'12
THE lIDVOOjTIS.
MANIFESTO.
The Omaha Ordinance For the Purification I
of Politcs.
To the Populists of Kansas:
Qnmrvfo: We, the central committee
of the People's part of Shawnee county,
earnestly dasire to call the attention of
the rank and file of the People'a party
of the Btate of Kansas, aa well aa the at
tention of every local and county com
mittee of the party to certain matters of
immediate and vital importance which
are essential to the success of the re
forms which the People's party waa or
ganized to secure.
It is a deplorable fact that the wealth
producing millions of our country are
bound hand and foot by class legislation,
and that every department of govern
ment, state and national, is administered
in the interest of organized greed and
for the oppression of the people.
This is the logical result of entrusting
the administration of publio affairs to
political parties which are only mere ma
'chinas foi getting office, and intent only
upon securing for the managers all the
spoils that can be eeoured by official
power and patronage. Under our poli
tical system, government is juat what it
hB3 been made by the dominant politi
cal parties into which the people have
been divided. Hance it follows aa a
logical sequence that if we would re
form the government, we must first re
form the political machinery of tha
parties by which it is administered.
We can never hope to have an honest
government of the people, by the people
and for the people, until we have an
honest political party controlled exclu
sively by the people, to administer pub
lio affairs. And so long as human na
ture remains as it is, we oan never have
such a political party until we exclude
from all voice and vote in its manage
ment, all who presumably have any poli
tical axe to grind, and hence care mors J
for the spoils than they do for the in
terests of the great maes of peopla who
have no such objsota in view.
It was to secure the organization of
such a party of the people as this, that
we have severed our connection with the
old parties of the politicians. Had we
bean content with platform promises of
certain measures of reform, there would
have been no need of a new party. Poli
ticians always promise anything which
seems necessary to secure the votes of
the people. But we have learned by sad
experience that such promises amount
to nothing as long as eelf-Beekiiig poli
ticians control the party machinery. It
was to prevent the adoption of this fatal
error by the People's party, that the
convention at Omaha adopted an ordi
nance as a fundamental law for its gov
ernment which exoludes effioe holders
and all who bold positions of profit,
trust and emolument in the publio ser
vice from the conventions of the party.
The vital importance of this law to the
preservation and perpetuation of this
party of the people, in its purity aaa
party of reform has been strangely under
estimated. Every promise made by the
Omaha pialform aa to what measured of
reform we would carry out when we
came into power has been continually
kept before the people, while this funda
mental law of party government, which
guarantees that these promises shall be
kept in spirit and in truth has been
strangely lost sight of, instead of being
made prominent as it should have been.
The following is the ordinance as
resurrected ar.d sent to the reform press
by the chairman of tha national com
mittee of the People's party on the 27th
cf January last. B ad it carefully and
kssrin mind th fact that if we, the
jscpla who have no political axes to
grind, cannot manage the affairs of a po
litical party it will be useless for us to
attempt to incorporate our will into law
for tha management of all the affairs of
government:
We, the People's party, at the outset to
secure permanent oontrol of the party or
ganization unaffected by the interest of
those in publio serrioe, do hereby, in na
tional convention assembled at Oonha, on
this 4th of July, 1892, establish this ordi
nance as the fundamental law of the party
organization, viz:
No person holding any offioe or position
of profit, trust or emolument under -the
federal or any state or munioipal-'govern-ment,
inoluding senators, congressmen and
members of the legislature, stats and local,
shall be eligible tousit and vote in any con
vention of the party, and a oopy of this or
dinance shall be annexed to every call for
any future convention.
This Omaha ordinance excluding office
holders from conventions marks a new
departure in American party politics.
How often in years gone by have we
been asked the question by our oppon
ents: "If you get into power, how long
will it be before you will become as cor
rupt as the present political parties?
Your officials will desire to succeed
themselves, and aa soon aa eleoted or ap
pointed to office, they will begin to
scheme and hi up the slates, so as to se
cure their continuance in office for the
spoils that may be secured thereby with
out any regard for the wishes or inter
eats of the average voters who elected
them."
The Omaha ordinance answers these
objections by establishing a principle
of party government, which excludes
from any voice or vote in the manage
ment of the party all persons who hold
any publio office or position of profit,
trust or emolument, or, in short, all per
sons who presumably have any political
axes to grind. We hold, as a party, to
this principle, that the office should seek
the man, and that it is the duty of any
office-holder, whether elected or ap
pointed, to serve the whole people with
out regard to party, and not under any
circumstances to engage in partisan
political work, designed to continue him
self in office.
Under the operation of this funda
mental law, if honestly carried out, the
People's party can never become an
office-holders' or politicians' party, but
will continue aa a pevpU't party a party
of non-offloe-holdera whose prerogative
it is to select candidates to serve them
in official capacities without any inter
ference from those who are already in
office. Aa a people'a party a party of
non-office-holders we may make mis
takes in selecting candidates for office,
but we are under no obligations to defend
any record that these office-holders may
make. It is the individual offioe-holder
that makes the record, and not the non-office-holding
voters whioh secured his
election. If this record ia satisfactory to
his non-offioa-holding constituents, they
may consistently retain him in offioe
indefinitely, but it it ia not, they
may select someone else to serve them
without violating any obligation to any
one selected at a preceding convention.
Under the operation of this funda
mental law whioh waa adopted for the
government of the People'a party, every
succeeding convention of the party may
be an improvement upon the preceding
convention, aa is will be a new deal di
reot from the people who have no pri
vate, personal interest in the result, ex
cept such aa they have in common with
good citizens generally for the publio
good.
This principle of party government
involves no ostracism of the offioe holder.
