Section 1.—the Representatives of the Democratic Party of the United

States, in National Convention assembled, do reaffirm their allegiance to the principles of the party as formulated by Jefferson, and exemplified by the long and illustrious line of his successors in Democratic leadership from Madison to Cleveland. We believe the public welfare demands that these principles be applied in the conduct of the federal government through the accession to power of the party that advocates them, and we solemnly declare that the need of a return to these fundamental principles of a free popular government, based on home rule and individual liberty, was never more urgent than now, when the tendency to centralize all power at the federal capital has become a menace to the reserved rights of the States, that strikes at the very roots of our government under the constitution as framed by the fathers of the Republic.

SEC. 2.—We warn the people of our common country, jealous for the preservation of their free institutions, that the policy of federal control of elections, to which the Republican party has committed itself, is fraught with the gravest dangers, scarcely less momentous than would result from a revolution practically establishing monarchy on the ruins of the Republic. It strikes at the North as well as the South, and injures the colored citizen even more than the white; it means a horde of deputy marshals at every polling place, armed with federal power; returning boards appointed and controlled by federal authority; the outrage of the electoral rights of the people in the several States; the subjugation of the colored people to the control of the party in power and the reviving of race antagonisms now happily abated, of the utmost peril to the safety and happiness of all; a measure deliberately and justly described by a leading Republican Senator as “the most infamous bill that ever crossed the threshold of the Senate.”

Such a policy, if sanctioned by law, would mean the dominance of a self-perpetuating oligarchy of office-holders, and the party first intrusted with its machinery could be dislodged from power only by an appeal to the reserved right of the people to resist oppression which is inherent in all self-governing communities.

Two years ago this revolutionary policy was emphatically condemned by the people at the polls; but in contempt of that verdict the Republican party has defiantly declared in its latest authoritative utterance that its success in the coming elections will mean the enactment of the Force bill and the usurpation of despotic control over elections in all the States.

Believing that the preservation of republican government in the United States is dependent upon the defeat of this policy of legalized force and fraud, we invite the support of all citizens who desire to see the constitution maintained in its integrity, with the laws pursuant thereto, which have given our country a hundred years of unexampled prosperity, and we pledge the Democratic party, if it be entrusted with power, not only to the defeat of the Force bill, but also to relentless opposition to the Republican policy of profligate expenditure which in the short space of two years has squandered an enormous surplus and emptied an overflowing treasury after piling new burdens of taxation upon the already overtaxed labor of the country.

SEC. 3.—We denounce the Republican policy of protection as a fraud on the labor of the great majority of the American people for the benefit of the few.

We declare it to be a fundamental principle of the Democratic party that the federal government has no constitutional power to impose and collect tariff duties except for the purposes of revenue only, and we demand that the collection of such taxes shall be limited to the necessities of the government when honestly and economically administered.

SEC. 4.—Trade interchange on the basis of reciprocal advantages to the countries participating is a time-honored doctrine of the Democratic faith, but we denounce the sham reciprocity which juggles with the people’s desire for enlarged foreign markets and freer exchanges by pretending to establish closer trade relations for a country whose articles of export are almost exclusively agricultural products with other countries that are also agricultural, while erecting a Custom House barrier of prohibitive tariff taxes against the rich countries of the world that stand ready to take our entire surplus of products and to exchange therefor commodities which are necessaries and comforts of life among our own people.

SEC. 5.—We recognize in the trusts and combinations which are designed to enable capital to secure more than its just share of the joint product of capital and labor, a natural consequence of the prohibitive taxes which prevent the free competition which is the life of honest trade, but we believe their worst evils can be abated by law, and we demand the rigid enforcement of the laws made to prevent and control them, together with such further legislation in restraint of their abuses as experience may show to be necessary.

SEC. 6.—The Republican party, while professing a policy of reserving the public land for small holdings by actual settlers, has given away the people’s heritage till now a few railroad and non-resident aliens, individual and corporate, possess a larger area than that of all our farms between the two seas. The last Democratic administration reversed the improvident and unwise policy of the Republican party touching the public domain, and reclaimed from corporations and syndicates, alien and domestic, and restored to the people nearly one hundred million acres of valuable land to be sacredly held as homesteads for our citizens, and we pledge ourselves to continue this policy until every acre of land so unlawfully held shall be reclaimed and restored to the people.

