Hundreds of citizens who raised their voices for the mainte nance of political and industrial rights during the war were indicted under the espionage law, tried in an atmosphere of preju dice and hysteria, and many of them are now serving inhumanly long jail sentences for daring to uphold the traditions of liberty which once were sacred in this country. Agents of the Federal government unlawfully raided homes and meeting places and prevented or broke up peaceable gather ings of citizens. The Postmaster-General established a censorship of the press more autocratic than that ever tolerated in a regime of absolutism, and has harassed and destroyed publications on account of their political and economic views, by excluding them from the mails And after the war was in fact long over the administration has not scrupled to continue a policy of repression and terrorism under the shallow and hypocritical guise of wartime measures. It has practically imposed involuntary servitude and peores on a large class of American workers by denying them the rig to quit work and coercing them into acceptance of inadequate wages and onerous conditions of labor. It has dealt a foul bw to the traditional American right of asylum by deporting hur dreds of foreign-born workers, by administrative order, on th mere suspicion of harboring radical views, and often for th sinister purpose of breaking labor strikes. In the short span of three years our self-styled liberal admiri tration has succeeded in undermining the very foundation of political liberty and economic rights which this republie has buil up in more than a century of struggle and progress. Under the hypocritical cloak of a false patriotism and under the protection of governmental terror the Democratic adminis tion has given the ruling classes unrestrained license to plud the people by intensive exploitation of labor, by the extorie of enormous profits, and by increasing the cost of all necessites of life. Profiteering has become reckless and rampant, billies have been coined by the capitalists out of the suffering and mixt of their fellow men. The American financial oligarchy ba become a dominant factor in the world, while the condition of the American workers grows more precarious. The responsibility does not rest upon the Democratic P alone. The Republican Party through its representatives Congress and otherwise has not only openly condoned the politica misdeeds of the last three years, but it has sought to outdo its Democratie rival in the orgy of political reaction and repression. I criticism of the Democratic administrative policy is that it is not reactionary and drastic enough. We particularly denounce the militaristic policy of both old rties of investing countless millions of dollars in armaments iter the victorious completion of what was to have been the "last war:" we call attention to the fatal results of such a proam in Europe, carried on prior to 1914, and culminating in e great war; we declare that such a policy, adding unbearable rdens to the working class and all the people, can lead only the complete Prussianization of the nation, and we demand mediate and complete abandonment of the fatal program. America is now at the parting of the roads. If the outraging f political liberty and concentration of economic power into the nds of the few is permitted to go on, it can have only one conquence, the reduction of the country to a state of absolute -pitalistic despotism. The Socialist Party of the United States therefore summons I who believe in this fundamental doctrine to prepare for a plete reorganization of our social system, based upon public ownership of public necessities; upon government by representaes chosen from occupational as well as from geographical roups, in harmony with our industrial development; and with tizenship based on service; that we may end forever the exploitaon of class by class. The Socialist Party sounds the warning. It calls upon the people to defeat both old parties at the polls, and to elect the didates of the Socialist Party to the end of restoring political mocracy and bringing about complete industrial freedom. To achieve this end the Socialist Party pledges itself to the wing program: SOCIAL 1. All business vitally essntial for the existence and welfare of e people, such as railroads, express service, steamship lines, raphs, mines, oil wells, power plants, elevators, packing , cold storage plants and all industries operating on a onal scale should be taken over by the nation. All publicly owned industries should be administered jointly the government and representatives of the workers, not for nne or profit, but with the sole object of securing just com pensation and humane conditions of employment to the workers and efficient and reasonable service to the public. 3. All banks should be acquired by the government and inco porated in a unified public banking system. 4. The business of insurance should be taken over by the gov ernment and should be extended to include insurance against accident, sickness, invalidity, old age and unemployment, without contribution on the part of the worker. 5. Congress should enforce the provisions of the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments, with reference to the negroes, and that effective Federal legislation should be enacted to secure to the negroes full eivil, political, industrial and educational rights INDUSTRIAL 1. Congress should enact effective laws to abolish child laber, to fix minimum wages, based on an ascertained cost of a dece standard of life, to protect migratory and unemployed workers from oppression, to abolish detective and strike-breaking agencies and to establish a shorter workday in keeping with increased industrial productivity. POLITICAL 1. The constitutional freedom of speech, press and assem should be restored by repealing the espionage law and all other repressive legislation, and by prohibiting the executive usurpe tion of authority. 