St. Paul daily globe. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn.) 1884-1896, 1894-07-12
THE poPULIsr PLATFORM.

Either soberer counsels prevailed or
the lessons OF adversely have tempered
the spirit which found expression in
the platforms of the Populists in their
last campaigns. The idea of making
loans of paper money on land security,
and of establishing warehouses for the
deposit of farm produce as collateral
security for loans, ''Or something bet
ter" are dropped conspicuously from
the reatfirmation OF the Omaha plat
form. AS distinct retreat from the
paternaistic tendency of the party in
its first stages. this abandonment of
what was the main initial feature OF the
movement is significant. If it may be
taken as indicating that the farmers are
beginning TO see that their relief lies
not i'll the direction OF special legiSla-
ton for themselves as a class, but in
the repeal of special Legislation enacted
for others, the party is TO be congratu-
lated on its progress towards Democ-
racy.
This progress. however, has some
brakes put on it in subsequent planks,
showing that divergent ideas struggled
in the committee, but in spite of these
there is enough else that is Democratic
to justify the statement. The demand
for free coinage is one which no party
is in position to-upbraid them for, for 1t
has permeated all parties alike. The
income tax is already safely embedded
in the next revenue law of the nation
by action OF the present congress. The
demand for governmental savings banks
has paternalistic color, while the plank
asking for the governmental ownership
of railways, telephones and telegraphs
is based on the Democratic antagonism
to monopoiies. either natural or artifi-
cial. The single tax men are given a
hearing i'll the plank declaring land and
all natural resources of wealth to be the
heritage of all the people, and the de-
mand for the election of the president
and senators by direct vote is too gen.
orally made to be monopolized by the
Populists.
The Democratic grain plank of 1892 is
virtually adopted IN the third plank de-
handing that the corporations that have
plundered the farmers be broken up,
but the difference would probably be
more apparent when questions OF detail
arose. The demand FOR rigid economy
in public affairs is coInmendable, and
the determination to pursue the pine
land rings is laudable, while the pro-
position to tax mining lands so tina.
they will bear their equal share Of the
burdens is a matter the GLOBE has long
advocated. The principle OF the initia-
tive and referendum IS sound one
whatever difficulty may arise when it
becomes matter of detail, and there is
distinct forward movement in the de-
mand that The suffrage be extended to
women Socialism crops out again in
the plank calling for the naturalization
of the liquor traffic, but, as it is not an
immediate question, it may be taken
either as an aspiration for something
hoped for rather than thing to be i'm
mediately accomplished. or as plank
on which the Prohibitionists might get
as body, and save themselves the
bother of campaign, probably the
latter. All in all there is much that is
good in the platform, and decidedly less
of that which was badly socialistic than
former platforms have contained.