SEC. 7.—We denounce the Republican legislation known as the Sherman act of 1890 as a cowardly makeshift fraught with possibilities of danger in the future which should make all of its supporters, as well as its author, anxious for its speedy repeal. We hold to the use of both gold and silver as the standard money of the country, and to the coinage of both gold and silver without discriminating against either metal or charge of mintage, but the dollar unit of coinage for both metals must be of equal intrinsic and exchangeable value, or be adjusted through international agreement or by such safeguards of legislation as shall insure the maintenance of the parity of the two metals, and the equal power of every dollar at all times in the markets and in the payment of debts, and we demand that all paper currency shall be kept at par with and redeemable in such coin. We insist upon this policy as especially necessary for the protection of the farmers and laboring classes, the first and most defenceless victims of unstable money and a fluctuating currency.

SEC. 8.—We recommend that the prohibitory ten per cent. tax on State bank issues be repealed.

SEC. 9.—Public office is a public trust. We reaffirm the declaration of the Democratic National Convention of 1876 for the reform of the civil service and we call for the honest enforcement of all laws regulating the same. The nomination of a President, as in the recent Republican convention, by delegations composed largely of his appointees, holding office at his pleasure, is a scandalous satire upon free popular institutions and a startling illustration of the methods by which a President may gratify his ambition. We denounce a policy under which federal office-holders usurp control of party conventions in the States, and we pledge the Democratic party to the reform of these and all other abuses which threaten individual liberty and local self-government.

SEC. 10.—The Democratic party is the only party that has ever given the country a foreign policy consistent and vigorous, compelling respect abroad and inspiring confidence at home. While avoiding entangling alliances it has aimed to cultivate friendly relations with other nations and especially with our neighbors on the American continent whose destiny is closely linked with our own, and we view with alarm the tendency to a policy of irritation and bluster, which is liable at any time to confront us with the alternative of humiliation or war.

We favor the maintenance of a navy strong enough for all purposes of national defence and to properly maintain the honor and dignity of the country abroad.

SEC. 11.—The country has always been the refuge of the oppressed from every land—exiles for conscience sake—and in the spirit of the founders of our government we condemn the oppression practised by the Russian government upon its Lutheran and Jewish subjects, and we call upon our national government, in the interest of justice and humanity, by all just and proper means, to use its prompt and best efforts to bring about a cessation of these cruel persecutions in the dominions of the Czar and to secure to the oppressed equal rights.

We tender our profound and earnest sympathy to those lovers of freedom who are struggling for home rule and the great cause of local self government in Ireland.

SEC. 12.—We heartily approve all legitimate efforts to prevent the United States from being used as the dumping ground for the known criminals and professional paupers of Europe, and we demand the rigid enforcement of the laws against Chinese immigration or the importation of foreign workmen under contract to degrade American labor and lessen its wages, but we condemn and denounce any and all attempts to restrict the immigration of the industrious and worthy of foreign lands.

SEC. 13.—This Convention hereby renews the expression of appreciation of the patriotism of the soldiers and sailors of the Union in the war for its preservation, and we favor just and liberal pensions for all disabled Union soldiers, their widows and dependents, but we demand that the work of the Pension Office shall be done industriously, impartially and honestly. We denounce the present administration of that office as incompetent, corrupt, disgraceful and dishonest.

SEC. 14.—The federal government should care for and improve the Mississippi River and other great waterways of the Republic so as to secure for the interior States easy and cheap transportation to the tidewater.

When any waterway of the Republic is of sufficient importance to demand the aid of the government, that such aid should be extended, a definite plan of continuous work until permanent improvement is secured.

SEC. 15.—For purposes of national defence and the promotion of commerce between the States we recognize the early construction of the Nicaragua Canal and its protection against foreign control as of great importance to the United States.

SEC. 16.—Recognizing the World’s Columbian Exposition as a national undertaking of vast importance, in which the general government has invited the co-operation of all the Powers of the world, and appreciating the acceptance by many of such Powers of the invitation for extended and the broadest liberal efforts being made by them to contribute to the grandeur of the undertaking, we are of the opinion that Congress should make such necessary financial provision as shall be requisite to the maintenance of the national honor and public faith.

