I took a break from reading the 4 current party platforms to look up the
platforms from the Progressive parties which previously existed in the
US. The only one I could find was the one from
1912.
It's remarkable, first, because of how many of their objectives were
eventually achieved. Second, I'm amazed at how many of their
observations in 1912 square with our perspective in 2016. I've copied
and pasted it below for your convenience, but you can also read it from
the source by following the above link.
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Platform of the Progressive Party, August 7, 1912
Declaration of Principles of the Progressive Party
The conscience of the people, in a time of grave national problems,
has called into being a new party, born of the Nation's awakened sense
of justice. We of the Progressive Party here dedicate ourselves to the
fulfillment of the duty laid upon us by our fathers to maintain that
government of the people, by the people and for the people whose
foundation they laid.
We hold with Thomas Jefferson and Abraham Lincoln that the people are
the masters of their Constitution, to fulfill its purposes and to
safeguard it from those who, by perversion of its intent, would convert
it into an instrument of injustice. In accordance with the needs of each
generation the people must use their sovereign powers to establish and
maintain equal opportunity and industrial justice, to secure which this
Government was founded and without which no republic can endure.
This country belongs to the people who inhabit it. Its resources, its
business, its institutions and its laws should be utilized, maintained
or altered in whatever manner will best promote the general interest.
It is time to set the public welfare in the first place.
The Old Parties
Political parties exist to secure responsible government and to execute the will of the people.
From these great tasks both of the old parties have turned aside.
Instead of instruments to promote the general welfare, they have become
the tools of corrupt interests which use them impartially to serve their
selfish purposes. Behind the ostensible government sits enthroned an
invisible government, owing no allegiance and acknowledging no
responsibility to the people.
To destroy this invisible government, to dissolve the unholy alliance
between corrupt business and corrupt politics is the first task of the
statesmanship of the day.
The deliberate betrayal of its trust by the Republican Party, and the
fatal incapacity of the Democratic Party to deal with the new issues of
the new time, have compelled the people to forge a new instrument of
government through which to give effect to their will in laws and
institutions.
Unhampered by tradition, uncorrupted by power, undismayed by the
magnitude of the task, the new party offers itself as the instrument of
the people to sweep away old abuses, to build a new and nobler
commonwealth.
A Covenant with the People
This declaration is our covenant with the people, and we hereby bind
the party and its candidates in State and Nation to the pledges made
herein.
The Rule of the People
The Progressive Party, committed to the principle of government by a
self-controlled democracy expressing its will through representatives of
the people, pledges itself to secure such alterations in the
fundamental law of the several States and of the United States as shall
insure the representative character of the Government.
In particular, the party declares for direct primaries for nomination
of State and National officers, for Nation-wide preferential primaries
for candidates for the Presidency, for the direct election of United
States Senators by the people; and we urge on the States the policy of
the short ballot, with responsibility to the people secured by the
initiative, referendum and recall.
Amendment of Constitution
The Progressive Party, believing that a free people should have the
power from time to time to amend their fundamental law so as to adapt it
progressively to the changing needs of the people, pledges itself to
provide a more easy and expeditious method of amending the Federal
Constitution.
Nation and State
Up to the limit of the Constitution, and later by amendment of the
Constitution, if found necessary, we advocate bringing under effective
national jurisdiction those problems which have expanded beyond reach of
the individual states.
It is as grotesque as it is intolerable that the several States
should by unequal laws in matter of common concern become competing
commercial agencies, barter the lives of their children, the health of
their women and the safety and well-being of their working people for
the profit of their financial interests.
The extreme insistence on States' rights by the Democratic Party in
the Baltimore platform demonstrates anew its inability to understand the
world into which it has survived or to administer the affairs of a
Union States which have in all essential respects become one people.
