11. Ex-soldiers and sailors of the United States army and navy, their widows and minor children, should receive liberal pensions, graded on disability and term of service, not merely as a debt of gratitude, but for service rendered in the preservation of the Union.
12. Our immigration laws should be so revised as to exclude paupers and criminals. None but citizens of the United States should be allowed to vote in any State, and naturalized citizens should not vote until one year after naturalization papers have been issued.
13. The initiative and referendum, and proportional representation should be adopted.
The Socialist Labor party held a national convention in New York on the 4th of July, and gave a full week to the deliberations of the body, which were devoted almost wholly to disputation as to the policy and purposes of the organization. The attendance was limited, as Charles H. Matchett, of New York, was nominated for President on the 1st ballot, receiving 43 votes to 23 for Matthew Maguire, of New Jersey, and 4 for William Watkins, of Ohio. Matthew Maguire was then nominated for Vice-President by acclamation. The following platform was adopted:
The Socialist Labor party of the United States, in convention assembled, reasserts the inalienable right of all men to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
With the founders of the American Republic, we hold that the purpose of government is to secure every citizen in the enjoyment of this right; but in the light of our social conditions, we hold, furthermore, that no such right can be exercised under a system of economic inequality, essentially destructive of life, of liberty, and of happiness.
With the founders of this Republic, we hold that the true theory of politics is that the machinery of government must be owned and controlled by the whole people; but in the light of our industrial development we hold, furthermore, that the true theory of economics is that the machinery of production must likewise belong to the people in common.
To the obvious fact, that our despotic system of economics is the direct opposite of our democratic system of politics, can plainly be traced the existence of a privileged class, the corruption of government by that class, the alienation of public property, public franchises, and public functions to that class, and the abject dependence of the mightiest nations upon that class.
Again, through the perversion of Democracy to the ends of plutocracy, labor is robbed of the wealth which it alone produces, is denied the means of self-employment, and, by compulsory idleness in wage slavery, is even deprived of the necessaries of life. Human power and natural forces are thus wasted that the plutocracy may rule. Ignorance and misery, with all their concomitant evils, are perpetuated, that the people may be kept in bondage. Science and invention are diverted from their humane purpose to the enslavement of women and children.
Against such a system the Socialist Labor party once more enters its protest. Once more it reiterates its fundamental declaration, that private property in the natural sources of production and in the instruments of labor is the obvious cause of all economic servitude and political dependence.