SEC. 17.—Popular education being the only safe basis of popular suffrage, we recommend to the several States most liberal appropriations for the public schools. Free common schools are the nursery of good government and they have always received the fostering care of the Democratic party, which favors every means of increasing intelligence. Freedom of education being an essential of civil and religious liberty as well as a necessity for the development of intelligence, must not be interfered with under any pretext whatever. We are opposed to State interference with parental rights and rights of conscience in the education of children as an infringement of the fundamental democratic doctrine that the largest individual liberty consistent with the rights of others insures the highest type of American citizenship and the best government.

SEC. 18.—We approve the action of the present House of Representatives in passing bills for the admission into the Union as States of the Territories of New Mexico and Arizona, and we favor the early admission of all the Territories having necessary population and resources to admit them to Statehood, and while they remain Territories we hold that the officials appointed to administer the government of any Territory, together with the Districts of Columbia and Alaska, should be bona fide residents of the Territory or District in which their duties are to be performed. The Democratic party believes in home rule and the control of their own affairs by the people of the vicinage.

SEC. 19.—We favor legislation by Congress and State Legislatures to protect the lives and limbs of railway employés and those of other hazardous transportation companies and denounce the inactivity of the Republican party and particularly the Republican Senate for causing the defeat of measures beneficial and protective to this class of wageworkers.

SEC. 20.—We are in favor of the enactment by the States of laws for abolishing the notorious sweating system, for abolishing contract convict labor and for prohibiting the employment in factories of children under fifteen years of age.

SEC. 21.—We are opposed to all sumptuary laws as an interference with the individual rights of the citizen.

SEC. 22.—Upon this statement of principles and policies the Democratic party asks the intelligent judgment of the American people. It asks a change of administration and a change of party in order that there may be a change of system and a change of methods, thus assuring the maintenance, unimpaired, of institutions under which the Republic has grown great and powerful.

The Tariff Issue, 1892.

REPUBLICAN. DEMOCRATIC.

We reaffirm the American doctrine We denounce Republican Protection of Protection. We call attention to as a fraud—as a robbery of the its growth abroad. We maintain that great majority of the American the prosperous condition of our people for the benefit of a few. We country is largely due to the wise declare it to be a fundamental revenue legislation of the principle of the Democratic party Republican Congress. that the government has no constitutional power to impose and We believe that all articles which collect a dollar for tax except for cannot be produced in the United purposes of revenue only, and States, except luxuries, should be demand that the collection of such admitted free of duty, and that on taxes be imposed by the government all imports coming into competition when only honestly and economically with the products of American labor administered. there should be levied duties equal to the difference between wages [The above paragraph was adopted by abroad and at home. a vote of 504 to 342 as a substitute for the following, We assert that the prices of reported from the majority of the manufactured articles of general committee: “We reiterate the oft consumption have been reduced under repeated doctrines of the the operation of the tariff act of Democratic party that the necessity 1890. of the government is the only justification for taxations, and We denounce the efforts of the whenever a tax is unnecessary it is Democratic majority of the House of unjustifiable; that when Custom Representatives to destroy our House taxation is levied upon tariff laws, as is manifested by articles of any kind produced in their attacks upon wool, lead and this country, the difference lead ores, the chief product of a between the cost of labor here and number of States, and we ask the labor abroad, when such a people for their judgment thereon. difference exists, fully measures any possible benefits to labor, and the enormous additional impositions of the existing tariff fall with crushing force upon our farmers and workingmen, and, for the mere advantage of the few whom it enriches, exact from labor a grossly unjust share of the expenses of the government, and we demand such a revision of the tariff laws as will remove their iniquitous inequalities, lighten their oppressions and put them on a constitutional and equitable basis. But in making reduction in taxes, it is not proposed to injure any domestic industries, but rather to promote their healthy growth. From the foundation of this government, taxes collected at the Custom House have been the chief source of Federal revenue. Such they must continue to be. Moreover, many industries have come to rely upon legislation for successful continuance, so that any change of law must be at every step regardful of the labor and capital thus involved. The process of reform must be subject in the execution of this plain dictate of justice.”]

The Reciprocity Issue, 1892.

REPUBLICAN. DEMOCRATIC.