Social and Industrial Strength
The supreme duty of the Nation is the conservation of human resources
through an enlightened measure of social and industrial justice. We
pledge ourselves to work unceasingly in State and Nation for:--
Effective legislation looking to the prevention of industrial
accidents, occupational diseases, overwork, involuntary unemployment,
and other injurious effects incident to modern industry;
The fixing of minimum safety and health standards for the various
occupations, and the exercise of the public authority of State and
Nation, including the Federal control over inter-State commerce and the
taxing power, to maintain such standards;
The prohibition of child labor;
Minimum wage standards for working women, to provide a living scale in all industrial occupations;
The prohibition of night work for women and the establishment of an eight hour day for women and young persons;
One day's rest in seven for all wage-workers;
The abolition of the convict contract labor system; substituting a
system of prison production for governmental consumption only; and the
application of prisoners' earnings to the support of their dependent
families;
Publicity as to wages, hours and conditions and labor; full reports
upon industrial accidents and diseases, and the opening to public
inspection of all tallies, weights, measures and check systems on labor
products;
Standards of compensation for death by industrial accident and injury
and trade diseases which will transfer the burden of lost earnings from
the families of working people to the industry, and thus to the
community;
The protection of home life against the hazards of sickness,
irregular employment and old age through the adoption of a system of
social insurance adapted to American use;
The development of the creative labor power of America by lifting the
last load of illiteracy from American youth and establishing
continuation schools for industrial education under public control and
encouraging agricultural education and demonstration in rural schools;
The establishment of industrial research laboratories to put the
methods and discoveries of science at the service of American producers.
We favor the organization of the workers, men and women as a means of
protecting their interests and of promoting their progress.
Business
We believe that true popular government, justice and prosperity go
hand in hand, and so believing, it is our purpose to secure that large
measure of general prosperity which is the fruit of legitimate and
honest business, fostered by equal justice and by sound progressive
laws.
We demand that the test of true prosperity shall be the benefits
conferred thereby on all the citizens not confined to individuals or
classes and that the test of corporate efficiency shall be the ability
better to serve the public; that those who profit by control of business
affairs shall justify that profit and that control by sharing with the
public the fruits thereof.
We therefore demand a strong National regulation of inter-State
corporations. The corporation is an essential part of modern business.
The concentration of modern business, in some degree, is both inevitable
and necessary for National and international business efficiency. but
the existing concentration of vast wealth under a corporate system,
unguarded and uncontrolled by the Nation, has placed in the hands of a
few men enormous, secret, irresponsible power over the daily life of the
citizen--a power insufferable in a free government and certain of
abuse.
This power has been abused, in monopoly of National resources, in
stock watering, in unfair competition and unfair privileges, and finally
in sinister influences on the public agencies of State and Nation. We
do not fear commercial power, but we insist that it shall be exercised
openly, under publicity, supervision and regulation of the most
efficient sort, which will preserver its good while eradicating and
preventing its evils.
To that end we urge the establishment of a strong Federal
administrative commission of high standing, which shall maintain
permanent active supervision over industrial corporations engaged in
inter-State commerce, or such of them as are of public importance, doing
for them what the Government now does for the National banks, and what
is now done for the railroads by the Inter-State Commerce Commission.
Such a commission must enforce the complete publicity of those
corporation transactions which are of public interest; must attack
unfair competition, false capitalization and special privilege, and by
continuous trained watchfulness guard and keep open equally to all the
highways of American commerce.
Thus the business man will have certain knowledge of the law, and
will be able to conduct his business easily in conformity therewith; the
investor will find security for his capital; dividends will be rendered
more certain, and the savings of the people will be drawn naturally and
safely into the channels of trade.
Under such a system of constructive regulation, legitimate business,
freed from confusion, uncertainty and fruitless litigation, will develop
normally in response to the energy and enterprise of the American
business man.
We favor strengthening the Sherman law by prohibiting agreements to
divide territory or limit output; refusing to sell to customers who buy
from business rivals; to sell below cost in certain areas while
maintaining higher prices in other places; using the power of
transportation to aid or injure special business concerns; and other
unfair trade practices.
