The representative. [volume] (St. Paul, Minn.) 1893-1901, 1894-08-01
THE STATE PLATFORM.
Principles Which Are Involved in It's
Utterances.

Utterances.
To the Editor:
I'VE reaffirm the great principles set
forth in the platform of the National Peo-
pies party, adopted at Omaha July 4,
1892. Minnesota State Platform.
What is the cardinal principle of the
Omaha platform? 1t is one thing to assert
that we affirm principle and quite an
other thing to know what that principle is.
The state platform follows the affirmation
with the phrase, Ito wit" after which
comes the demand for national currency,
free coinage of silver and gold, the estab-
lshment of government savings banks, a
graduated income and inheritance tax, gov
eminent ownership of railroads. telegraphs
etc These follow as illutratons of the
Observation-Disclosures measures it may
be-necessary to define it. But it is only
the principle of the Omaha platform that
is reaffirmed and the measures of that
instrument ere treated as simply inciden-
tai. some of them stated, and others, as
the 'sub-treasury PLAN omitted alto
gether.
The principle involved in the platforms of
the Peoples party Is the Encouragement or
readjustment of the sovereignty of the
state The state and not the individual
must be in all stable governments the SUI
preme power 1t is man in his collective
and not in his personal capacity who has
the authority to rule Under this power is
arranged the organization of liberty, and
this sovereignty must be asserted and
maintained for the preservation of liberty
Thus i'll government an individual tendency
has been foStered, and certain special in
terests of individuals have been pro-
tected, until the power of the
wealthy citizen. or corporation, has been
substituted in place of the will of the peo-
pie. The resolutions, stated in the
platform, tend towards taking something
from the overgrown power of the individ-
ual ana restoring it to the state, where it
properly belongs. The state, for instance
should issue it's own money own it's own
highways, control it's land, and perhaps
ultimately absorb the unearned increment
of interest and rent. These measures tend
directly to this end, and such Unconscious
though it may be). is the manifesto of the
people of America.
A close observer writing from Europe
says: The English machine is so contrived
as to respond pretty quickly and pretty
surely to internal pressure. Touch a button
and you turn out government. Touch
another and you modify the constitution
In American there is no great use in touch
ing buttons. The machine does not re-
spond. or does not respond until after a
considerable length of time In this lies
the danger Our constitution is fixed, and
though a grand instrument originally, it
will yet be difficult to obtain reforms under
It, The special interests of individuals ex-
erted for more than 80 years through a con-
tlnuous pressure of corruption upon legis-
latlve bodies, assisted by line of decisions
from our supreme courts, presided over bv
judges educated and raised in a certain
school of vested rights, has changed our
constitution through its Interpretation until
II Is now one of the most conservative con-
Stltutlons known to present history So
Tar nave we gone in this direction that at
last the system of vested rights and the
special interests that have grown up under
1t, have come in contact with the spirit
OF freedom: and it is the reassertion of
this spirit that is manifesting itself in the
platforms of the Peoples party
Is there not some danger that civil dis
orders may arise out of the plain assertion
OF popular sovereignty, drawing the line,
as 1t clearly does, between the special in
terests of individuals and the public well
fare and plainly revealing the organiza-
ton of two opposing forces? 1t is the meet
ing of two systems opposed to each other
IN nature, and the danger of the meeting
depends largely upon the temper of the
benef1ciaries of the present system The
beneficiaries of other systems in other
crises of the wodld's history have been
hurt in the shock of new ideas; as witness
the feudal barons, the bourbon nobility or
the slave owners of America; and it re-
mains for us to see, how much of a rent
the ballot will be in the assault of organ
iZeo iioerty upon the lines of modern feud-
alism. w n CAhiE1I
Stewart Mimi JulX