The New York herald. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1840-1920, 1871-08-14
TIE Labor Refer. Party and It's Sweep
ing Revolutionary Prosrnmmc-A Ire.
uendous Agitation Coming.

party has been holding general Congress at
st. Louis, and, considering the widespread
and ominous agitation Of this labor question on
this side as well as on the other side of the
Atlantic, the proclamation of the principles
and purposes of this new party may well
challenge the attention OF the statesmen and
politicians of all other parties In the country
These labor reformers, in their political plat
form for the coming Presidential campaign,
say that ''the land, water, air aud all natural
elements are common gifts, and that ''gov-
ernments are only trustees to guard against
their misapplication; that all class legisla-
ton perverting the common elements from
the many to the few is wrong and subversve
Of good government; that sail able-bodied,
intelligent persons should contribute to the
common stock by fruitful industry, sum or
quantity equal to their own support, and that
legislation should tend as far as possible, to
the equitable distribution of the surplus pro-
ducts" They say, furthermore, that ''pau-
perism and crime are the prevailing questions
Of all modern craftsmanship, and it is with
these we have to deals" and that, although
'chattel slavery has been abolished, tho
rights and relations of labor stand just where
they did before emancipation in respect to the
division of The products of the laboring masses
Of the country"
This is substantially the bill of grievances
Of the International and of the Paris Com
mune, and the remedies suggested from the
bare recital Of these complaints simply mean
kLoc o1,1 80
political revolution in the history Of mankind.
This St. Louis National Labor Reform pro-
nunciamento says that the instrumentalities by
which these wrongs upon labor are inflicted
ar,-frst, banking and moneyed monopolies,
by which, through swindling rates of interest,
the hands of few non-producers; second,
extortionate consolidated railway and other
transit companies; third, manufacturing mo-
nopolies whereby small operators are crushed
and the price of labor Is Mechanically re-
duced to the smallest living compensation
fourth, land monopoles fifth, commercial
and grain monopolies. Nor can 1t be ques-
toned by the most superficial observer that
these evils. particularly since our late civil
war and from the manifold corruptons grow
ing out Of il, have been operating, ana
now are operating more powerfully than ever,
to make 'the rich richer aud the poor poorer"
and to widen and deepen the gulf between the
two classes. These labor reformers propose
to remedy these evils as far as possible
first, by new monetary system, based on the
substantial resources Of the nation and en-
bracing currency that shall, without any ex-
ception, be legal tender for all debts, pub
lie and private, this currency to be also inter-
changeable for national bonds at three per
cent interest, and SO on; second, by the
redemption of the debt on the greenback
plan of ''Old Thad Stevens" third, by holding
the public lands exclusively for actual set
tiers fourth, by tariff framed exclusively
for revenue purposes; fifth, by restraining or,
if it must be so, by aboIishing corporate mo-
nopolies under interdictng class legislation
sixth, by requiring in all future wars that we
pay as we go from the substantial wealth of
the country ninth. by prohibiting the i'm
| portation of coolies or other servile labor;
tenth, by encouraging cooperative industry
eleventh. by general amnesty, and twelfth,
by general board of management Of the
revenue and the currency.
1t will be observed that there is the average
proportion of political claptrap and stuff for
buncombe in this new party platform, and that
in Its leading and Distinguishing propositions
Of reform it is somewhat too much budget of
''glittering generalities. But from the COM
plants of the party we think we may pretty
fairly interpret its real designs They say that
the laboring classes, even in the United
States, are practically In the same condition
in respect to the products of their labor as
were the slaves Of the South before their eman-
| cipation that labor is under the heel Of CAPT.
tai; that non-producers and grinding banks,
railroads, land jobbing and other monopolies
absorb the profits Of labor; that non-produ-
GERS must be put to work and that, If there be
no other way to reach them, these grinding
monopolies must be abolished Here in the
abolition of these monopolies we have the
main idea of this new party, for all the
rest of its proposed reforms are but
''leatber and prunella" We perceive, too,
Ia this movement the groundwork of
| POiitACai okiIaIAuH Compareu WIFI WHICu even
| the tremendous and terrible slavery agitation
| will stand in history as but small and incom-
! plete affair, including the abolition Of slavery
the establishment of equal rights before the
law and the elective franchise to citizens Of
all colors.
We have repeatedly within the last year or
two discussed the great political dangers
threatened the country from our gigantic
railway and other powerful moneyed corpora
tons. This Labor Reform party, therefore, In
our estimation, in opening the war upon these
overshadowing monopolies, and in lis general
design of the subordination Of capital to labor,