He knows tne terms on whioh he ac
cepts office, and if he dwires to retain
position, all the influences will be in fa
vor of his making a record satisfactory
to the best elements among nig non-office-holding
constituents. This rule
protects him from the importunities of
corrupt ward-heelers, convention-fixers,
and incompetents who demand positions
of profit as pay for political services, aa
he will not be at the mercy of these
cormorants. Plaoing them in office will
only be putting them where they will
have no voice in the management of the
party, and when the great rank and file
of non-office-holders come together in
convention they will certainly rebuke
bad appointments. Hence this principle
of party government tends directly to
wards the purification of party politics
and of our entire political system whioh
is based thereon.
We do not hesitate to affirm that it
was the absence of this principle looking
to the purification of party politics which
should characterize the government of
any party entrusted with the administra
tion of public affairs, that has led to our
present deplorable social and economio
condition aa a people. We have permit
ted the dominant political parties of the
past to drift away from the control of
the people and become corrupt political
machines for the oppression of the peo
ple. A brief review of the history of
American politics demonstrates the
truth of this proposition.
Jefferson was elected as an anti-bank
candidate by an anti-bank party, and
yet a cong.esa eleoted by this same anti
bank party voted to recharter the same
banking system against which the party
that eleoted Jefferson had been an or
ganized protest.
With thia success of the bank over the
dominant anti bank party of that time,
by the votes of congressmen elected by
the same anti-bank voters of the coun
try, the people rallied as the democratic
party and elected Andrew Jackson to the
presidency of the United States aa an
anti-bank candidate. And yet the con
gress eleoted at the same time voted to
recharter the same banking system
against which the democratic party was
an organized protest But Old Hickory
was more honest than congress, and in
terposed his veto.
Then the would-be money power rep
resented by the bank, more alert than
its opponents, obtained such control of
the party machinery of that time that it
was enabled to retain its grip by chang
ing its base of operation. A state bank
ing system on a specie basis was estab
lished instead of restoring the circulation
of paper money to tha people through
congress, as had been advocated by Jef
ferson and reaffirmed by Jackson, Cal
houn and other honest apponenta of the
creation of a money monopoly.
The republican party started out, aa
pre-eminently the champion of the
rights of labor as against the so-called
rights of property, advocated alike by
slave holders and money monopolists.
"Equal and exact justice to all, special
privileges to none," was its motto. And
yet ita office-holders became its party
maohine, and the result has been that it
has established a corporate monopoly of
money, transportation and natural op
portunities whioh praotioally enslave all
who labor. This monopoly of money
and natural opportunities is in effect a
monopoly of all that money will pur
chase or labor produce, and it was estab
lished by the republican party in direct
violation of the fundamental principles
on which the republican party came into
power.
This result could rot have been
brought about if the office holders had
been excluded from the mauagmmt of
the party, and thus have bm prevented
from organizing a party machine to se
cure for themselves the spoils of office.
These sppila under the methods of the
old political parties act aa a bribe to cor
rupt publio officials whenever and wher
ever these officials are permitted to
organize themselves into a political ma
chine to secure office for ita members.
In the organization of the People's
party, the convention at Omaha adopted
a law, which if rigidly adhered to will
prevent the organization of another cor
rupt political maohine to defeat the will
of the people whose only object in or
ganizing a new party waa to secure
measures of reform in our systems of
finance, transportation and land, with
out any regard to past Apolitical affilia
tions or as to who might be elected to
office.
We met with a partial success in 1892,
by demoralizing the corrupt republican
machine in this state. But the great
battle for economic reform is yet to be
fought out. We are well aware of the
fact that both of the old party machines,
the republican and the democratic, are a
unit in opposition to the reforms which
we demand. We cannot afford, even in
appearance to prefer one of these ma
chines over the other. It is enough for
us to know that both are alike the
enemies of ihe People's party. Togo
before the people with the argument
that the democrats are better than
the republicans, would be folly, as it in
vites defeat by over-looking the fact that
both are opposed to us and equally da
serving of defeat at the polls.
While we cordially welcome to our
ranks every honest democrat and every
honest republican, we cannot afford to
have any dickering with either of their
party machines, as to a division of the
spoils. The People'a party is pre-eminently
an organizsd revolt of the people
against machine politics and all its
methods. We cannot afford to barter
principles for partisan suocess,but we
can offer to honest republicans and dem
ocrats alike, inducements to vote with
the People's party that have never been
and will never be offered to them by
their old parties. We present them with
a system of party government which pre
vents the organization of a party ma
ohine to defeat the will of the average
members of the party. We offer them a
party which elects officers to serve them
and not bosses to rule them. The non-office-holders
are the employers the
officials are their employes.
Ours is emphatically a people's party.
A party controlled by its average voters.
While thousands of honest citizens may
not understand the economio reform 3
which we demand they cannot fail to
understand that our system of party
government will give them an opportu
nity to make their influence felt in favor
of purity in politics and against corrupt
political rings and cliques, such aa no
other party has ever offered them.
It is much to be regretted that our
reform press and speakers have not made
this fundamental law of party govern
ment, more prominent in their discus
sions before the public. Aaa vote maker
among people who have not studied our
economio doctrines, no measure adopted
at Omaha, is so potent for good as this
ordinance, which provides a method by
which purity in party politics becomes
possible.
The time has now come, when if we
are ever to succeed aa a party of reform,
this must be made a prominent ia9ue be
fore the people. Hence we demand that
the state central committee of the Peo
ple's party shall answer thisbrdinance
to the call for a state convention, and wa
urge that every local and cauaty com
mittae shall rigidly adhare to its previa-