Commercial Development
The time has come when the Federal Government should co-operate with
the manufacturers and producers in extending our foreign commerce. To
this end we demand adequate appropriations by Congress and the
appointment of diplomatic and consular officers solely with a view to
their special fitness and worth, and not in consideration of political
expediency.
It is imperative to the welfare of our people that we enlarge and
extend our foreign commerce. We are pre-eminently fitted to do this
because as a people we have developed high skill in the art of
manufacturing; our business men are strong executives, strong
organizers. In every way possible our Federal Government should
co-operate in this important matter. Anyone who has had the opportunity
to study and observe first-hand Germany's course in this respect must
realize that their policy of co-operation between Government and
business has in comparatively few years made them a leading competitor
for the commerce of the world. It should be remembered that they are
doing this on a national scale and with large units of business, while
the Democrats would have us believe that we should do it with small
units of business, which would be controlled not by the National
Government but by forty-nine conflicting sovereignties. Such a policy is
utterly out of keeping with the progress of the times and gives our
great commercial rivals in Europe--hungry for international
markets--golden opportunities of which they are rapidly taking
advantage.
Tariff
We believe in a protective tariff which shall equalize conditions of
competition between the United States and foreign countries, both for
the farmer and the manufacturer, and which shall maintain for labor an
adequate standard of living.
Primarily the benefit of any tariff should be disclosed in the pay
envelope of the laborer. We declare that no industry deserves protection
which is unfair to labor or which is operating in violation of Federal
law. We believe that the presumptions always in favor of the consuming
public.
We demand tariff revision because the present tariff is unjust to the
people of the United States. Fair-dealing toward the people requires an
immediate downward revision of those schedules wherein duties are shown
to be unjust or excessive.
We pledge ourselves to the establishment of a non-partisan scientific
tariff commission, reporting both to the President and to either branch
of Congress, which shall report, first, as to the costs of production,
efficiency of labor, capitalization, industrial organization and
efficiency and the general competitive position in this country and
abroad of industries seeking protection from Congress; second, as to the
revenue-producing power of the tariff and its relation to the resources
of government; and third, as to the effect of the tariff on prices,
operations of middlemen, and on the purchasing power of the consumer.
We believe that this commission should have plenary power to elicit
information, and for this purpose to prescribe a uniform system of
accounting for the great protected industries. The work of the
commission should not prevent the immediate adoption of acts reducing
those schedules generally recognized as excessive.
We condemn the Payne-Aldrich bill as unjust to the people. The
Republican organization is in the hands of those who have broken and
cannot again be trusted to keep, the promise of necessary downward
revision. The Democratic Party is committed to the destruction of the
protective system through a tariff for revenue only--a policy which
would inevitably produce widespread industrial and commercial disaster.
We demand the immediate repeal of the Canadian Reciprocity Act.
High Cost of Living
The high cost of living is due partly to worldwide and partly to
local causes; partly to natural and partly to artificial causes. The
measures proposed in this platform on various subject, such as the
tariff, the trusts and conservation, will of themselves tend to remove
the artificial causes.
There will remain other elements, such as the tendency to leave the
country for the city, waste, extravagance, bad system of taxation, poor
methods of raising crops and bad business methods in marketing crops.
To remedy these conditions requires the fullest information, and
based on this information, effective Government supervision and control
to remove all the artificial causes. We pledge ourselves to such full
and immediate inquiry and to immediate action to deal with every need
such inquiry discloses.
Currency
We believe there exists imperative need for prompt legislation for
the improvement of our National currency system. We believe the present
method of issuing notes through private agencies is harmful and
unscientific.
The issue of currency is fundamentally government function and the
system should have as basic principles soundness and elasticity. The
control should be lodged with the Government and should be protected
from domination manipulation by Wall Street or any special interests.
