The daily morning journal and courier., 1902-07-31
Johnson. $ Bretbsr, 4Ii.4Is State St.. cor. Court.
STATE ECONOMIC LEAGUE

| ter a number of changes it was finally adopted, and is ill full as follows: Preamble Stating the Conditions That | Demand Political Remedies. The situation is as follows: There are in this country about one million of peo- pie who own most of the wealth, includ- ing the great corporations. Seventy five millions belong to the middle and I laboring classes, and are supported by twenty-five millions of workers earning I on the average not over four hundred dollars per annum.
 The workers together earn about thirty-four millions of dollars per day, or ten billions per annum. Modern pol l itics consists in devising ways and means of getting at that ten billion dollars of annual earnings of poor peo- pie.
 The workers have got to go into poli- I tics to protect themselves, and must go in otherwise than as puppets of ma chine politicians. The Economic league offers the worker medium for goining in, and in the sequel will propose the ways by which he may throw corpora tions and politicians off his back and | WTeICH IIl6lT ouL ul HIS ppStNVt'
 Labor applied to land produces capi- | tai; the logical order is land, labor, cap- ! ital. If one can take possession of land and capital he can hang labor in the | air. The great natural resources, in- cluding rights of way over the earth, are assets of society. Fortunes are con- stantly being immorally amassed in this country, first by taking possession of society's assets, and second by shaving the wages and income of the laboring and middle classes
 The political evils to be remedied, then. arise from the unprotected condf- tion of the wages of labor and of the assets of society, and their consequent attack and absorption by the rich or ganized into corporations and assisted by machine politicians.
 Article l.
 We believe in the fatherheod of God, the brotherhood of man, in civil liberty, the Golden Rule and pure democracy. Article 2-The Rotten Borough System.
 It should be made the issue of the next gubernatorial campaign with can didate for governor pledged, if elected. to call constitutional convention by executive proclamation. delegates to be chosen according to population instead I of acreage of land.
 Article 3-The Electorate and Direct l Primary.
 The electorate should be taken out of the hands of the machine by embodying it, as the other departments are, in law. We favor the direct primary the mak- ing of the secret ballot secret, the use of the voting machine and the election of president and vice president of the United States, United States senators, judges and county commissioners di- reetly by the people.
 Chapter 106 of the new revised stat utes, concerning registration for voting at primaries should be repealed, as piece of red tape devised by the ma chimes to deprive voters of their rights. Article 1.-The Initiative and Referen-
 dunn.
 Ten per cent. of the freemen affected should have the right to initiate meas ures to be referred to the same voting constituency for acceptance or rejection at the ballot box; they should also have the right to demand, within limited time after passage, like reference to the people. for acceptance or rejection, of any measure passed by the general assembly, the city council, or other sirn- liar legislative bodies.
 Article 5-Home Rule. With the free local use of the initia- tive and referendum the people of each city should be permitted to make and amend their charters without resort to the legislature, restrained only by the general law under which such action Would be taken. We favor local option in taxation, the right of the people of leach city and town to tax the franchises of their public service corporations, and, through public representative in the di- rectorate of such corporations, to assist in fixing the rates for public utilities. We favor home rule in all purely local matters.
 Article 6-Public Service Corporations. I We demand that public service cor porations be compelled to stand their fair share of the tax burden, and that they be permitted to make no profit on water in their stocks and bonds, and none on the peoples street franchise valuation; that they be permitted to charge such rates only as will insure a fair business return on what their plants could be duplicated for.
 We believe that the rates for public utilities are inordinately high, and de- mand a substantial reduction along the whole line, especially in electric trans portation rates for laboring men and school children.
 Article z.
 Chapter 122 of the revised statutes, so far as it compels municipalities under certain conditions to buy up gas and electric plants, should be repealed, and the people given full and free right to go into municipal ownership of public utilities
 Article 8.
 We favor labor unionism, the right to form and join unions, and the right of unions to strike and by all peaceable