We condemn the Dingley tariff law as a trust-breeding measure, skillfully devised to give the few favors which they do not deserve and to place upon the many burdens which they should not bear.
INTERSTATE COMMERCE LAW.
We favor such an enlargement of the scope of the interstate commerce law as will enable the commission to protect individuals and communities from discriminations and the public from unjust and unfair transportation rates.
DECLARATION FOR 16 TO 1.
We reaffirm and indorse the principles of the national Democratic platform adopted at Chicago in 1896, and we reiterate the demand of that platform for an American financial system, made by the American people for themselves, which shall restore and maintain a bimetalic level, and as part of such system the immediate restoration of the free and unlimited coinage of silver and gold at the present legal ratio of 16 to 1, without waiting for the aid or consent of any other nation.
CURRENCY LAW DENOUNCED.
We denounce the currency bill enacted at the last session of Congress as a step forward in the Republican policy which aims to discredit the sovereign right of the national government to issue all money, whether coin or paper, and to bestow upon national banks the power to issue and control the volume of paper money for their own benefit.
A permanent national bank currency, secured by government bonds, must have a permanent debt to rest upon, and if the bank currency is to increase with population and business the debt must also increase. The Republican currency scheme is therefore a scheme for fastening upon taxpayers a perpetual and growing debt for the benefit of the banks.
We are opposed to this private corporation paper circulated as money, but without legal-tender qualities, and demand the retirement of the national bank notes as fast as government paper or silver certificates can be substituted for them.