Gloucester County Democrat., 1912-07-11


velopment and Improvement OF our
inland waterways, with economy and
efficiency, so as to permit their nayi-
cation by vessels of standard draft
Post Roads.
We favor national aid to State and
local authorities in the construction
and maintenance of post roads.
Rights of Labor.
We repeat our declaration of the
platform of 1908 as follows:
The courts of justice are the bull
warks of our liberties, and we yield
to none in our purpose to maintain
their dignity. Our party has given to
the bench a long line OF distinguished
justices who have added to the respect
and confidence in which this depart
ment must be jealously maintained.
We resent the attempt of the Repub
lican party to raise a false issue re-
specting the judiciary. 1t is an un-
just reflection upon a great body of
our citizens 10 assume that they lack
respect for the courts.
1T is the function of the courts to
interpret the laws which the people
enact, and if the laws appear to work
economic, social, or political injustice,
| it is our duty to change them. The
only basis upen which tthe integrity
of our courts can stand is that of un-
swerving justice and protection of life,
personal liberty and property. If ju
dicial processes may be abused, We
would guard them against abuse.
Experience has proved the neces-
sity of a modification of the present
law relating to injunctions, and we
reiterate the pledges of our platforms
of 1896 and 1904 in favor of mea-
sure which passed the United States
Senate in 1896. relating to contempt
in federal courts and providing for
| trial by jury in cases of indirect con-
! tempt
Questions of judicial practice have
arisen, especially in connection with
industrial disputes. We believe that
the parties to all judicial proceedings
should be treated with rigid impartial
ity, and that munitions should not be
issued in any cases in which an in
junction would not issue if no indus
trial dispute were involved.
The expanding organization of in
dustry makes it essential that there
should be no abridgement of the right
of the wage earners and producers to
organize for the protection of wages
and the Improvement of labor condi-
tions, to the end that such labor or
ganizations and their members should
not be regarded as illegal combina-
tions in restraint of trade.
I'VE pledge the Democratic party to
the enactment of a law creating de-
partment of labor represented separ-
ately in the Presidents Cabinet, in
which department shall be included
the subject of mines and mining"
We pledge the Democratic party so
far as the federal jurisdiction extends
to an employees compensation law,
providing adequate indemnity for in
jury to body or loss of life.
Conservation.
We believe in the conservation and
the development, for the use of all the
people of the natural resources of the
country. Our forests, our sources of
water supply, our arabic and our
mineral lands, our navigable streams
and all the other material resources
with which our country has been so
layishly endowed constitute the foun-
dation of our national wealth Such
additional legislation as may be
necessary to prevent their being
wasted or absorbed by special or
privileged interests, should be enacted
and the policy of their conservation
should be rigidly adhered to.
The public domain should be ad-
fninistered and disposed of with due
regard to the general welfare. Reser-
walton should be limited to the pur-
poses which they support to serve and
not extend to include land wholly I'M
suited therefor. The unnecessary
withdrawal from sale and settlement
of enormous tracts of public land,
upon which treegrowth never existed
and cannot be promoted, tends only
to retard development, create discon-
tent and bring reproach upon the
policy of conservation
The public land laws should be ad-
ministered in a spirit of the broadcast
liberality towards the settler exhibit
ing bonafide purpose to comply
herewith to the end that the invita-
ton of this government to the land
lSSS SnOulu u0 DIS dllIdCIlf0 dts pUS-
slble; and the plain provisions of the
forest reserve act permitting home
stead entries to be made within the
national forests should not be nullified
by administrative regulations which
amount to withdrawal of great areas
of the same from settlement.
Immediate action should be taken by
Congress to make available the vast
and valuable coal deposits of Alaska
under conditions that will be a perfect
guaranty against their falling into the
hands of monopolizing corporations,
associations or interests.
We rejoice in the Inheritance of
mineral resources unequaled in ex-
tent, variety or value, and in the de-
velopment of a mining industry un-
equaled in its magnitude and impor-
tance. We honor the men who, in
their hazardous toll under ground,