We are opposed to the so-called Aldrich currency bill, because its
provisions would place our currency and credit system in private hands,
not subject to effective public control.
Conservation
The natural resources of the Nation must be promptly developed and
generously used to supply the people's needs, but we cannot safely allow
them to be wasted, exploited, monopolized or controlled against the
general good. We heartily favor the policy of conservation, and we
pledge our party to protect the National forests without hindering their
legitimate use for the benefit of all the people.
Agricultural lands in the National forests are, and should remain,
open to the genuine settler. Conservation will not retard legitimate
development. The honest settler must receive his patent promptly,
without needless restrictions or delays.
We believe that the remaining forests, coal and oil lands, water
powers and other natural resources still in State or National control
(except agricultural lands) are more likely to be wisely conserved and
utilized for the general welfare if held in the public hands.
In order that consumers and producers, managers and workmen, now and
hereafter, need not pay toll to private monopolies of power and raw
material, we demand that such resources shall be retained by the State
of Nation and opened to immediate use under laws which will encourage
development and make to the people a moderate return for benefits
conferred.
In particular we pledge our party to require reasonable compensation
to the public for water-power rights hereafter granted by the public.
We pledge legislation to lease the public grazing lands under
equitable provisions now pending which will increase the production of
food for the people and thoroughly safeguard the rights of the actual
homemaker. Natural resources, whose conservation is necessary for the
National welfare, should be owned or controlled by the Nation.
Waterways
The rivers of the United States are the natural arteries of this
continent. We demand that they shall be opened to traffic as
indispensable parts of a great Nation-wide system of transportation in
which the Panama Canal will be the central link, thus enabling the whole
interior of the United States to share with the Atlantic and Pacific
seaboards in the benefit derived from canal.
It is a National obligation to develop our rivers, and especially the
Mississippi and its tributaries, without delay, under a comprehensive
general plan covering each river system from its source to its mouth,
designed to secure its highest usefulness for navigation, irrigation,
domestic supply, water power and the prevention of floods.
We pledge our party to the immediate preparation of such a plan,
which should be made and carried out in close and friendly co-operation
between the Nation, the States and the cities affected.
Under such a plan, the destructive floods of the Mississippi and
other streams, which represent vast and needless loss to the Nation,
would be controlled by forest conservation and water storage at the
headwaters, and by levees below; land sufficient to support millions of
people would be reclaimed from the deserts and the swamps, water power
enough to transform the industrial standing of whole States would be
developed, adequate water terminals would be provided, transportation by
river would revive, and the railroads would be compelled to co-operate
as freely with the boat lines as with each other.
The equipment, organization and experience acquires in constructing
the Panama Canal soon will be available for the Lakes-to-the-Gulf deep
waterway and other portions of this great work, and should be utilized
by the Nation in co-operation with the various States, at the lowest net
cost to the people.
Panama Canal
The Panama Canal, built and paid for by the American people, must be used primarily for their benefit.
We demand that the canal shall be so operated as to break the
transportation monopoly mow held and misused by the transcontinental
railroads by maintaining sea competition with them; that ships directly
or indirectly owned or controlled by American railroad corporations
shall not be permitted to use the canal, and that American ships engaged
in coastwise trade shall pay no tolls.
The Progressive Party will favor legislation having for its aim the
development of friendship and commerce between the United States and
Latin-American nations.
Alaska
The coal and other natural resources of Alaska should be opened to
development at once. They are owned by the people of the United States,
and are safe from monopoly, waste or destruction only while so owned.
We demand that they shall neither be sold nor given away, except
under the homestead law, but while held in Government ownership shall be
opened to use promptly upon liberal terms requiring immediate
development.
Thus the benefit of cheap fuel will accrue to the government of the
United Stated and to the people of Alaska and the Pacific Coast; the
settlement of extensive agricultural lands will be hastened; the
extermination of the salmon will be prevented, and the just and wise
development of Alaskan resources will take the place of private
extortion or monopoly.