We point to the success of the Trade interchange on the basis of Republican policy of reciprocity, reciprocal advantages to the under which our export trade has countries participating is a vastly increased and new and time-honored doctrine of the enlarged markets have been opened Democratic faith, but we denounce for the products of our farms and the sham reciprocity which juggles workshops. with the people’s desire for enlarged foreign markets and free We remind the people of the bitter exchanges by pretending to opposition of the Democratic party establish closer trade relations to this practical business measure, for a country whose articles of and claim that, executed by a export are almost exclusively Republican administration, our agricultural products with other present laws will eventually give countries that are also us control or the trade of the agricultural, while erecting a world. Custom House barrier of prohibitive tariff taxes against the richest countries of the world that stand ready to take our entire surplus of products and to exchange therefor commodities which are necessaries and comforts of life among our own people.

The Silver Issue, 1892.

REPUBLICAN. DEMOCRATIC.

The American people, from tradition We denounce the Republican and interest, favor bi-metallism, legislation known as the Sherman and the Republican party demands act of 1890 as a cowardly the use of both gold and silver as makeshift, fraught with standard money, with such possibilities of danger in the restrictions and under such future, which should make all its provisions, to be determined by supporters, as well as its author, legislation, as will secure the anxious for its speedy repeal. We maintenance of the parity values of hold to the use of both gold and the two metals, so that the silver as the standard money of the purchasing and debt-paying power of country, and to the coinage of both the dollar, whether of silver, gold gold and silver, without or paper, shall be at all times discriminating against either metal equal. The interests or the or charge for mintage, the dollar producers of the country, its unit or coinage of both metals must farmers and its workingmen, demand be of equal intrinsic and that every dollar, paper or coin, exchangeable value, or be adjusted issued by the government, shall be through international agreement or as good as any other. We commend by such safeguards of legislation the wise and patriotic steps as shall insure the maintenance of already taken by our government to the parity of the two metals, and secure an international conference, the equal power of every dollar at to adopt such measures as will all times in the markets and in the insure a parity of value between payment of debts, and we demand gold and silver for use as money that all paper currency shall be throughout the world. kept at par with and redeemable in such coin. We insist upon this policy as specially necessary for the protection of the farmers and laboring classes the first and most defenceless victims of unstable money and a fluctuating currency.

The Ballot Issue, 1892.

REPUBLICAN. DEMOCRATIC.

We demand that every citizen of the We warn the people of our common United States shall be allowed to country, jealous for the cast one free and unrestricted preservation of their free ballot in all public elections and institutions, that the policy of that such ballot shall be counted Federal control of elections to and returned as cast; that such which the Republican party has laws shall be enacted and enforced committed itself is fraught with as will secure to every citizen, be the gravest dangers, scarcely less he rich or poor, native or foreign momentous than would result from a born, white or black, this revolution practically establishing sovereign right guaranteed by the a monarchy on the ruins of the Constitution. republic. It strikes at the North as well as the South, and injures The free and honest popular ballot, the colored citizen even more than the just and equal representation the white; it means a horde of of all the people, as well as their deputy marshals at every polling just and equal protection under the place, armed with Federal power, laws, are the foundation of our returning boards appointed and republican institutions, and the controlled by Federal authority; party will never relax its efforts the outrage of the electoral rights until the integrity of the ballot of the people in the several and the purity of elections shall States; the subjugation of the be fully guaranteed and protected colored people to the control of in every State. the party in power and the reviving of race antagonisms, now happily We denounce the continued inhuman abated, of the utmost peril to the outrages perpetrated upon American safety and happiness of all—a citizens for political reasons in measure deliberately and justly certain Southern States of the described by a leading Republican Union. Senator as “the most infamous bill that ever crossed the threshold of the Senate.” Such a policy, if sanctioned by law, would mean the dominance of a self-perpetuating oligarchy of office-holders, and the party first intrusted with its machinery could be dislodged from power only by an appeal to the reserved right of the people to resist oppression which is inherent in all self-governing communities. Two years ago this revolutionary policy was emphatically condemned by the people at the polls; but, in contempt of that verdict, the Republican party has defiantly declared, in its latest authoritative utterance, that its success in the coming elections will mean the enactment of the Force bill and the usurpation of despotic control over elections in all the States.

Believing that the preservation of republican government in the United States is dependent upon the defeat of this policy of legalized force and fraud, we invite the support of all citizens who desire to see the Constitution maintained in its integrity with the laws pursuant thereto which have given our country a hundred years of unexampled prosperity; and we pledge the Democratic party, if it be intrusted with power, not only to the defeat of the Force bill but also to relentless opposition to the Republican policy of profligate expenditure, which in the short space of two years has squandered an enormous surplus and emptied an overflowing Treasury, after piling new burdens of taxation upon the already overtaxed

Civil Service, 1892.