2. All prosecutions under the espionage law should be dise tinued and all persons serving prison sentences for alleged offenses glowing out of religious convictions, political views or industral activities should be fully pardoned and immediately released. 3. No alien should be deported from the United States on account of his political views or participation in labor strugg's nor in any event without proper trial on specific charges. T arbitrary power to deport aliens by administrative order shoc be repealed. 4. The power of the courts to restrain workers in their str gles against employers by the writ of injunction or otherw and their power to nullify congressional legislation should be abrogated. 5. Federal judges should be elected by the people and be sub ject to recall. 6. The President and the Vice President of the United States uld be elected by direct popular election and be subject to all. 7. All members of the cabinet should be elected by Congress nd be responsible to Congress. S. Suffrage should be equal and unrestricted, in fact as well as in law, for all men and women throughout the nation. 9. Adequate provision should be made for the registration of e votes of migratory workers. 10. The Constitution of the United States should be amended strengthen the safeguards of civil and political liberty and to move all obstacles to industrial and social reform and reconruction, including the changes enumerated in this program, in eping with the will and interest of the people. It should be de amendable by a majority of the voters of the nation upon their own initiative, or upon the initiative of Congress. FOREIGN RELATIONS 1. All claims of the United States against allied countries for ans made during the war should be canceled upon the undertanding that all war debts, including indemnities, among such ntries shall likewise be canceled. The largest possible credit food, raw material and machinery should be extended to the ricken nations of Europe in order to help them rebuild the ined world. 2 [The government of the United States should initiate a movement to dissolve the mischievous organization called the "League Nations," and to create an international parliament, composed f democratically elected representatives of all nations of the rld, based upon the recognition of their equal rights, the prinples of self-determination, the right to national existence of nies and other dependencies, freedom of international trade 1 trade routes by land and sea, and universal disarmament, d charged with revising the treaty of peace on the principles f justice and conciliation] 3. The United States should immediately make peace with the entral Powers and open commercial and diplomatic relations ith Russia under the Soviet government. It should It should promptly gnize the independence of the Irish Republic, 4. The United States should make and proclaim it a fixed prinple in its foreign policy that American capitalists who acquire concessions or make investments in foreign countries do so at their own risk and under no circumstances should our governm enter into diplomatic negotiations or controversies or resort 13 armed conflicts on account of foreign property claims. FISCAL 1. That all war debts and other debts of the Federal goverzment must be immediately paid off in full, the funds for suca payment to be raised by means of a progressive property whose burden should fall upon the rich and particularly up great fortunes made during the war. 2. A standing progressive income and a graduated inheritance tax should be levied to provide for all needs of the governm-L including the cost of its increasing social and industrial functions 3. The unearned increment of land should be taxed, all i held out of use should be taxed at full rental value. DOCUMENT 4-"INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS "1 The international organization of socialism has been disrupad as a result of the world war. The old or Second International is represented principally the majority party of Germany, the Socialist Parties of countries carved out from the former Austro-Hungarian emp and of most of the countries of Europe that remained nea during the war. The parties affiliated with this organization have largely al doned the revolutionary character and the militant methods working class Socialism. As a rule they co-operate with :middle class reform parties of their countries. The Third or Moscow International was organized by the Co munist Party of Russia with the co-operation of several oth communist organizations recruited in the main from the countr split off from the former Russian empire and some Scandinav and Balkan countries. The Third International also indu the Labor Party of Norway and the Communist Labor Party Poland. Of the other important countries, the Socialist Par of Switzerland, Italy and the United States, and the Brit Socialist Party have expressed their intention to affiliate with 1 Report of Committee on International Relations. Carried by Conver but to be submitted to referendum of the membership, along with the Minar Report, which runs as follows: "The Socialist Party of the United Stat America reaffirms its affiliation with the Third International." |