The recent victory won by it in Chicago makes the truth of that statement apparent.
Here was a city which a few months ago gave the Republican ticket the enormous majority of 60,000. So far as parties are concerned, the Republican Party stands precisely where it stood when Roosevelt won that triumph. So far as the Democratic Party is concerned, it has not budged an inch from the ground which it occupied when it met its Waterloo in the November elections. What is it, then, which gave to the candidate of the minority party a decisive success, so soon after an overwhelming defeat? Evidently, it was the principle which he represented.
The National Democratic Party has never declared itself in favor of public ownership. The National Republican Party has never done so. The People’s Party is the only National organization which has proclaimed and battled for the principle which was involved in the Chicago election.
So far back as 1890 the People’s Party of the state of Georgia, and of other states, grew tired of the deceptive compromise called Public Control; threw it aside as a failure; boldly advanced to the more radical ground of Public Ownership, and formed its line of battle. In spite of abuse, ridicule and defeat, our party has never faltered in its steady advocacy of the principle which at that time met the aggressive opposition of both the Democratic and Republican Parties. In the campaigns made by Mr. Bryan he stood for no such principle as this. In the campaign led by Belmont and Parker and Gorman in 1904 the Democratic Party stood for no such principle as this; nor has the Republican Party ever dared to proclaim itself in favor of such robust radicalism. Therefore, it is folly to say that the victory won in the Chicago election is a Democratic victory. It is misleading to say that this election illustrates the fact that “the Democratic Party always wins when it is Democratic.” The principle of public ownership has never been a part of the political stock in trade of the Democratic Party. Therefore the principle of public ownership of public utilities cannot be classed as Democratic, if we use the term in the partisan sense which attaches to it. The principle of public ownership is Populistic, and it is merely rendering to the pioneers of that movement simple justice when we say that the Chicago election, which wiped out party lines and gave to the people and to the principle a magnificent victory, should redound to the credit of those much-abused and misrepresented men who thirteen years ago unfurled that particular flag and began to fight beneath it.
The people of Chicago evidently grew tired of being plundered; grew ashamed of their own political imbecility; grew ashamed of their own municipal cowardice. Roused to action by a few magnetic leaders who were not afraid and who were not to be sidetracked by hypocritical compromises, they marshaled their strength and demonstrated how easy it is for the masses to throw off the yoke of those who plunder them under forms of law. Nobody ever doubted for a moment that the people of Chicago, in the main, were honest, courageous, public-spirited, but they had submitted so long to the initiative and the domination of a few organized rascals who intrenched themselves in places of power, safeguarded by legislation, that it seemed wellnigh hopeless to expect them ever to revolt. The fact that they have revolted, and have reversed the results achieved at the November election, gives another illustration of what I said in the first issue of this magazine, namely, that the election of 1904, properly construed, was so encouraging to the reformers as to become an inspiration. It was pointed out that the victory of Douglas in Massachusetts, of Folk in Missouri, of La Follette in Wisconsin, each of whom was known as a reformer, could be construed in no other way than that the people were tired of party names, of party traditions, of party machines and party hypocrisy, and were determined to go to the support of any man and any principle which promised them the relief which they so much needed. The triumph of Judge Dunne, the Democrat, following so speedily upon the heels of an adverse vote against Judge Parker, the Democrat, absolutely clinches the truth of what I said, namely, that the only party, the only principle, the only sentiment which grew stronger by the campaign of 1904 was that of radicalism.
Why shouldn’t the lesson of the Chicago election be taken to heart by every great city and every small town in this Republic? If the people of Chicago can turn the rascals out, the people of New York can turn the rascals out, the people of Philadelphia can turn the rascals out. Talk about vested rights and charters which grant monopolies! Nobody wants to confiscate property or violate contracts, no matter how ill-judged those contracts may have been. But we say this: Just as private property was assessed and taken under the principle of Eminent Domain, in order that corporations should construct their railways, their telegraph lines, their telephone lines, so the same principle of Eminent Domain can be applied to return to the people what was taken away from the people. Assess these properties at a fair valuation, pay honestly and fully what they are worth, then take them over for the public to be operated for the benefit of the public. The law of Eminent Domain can be applied to all sorts of property, real and personal, the tangible thing called an acre of ground and the intangible thing called a charter.