If the People’s Party platform were enacted into law, there could be no such thing as a Trust in the United States.
In order that the people should become the victims of such tyranny as that exercised by the Trusts two things are necessary: Foreign relief must be made impossible, and domestic relief made impracticable.
The Tariff wall keeps the foreigner from interfering; the railroads and the national banks supporting the Trusts make it impossible for domestic dissatisfaction to assert itself effectively.
If the people should put upon the free list those articles which are made the subject of the Trusts, the foreigner could at once invade the market, and destroy the monopoly upon which the Trust is based.
If the Populist principles of finance and of transportation should be carried into effect, the Government abolishing national banks and private ownership of transportation lines, the rebate would be impossible, discriminations would cease, equality would prevail, and there would be no collusion between the national banks and the railroads by which Trusts are made invincible as they are now invincible.
We believe in direct Legislation—putting the power of making laws and choosing rulers back into the hands of those to whom it belongs—and the election of all officers by the people.
The people should not be made to await the pleasure of the Legislature or of Congress. They should not be kept in ignorance of what the law is until legislative acts become known through the newspapers. There should be in every case the right to initiate those laws which they want, and to veto, through the Referendum, any law which they do not like.
When an officer whom they have elected shows by any vote or act that he is not the man they took him to be, they should not have to wait till the expiration of his term to get a better man. They should have the right to recall the officer the moment he betrays his trust.