedes the platform 

 of the new party. It depicts a condition of the country which 



