I refrain from going at length into a discussion of labor issues. Shall prohibitionists come out for State Socialism, shall they pledge themselves to make that economic nationalism which is now only a prophecy and an ideal, a political fact when they came into administration? No political party should do this. But the word socialism is a word of good meaning. It means fraternity, industry upon a Christian basis. In the discussion that impends in this country, concerning the rights and the wrongs of the wage-earners, and concerning the demands for relief, constantly growing louder, of the agricultural producing classes, the question arises in the mind at the outset, whether our policy, state and national, shall be based upon the laissez faire doctrine, the “let alone” principle; or upon the principle of the intervention of public opinion through the agency of government to effect the ends of justice and of aid to the weaker classes whether by regulative laws, or by the assumption by the public (through local, state, or national government, as the nature of the case may require,) of such business or industrial enterprises as are natural monopolies or can be best performed by the people collectively. I say this question arises in the mind at the outset, but after all, it is, I think, not a question requiring much argument in this day of the world; because, although there are some men more busy with their own daily duties than attentive to the world’s progress who are apt, from time to time, to raise this question, appealing in favor of the “let alone” principle, it is really a question already decided. The people both in England and in America have grown quite away from laissez faire doctrine, the tendency is strong and constantly increasing in the direction of increase of governmental intervention to redress the social balance. I believe it is impossible that this tendency should be arrested. I believe it would not be in the interest of humanity to arrest it. There is a vast field for individualism, and in that field it is eminently useful. There is a field also for society, for the State. The needs of the people in this country to-day are such, the thought of the masses is advancing so rapidly in the direction indicated that no political party can long hold power that does not accept the socialistic tendency and prudently experiment in that direction. There is, in point of fact, no other possible direction in which society can move, and it cannot stand still. From the necessity for some intervention in aid of the weaker classes against the operation of the laws of demand and supply, it follows that “no class legislation” is not a good cry for a labor party.
The land question should have a distinct recognition as a true reform issue, and while committal to the policy signified by the term single tax, in its entirety, should be avoided, land speculation and monopoly should be condemned as a monstrous evil, and against that evil should be directed such special taxation of land values as will check and ultimately destroy it, without too rudely disturbing existing values.
Government ownership of railroads, telegraphs, and of the anthracite coal mines, should be favored.
Gas, electric lights, and street railroads should be municipalized.
Legislation, reducing gradually and prudently the hours of labor, should be given urgency.
National aid to education, unwisely neglected by the Republicans, is strong with labor, and will be stronger the more it is discussed. Prohibitionists should advocate universal suffrage with universal education.
Educational tests for the suffrage offer too easy a repose for the conservatism of wealth, and to advocate them is to touch the wrong note, that of distrust rather than trust in the masses. Stand with Jefferson for Democracy and education, not for education first and the ballot afterwards. Go to the magnificent oration of Wendell Phillips, “The Scholar in a Republic,” for the courage and wisdom to say with that friend of prohibition and labor, that “crime and ignorance have the same right to vote that virtue has…. The right to choose your governor rests on precisely the same foundation as the right to choose your religion.” “Thank God for His method of taking bonds of wealth and culture to share all their blessings with the humblest soul He gives to their keeping.” “Universal suffrage,—God’s church, God’s school, God’s method of gently binding men into commonwealths in order that they may at last melt into brothers.” All attempts to identify prohibition or labor with free trade should be abandoned.
No large extension of our market for manufactures in Spanish America or in other foreign countries is possible, if we are to reduce hours of labor, abolish child labor, call married women from factory to home, and raise wages in America, regardless of the effect upon the cost of production. Labor reform, the socialistic tendency require a rigid adherence to the protective system. But reliance upon the home market will not only make labor legislation possible, but will be economic wisdom as well, for by education, by suppressing the saloon, by shortening hours, by increasing wages, we can indefinitely increase the capacity of our own people to consume. The McKinley tariff will work out its own salvation; for the friends of labor or prohibition to attack it is a fatal mistake. Prohibition, labor reform, and protection are natural allies, and in the party of the future will be united. Whoever wishes to form a new party for prohibition and for labor, will do well to appropriate rather than discard the historic Republican issues. Let the reformers catch the Republicans bathing and steal their clothes, albeit they already have some garments of their own which are very good. If a Democrat, for the sake of temperance or labor, or any issue, will leave the Democratic party, he has outgrown the constitutional doctrines of that party, and will not cling to its economic theories. If he brings a traditional prejudice in favor of government by the masses rather than by classes, he brings what is needed. When the period of political readjustment, not yet surely begun, is over, the Republican party will have been supplanted by a party inheriting many distinguishing articles of its creed; but the Democratic party will remain as the party of obstruction, claiming descent from Jefferson but not the true representative of the eternal truths with which his name is associated. Around the anti-national idea the ultra-conservatives, the cormorants of society, the panderers to vice, the white-liners of the South will rally. The true Democrats, with a unanimity hitherto unknown, will appreciate the utility of the national idea and will demonstrate that our Constitution was indeed intended “to live and take effect in all successions of ages.” The popular party, at once conservative and radical, will demonstrate by its habitual self-restraint, by its scrupulous regard for justice, by the honorable methods which it shall observe and exact, by its prudence in legislation, that the Democracy in the plentitude of its powers, is most truly conservative of all that vast store of good which the past hands down.