Mountain Home maverick. [volume] (Mountain Home, Idaho) 1906-1911, 1906-10-04
Adopted by the Socialist Party in
National Convention at Chicago.
Ill.,, May 9Th. 1904, and Endorsed
by Referendum Of the Party Men,
bershIp July 10Th, 1904.

fender and prcscrvcr of the idea of
liberty and lf-government, in
which the nation was born; as the
only political movement standing
for the program and principles by
which the liberty of the individual
may become a fact; as the only po-
1itical organization that is demo-
cratic, and that has for its purpose
the denocratizing of the whole of
society.
To this idea the Republican and
Democratic parties are equally false.
They alike struggle for power to
maintain and profit by an indus
trial system which can be pre-
served only by the complete over
throw of such liberties we al
ready have, and by the still further
ensiavement and degradation of la
Dor.
Our American institutions came
into the world in the name of free
DOM They have been siezed upon
by the capitalist class as the means
of roofing out the idea of freedom
from amcng the people. Our state
and national legislatures have be-
come the mere agencies of great
propertied interests. These inter
csts control the appointments and
decisions of the judges Of our
courts. They have come into what
is practically a private ownership
of all the functions and forces of
government. They are using these
TO bctray and conquer foreign and
weaker peoples, in order to estab-
lish new markets for the surplus
goods which the people make, but
are too poor to buy. They are grad
ualiy so invading and restricting
the right of suffrage as to take
away unawarcs the right of the
worker to a vote or voice in public
affairs BY enacting new and
misinterprcting old laws, they are
preparing to attack the liberty of
the individual even to speak or
think for himself, or for the COM
mon good
BY controlling all the sources of
social revenue, the possessing class
is able to silence what might be the
voice of protest against The passing
of liberty and the coming of tyran-
ny 1t completely controls the
university and public school, the
and literatures. BY making these
economically dependent upon itself,
it has brought all the forms of pub
lie teaching into servile submission
to its own interests
Our political institutions are
also being used as the destroyers of
that individual property upon which
all liberty and opportunity depend.
The promise of economic independ-
cnce to each man was one of the
faiths upon which our institutions
were founded. But, under the
guise of defending private proper
ty, capitalism is using our political
institutions to make it impossible
for the vast majority of human be-
ings ever to become possessors OF
private property in the means OF
life.
Capitalism is the enemy and
destroyer of essential private prop
crty. Its development is through
the 1egalized confiscation of all
that the labor of the working class
produces, above its subsistence
wage The private ownership oil
the means of employment grounds
Boicety in an economic slavery
which renders intellectual and po-
1iticaI tyranny inevitable.
Socialism comes so to organize
industry and society that every in
dividual shall be secure in tina
private property in the means OF
life upon which his liberty of be-
ing, thought and action depends
1t comes to rescue the people from
the fast increasing and successful
assault of capitalism upon the lib
erty of the individual.
II.
As an American socialist party
we pledge our fidelity to the prin
ciples of international socialism, "a
embodied in the united thought an,
action of the socialists of all ma
tons In the industrial develop
ment already accomplished, TIT
interests of the worlds worker
are separated by no national boun
daries- The condition of the mos
exploited and oppressed workers
in the most remote places of thu
earth, inevitably tends to drag dow
all the work crs of the world to tn
same level The tendency of tn
competitive wage system is to max
labor lowest condition the measur