We demand also that extortion or monopoly in transportation shall be
prevented by the prompt acquisition, construction or improvement by the
Government of such railroads, harbor and other facilities for
transportation as the welfare of the people may demand.
We promise the people of the Territory of Alaska the same measure of
local self-government that was given to other American territories, and
that officials appointed there shall be qualified by previous bona-fide
residence in the Territory.
Equal Suffrage
The Progressive Party, believing that no people can justly claim to
be a true democracy which denies political rights on account of sex,
pledges itself to the task of securing equal suffrage to men and women
alike.
Corrupt Practices
We pledge our party to legislation that will compel strict limitation
on all campaign contributions and expenditures, and detailed publicity
of both before as well as after primaries and elections.
Publicity and Public Service
We pledge our party to legislation compelling the registration of
lobbyists; publicity of committee hearings except on foreign affairs,
and recording of all votes in committee; and forbidding Federal
appointees from holding office in State of National political
organizations, or taking part as officers or delegates in political
conventions for the nomination of elective State or National officials.
The Courts
The Progressive Party demands such restriction of the power of the
courts as shall leave to the people the ultimate authority to determine
fundamental questions of social welfare and public policy. To secure
this end it pledges itself to provide:
- That when an act, passed under the police power of the State, is
held unconstitutional under the State Constitution, by the courts, the
people, after an ample interval for deliberation, shall have opportunity
to vote on the question whether they desire the act to become a law,
notwithstanding such decision.
- That every decision of the highest appellate court of a State
declaring an act of the Legislature unconstitutional on the ground of
its violation of the Federal Constitution shall be subject to the same
review by the Supreme Court of the United States as is now accorded to
decisions sustaining such legislation.
Administration of Justice
The Progressive Party, in order to secure to the people a better
administration of justice and by that means to bring about a more
general respect for the law and the courts, pledges itself to work
unceasingly for the reform of legal procedure and judicial and methods.
We believe that the issuance of injunctions in cases arising out of
labor disputes should be prohibited when such injunctions would not
apply when no labor disputes existed.
We also believe that a person cited for contempt in the disputes,
except when such contempt was committed in the actual presence of the
court or so near thereto as to interfere with the proper administration
of justice, should have a right to trial by jury.
Department of Labor
We pledge our party to establish a Department of Labor with a seat in
the cabinet, and with wide jurisdiction over matters affecting the
conditions of labor and living.
Country Life
The development and prosperity of country life as important to the
people who live in the cities as they are to the farmers. Increase of
prosperity on the farm will favorably affect the cost of living and
promote the interests of all who dwell in the country, and all who
depend upon its products for clothing, shelter and food.
We pledge out party to foster the development of agricultural credit
and co-operation, the teaching of agriculture in schools, agricultural
college extension, the use of mechanical power on the farm, and to
re-establish the Country Life Commission, thus directly promoting the
welfare of the farmers, and bringing the benefits of better farming,
better business and better living within their reach.
Health
We favor the union of all the existing agencies of the Federal
Government dealing with the public health into a single National health
service without discrimination against or for any one set of therapeutic
methods, school of medicine, or school of healing with such additional
powers as may be necessary to enable it to perform efficiently such
duties in the protection of the public from preventable diseases as may
be properly undertaken by the Federal authorities; including the
executing of existing laws regarding pure food; quarantine and cognate
subjects; the promotion of appropriate action for the improvement of
vital statistics and the extension of the registration area of such
statistics and co-operation with the health activities of the various
States and cities of the Nation.
Patents
We pledge ourselves to the enactment of a patent law which will make
it impossible for patents to be suppressed or used against the public
welfare in the interests of injurious monopolies.
Inter-State Commerce Commission
We pledge our party to secure to the Inter-State Commerce Commission
the power to value the physical property of railroads. In order that the
power of the commission to protect the people may not be impaired or
destroyed, we demand the abolition of the Commerce Court.