REPUBLICAN. DEMOCRATIC.

We commend the spirit and evidence Public office is a public trust. We of reform in the Civil Service and reaffirm the declaration of the the wise and consistent enforcement Democratic National Convention of by the Republican party of the laws 1876 for the reform of the civil regulating the same. service, and we call for the honest enforcement of all laws regulating the same. The nomination of a President, as in the recent Republican Convention, by delegations composed largely of his appointees, holding office at his pleasure, is a scandalous satire upon free popular institutions and a startling illustration of the methods by which a President may gratify his ambition. We denounce a policy under which Federal office-holders usurp control of party conventions in the States, and we pledge the Democratic party to the reform of these and all other abuses which threaten individual liberty and local self-government.

The Third or People’s Party.

The political wing of the Farmers’ Alliance and the elements favoring the entering of the Labor organizations into politics, united in a National Convention at Omaha on the 4th of July, 1892. This Convention was the outcome of several previous efforts on the part of these several organizations to enter national politics. In many State Conventions of the Alliance its sub-treasury plan divided the organization into two factions—political and non-political, and as a result the representation at Omaha did not reflect the views of the entire organization.

Judge Gresham of Indiana, was prominently named as a Presidential candidate, and he finally consented to the use of his name if it could command unanimous support, but this was denied by what were called “the old guard,” who favored the recognition of those only who were plainly identified with the Third party.

At 12 o’clock the roll of States for nomination for President was hardly completed and there were four candidates before the Convention—Weaver, of Iowa; Kyle, of South Dakota; Field, of Virginia, and Page of Virginia. The chance seemed favorable to Weaver, but the uncertainty of a nomination on the first ballot made his friends still painfully anxious. Gresham’s declination had been at last reluctantly accepted by his admirers, and the refusal of Van Wyck to allow the consideration of his name practically left the field to the four candidates who had been formally presented.

The Ballot.

The first ballot for President resulted as follows, only one ballot necessary, Weaver being successful:

Alabama, Weaver, 43, Arkansas, Weaver, 12; Kyle, 20; California, Weaver, 25; Colorado, Weaver, 6; Kyle, 10; Connecticut, Weaver, 8; Kyle, 2; Delaware, Weaver, 1; Florida, Weaver, 16; Georgia, Weaver, 16; Kyle, 39; Idaho, Weaver, 12; Illinois, Weaver, 41; Kyle, 42; Indiana, Weaver 54; Kyle, 5; Norton, 1; Iowa, Weaver, 52; Kansas, Weaver, 40; Kentucky, Weaver, 40; Louisiana, Weaver, 32; Maine, Weaver, 6; Kyle, 3; Massachusetts, Weaver, 9; Kyle, 18; Page, 1; Michigan, Weaver, 56; Minnesota, Weaver, 27; Kyle, 9; Mississippi, Weaver, 17; Missouri, Weaver, 61: Kyle, 7; Montana, Kyle, 12; Nebraska, Weaver, 23; Kyle, 3; Nevada, Kyle, 7; New Jersey, Weaver, 4; New York, Weaver, 59; North Carolina, Weaver, 20; Kyle, 5; North Dakota, Weaver, 11; Kyle, 1; Ohio, Weaver, 30; Kyle, 22; Oregon, Weaver, 16; Pennsylvania, Weaver, 29; Stanford, 1; South Dakota, Weaver, 1; Kyle, 15; Tennessee, Weaver, 45; Texas, Weaver, 60; Virginia, Weaver, 48; Washington, Weaver, 15; West Virginia, Weaver, 17; Wisconsin, Weaver, 7; Kyle, 41; Wyoming, Weaver, 3; District of Columbia, Weaver, 8; Oklahoma, Weaver, 8. Total: Weaver, 995; Kyle, 265; Norton, 1; Page, 1; Stanford, 1.

Maryland, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, South Carolina, Vermont, Alaska, Arizona, Indian Territory, New Mexico and Utah are blank.

Norton moved to make the nomination unanimous, and Schilling, of Wisconsin, Washburn, of Massachusetts, and the delegates from South Dakota, Montana and Massachusetts seconded the motion. It was carried with a hurrah and loud cheering.

