Before the vote was finally announced delegations speedily changed their votes to Weaver, and he was declared unanimously chosen as the candidate. B. B. Chambers, of Texas, was nominated for Vice-President by 403 votes to 311 for Allanson M. West, of Mississippi. The following platform was adopted:
1. That the right to make and issue money is a sovereign power to be maintained by the people for the common benefit. The delegation of this right to corporations is a surrender of the central attribute of sovereignty, void of constitutional sanction, conferring upon a subordinate irresponsible power absolute dominion over industry and commerce. All money, whether metallic or paper, should be issued and its volume controlled by the Government, and not by or through banking corporations, and, when so issued, should be a full legal tender for all debts, public and private.
2. That the bonds of the United States should not be refunded, but paid as rapidly as practicable, according to contract. To enable the Government to meet these obligations, legal tender currency should be substituted for the notes of the national banks, the national banking system abolished, and the unlimited coinage of silver, as well as gold, established by law.
3. That labor should be so protected by national and State authority as to equalize its burdens and insure a just distribution of its results; the eight-hour law of Congress should be enforced; the sanitary condition of industrial establishments placed under rigid control; the competition of contract labor abolished; a bureau of labor statistics established; factories, mines, and workshops inspected; the employment of children under fourteen years of age forbidden; and wages paid in cash.
4. Slavery being simply cheap labor, and cheap labor being simply slavery, the importation and presence of Chinese serfs necessarily tends to brutalize and degrade American labor; therefore immediate steps should be taken to abrogate the Burlingame treaty.
5. Railroad land grants forfeited by reason of non-fulfilment of contract should be immediately reclaimed by Government; and henceforth the public domain reserved exclusively as homes for actual settlers.
6. It is the duty of Congress to regulate interstate commerce. All lines of communication and transportation should be brought under such legislative control as shall secure moderate, fair, and uniform rates for passenger and freight traffic.
7. We denounce, as destructive to prosperity and dangerous to liberty, the action of the old parties in fostering and sustaining gigantic land, railroad, and money corporations, invested with, and exercising, powers belonging to the Government, and yet not responsible to it for the manner of their exercise.
8. That the Constitution, in giving Congress the power to borrow money, to declare war, to raise and support armies, to provide and maintain a navy, never intended that the men who loaned their money for an interest consideration should be preferred to the soldier and sailor who perilled their lives and shed their blood on land and sea in defence of their country; and we condemn the cruel class legislation of the Republican party, which, while professing great gratitude to the soldier, has most unjustly discriminated against him and in favor of the bondholder.
9. All property should bear its just proportion of taxation; and we demand a graduated income tax.