Good Roads
We recognize the vital importance of good roads and we pledge out
party to foster their extension in every proper way, and we favor the
early construction of National highways. We also favor the extension of
the rural free delivery service.
Inheritance and Income Tax
We believe in a graduated inheritance tax as a National means of
equalizing the obligations of holder of property to government, and we
hereby pledge our party to enact such a Federal law as will tax large
inheritances returning to the States an equitable percentage of all
amounts collected.
We favor the ratification of the pending amendment to the Constitution giving the Government power to levy an income tax.
Peace and National Defense
Progressive Party deplores the survival in our civilization of the
barbaric system of warfare among nations with its enormous waste of
resources even in time of peace, and the consequent impoverishment of
the life of the toiling masses. We pledge the party to use its best
endeavors to substitutes judicial an other peaceful means of settling
international differences.
We favor an international agreement for the limitation of naval
forces. Pending such an agreement, and as the best means of preserving
peace, we pledge ourselves to maintain for the present the policy of
building two battleships a year.
Treaty Rights
We pledge our party to protect the rights of American citizenship at
home and abroad. No treaty should receive the sanction of our government
which discriminates between American citizens because of birthplace,
race or religion, or that does not recognize the absolute right of
expatriation.
The Immigrant
Through the establishment of industrial standards we propose to
secure to the able-bodied immigrant and to his native fellow workers a
larger share of American opportunity.
We denounce the fatal policy of indifference and neglect which has
left our enormous immigrant population to become the prey of chance and
cupidity.
We favor governmental action to encourage the distribution of
immigrants away from the congested cities, to rigidly supervise all
private agencies dealing with them and to promote their assimilation,
education and advancement.
Pensions
We pledge ourselves to a wise and just policy of pensioning American
soldiers and sailors and their widows and children they Federal
Government. And we approve the policy of the Southern States in granting
pensions to the ex-Confederate soldiers and sailors and their widows
and children.
Parcels Post
We pledge our party to the immediate creation of a parcels post, with rates proportionate to distance and service.
Civil Service
We condemn the violations of the civil service law under the present
administration, including the coercion and assessment of subordinate
employees, and the President' s refusal to punish such violation after a
finding of guilty by his own commission; his distribution of patronage
among subservient Congressmen, while withholding it from those who
refuse support of administration measures; his withdrawal of nominations
from the Senate until political support for himself was secured, and
his open use of the offices to reward those who voted for his
renomination.
To eradicate these abuses, we demand not only the enforcement of the
civil service act in letter and spirit, but also legislation which will
bring under the competitive system postmasters, collectors, marshals and
all other non-political officers, as well as the enactment of an
equitable retirement law, and we also insist upon continuous service
during good behavior and efficiency.
Government Business Organization
We pledge our party to readjustment of the business methods of the
National Government and a proper co-ordination of the Federal bureaus,
which will increase the economy and efficiency of the Government
service, prevent duplications and secret better results to the taxpayers
for every dollar expended.
Government Supervision Over Investment
The people of the United States are swindled out of many millions of
dollars every year, through worthless investments. The plain people, the
wage-earner and the men and women with small savings, have no way of
knowing the merit of concerns sending out highly colored prospectuses
offering stock for sale, prospectuses that make big returns seem certain
and fortunes easily within grasp.
We hold it to be the duty of the Government to protect its people
form this kind of piracy. We, therefore, demand wise
carefully-thought-out legislation that will give us such Governmental
supervision over this matter as will furnish to the people of the United
States this much-needed protection, and we pledge ourselves thereto.
Conclusion
On these principles and on the recognized desirability of uniting the
Progressive forces of the Nation into an organization which shall
unequivocally represent the Progressive spirit and policy we appeal for
the support of all American citizens without regard to previous
political affiliations.