General James G. Field, of Virginia, and of the Confederate service, was nominated on the first ballot for Vice-President.

People’s Party Platform.

Preamble: Corruption dominates the ballot-box, the Legislatures, the Congress and touches even the ermine of the bench. The people are demoralized, most of the States have been compelled to isolate the voters at the polling places to prevent universal intimidation or bribery. The newspapers are largely subsidized or muzzled, public opinion silenced, business prostrated, our homes covered with mortgages, labor impoverished and the land concentrating in the hands of the capitalists.

The urban workmen are denied the right of organization for self-protection; imported pauperized labor beats down their wages; a hireling standing army, unrecognized by our laws, is established to shoot them down, and they are rapidly degenerating into European conditions. The fruits of the toil of millions are boldly stolen to build up colossal fortunes for a few, unprecedented in the history of mankind, and the possessors of these in turn despise the republic and endanger liberty. From the same prolific womb of governmental injustice we breed the two great classes—tramps and millionaires.

The national power to create money is appropriated to enrich bondholders; a vast public debt payable in legal tender currency has been funded into gold-bearing bonds, thereby adding millions to the burdens of the people.

Silver, which has been accepted as coin since the dawn of history, has been demonetized to add to the purchasing power of gold by decreasing the value of all forms of property as well as human labor, and the supply of currency is purposely abridged to fatten usurers and bankrupt enterprise and slave industry.

We declare that this republic can only endure as a free government while built upon the love of the whole people for each other and for the nation; that it cannot be pinned together by bayonets; that the civil war is over, and that every passion and resentment which grew out of it must die with it, and that we must be, in fact, as we are in name, one united brotherhood of free men.

Our country finds itself confronted by conditions for which there is no precedent in the history of the world. Our annual agricultural productions amount to billions of dollars in value, which must within a few weeks or months be exchanged for billions of dollars of commodities consumed in their production. The existing currency supply is wholly inadequate to make this exchange. The results are falling prices, the formation of combines and rings, the impoverishment of the producing class. We pledge ourselves that, if given power, we will labor to correct these evils by wise and reasonable legislation, in accordance with the terms of our platform.

The platform proper, declares:

First.—That the union of the labor forces of the United States this day consummated shall be permanent and perpetual. May its spirit into all hearts for the salvation of the Republic aid the uplifting of mankind.

Second.—Wealth belongs to him who creates it, and every dollar taken from industry without an equivalent is robbery. “If any will not work, neither shall he eat.” The interests of rural and civic labor are the same: their enemies are identical.

Third.—We believe that the time has come when the railroad corporations will either own the people or the people must own the railroads, and should the government enter upon the work of owning and managing all railroads, we should favor an amendment to the Constitution by which all persons engaged in the government service shall be placed under a Civil Service regulation of the most rigid character, so as to prevent the increase of the power of the national administration by the use of such additional government employés.

Finance.—We demand a national currency, safe, sound and flexible, issued by the general government only, a full legal tender for all debts, public and private, and that without the use of banking corporations, a just, equitable and efficient means of distribution direct to the people, at a tax rate not to exceed two per cent, per annum to be provided as set forth in the sub-Treasury plan of the Farmers’ Alliance or a better system: also by payments in discharge of its obligations for public improvements.

(a).—We demand free and unlimited coinage of silver and gold at the present legal ratio of 16 to 1.

(b).—We demand that the amount of circulating medium be speedily increased to not less than $50 per capita.

(c).—We demand a graduated income tax.

(d).—We believe that the money of the country should be kept as much as possible in the hands of the people, and hence we demand that all State and national revenues shall be limited to the necessary expenses of the government, economically and honestly administered.

(e).—We demand that postal savings banks be established by the government for the safe deposit of the earnings of the people and to facilitate exchange.

Transportation.—Transportation being a means of exchange and a public necessity, the government should own and operate the railroads in the interests of the people.

(a).—The telegraph, telephone, like the post-office system, being a necessity for the transmission of news, should be owned and operated by the government in the interest of the people.

Land.—The land, including all the natural sources of wealth, is the heritage of the people and should not be monopolized for speculative purposes, and alien ownership of land should be prohibited. All land now held by railroads and other corporations in excess of their actual needs, and all lands now owned by aliens, should be reclaimed by the government and held for actual settlers only.

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AMERICAN POLITICS.