I thought it would be of interest to examine the Socialist Party demands in 1912:
Collective Ownership
1. The collective ownership and democratic management of
railroads, wire and wireless telegraphs and telephones, express services, steamboat lines
and all other social means of transportation and communication and of all
large-scale industries.
2. The immediate acquirement by the municipalities, the
states or the federal government of all grain elevators, stock yards, storage warehouses, and
other distributing agencies, in order to reduce the present extortionate cost of living.
3. The extension of the public domain to include mines,
quarries, oil wells, forests and water power.
4. The further conservation and development of natural
resources for the use and benefit of all the people . . .
5. The collective ownership of land wherever practicable,
and in cases where such ownership is impracticable, the appropriation by taxation of
the annual rental value of all land held for speculation or exploitation.
6. The collective ownership and democratic management of the
banking and currency system.
The conservation of human resources, particularly of the
lives and well-being of the workers and their families:
1. By shortening the workday in keeping with the increased
productiveness of machinery.
2. By securing to every worker a rest period of not less
than a day and a half in each week.
3. By securing a more effective inspection of workshops,
factories and mines.
4. By forbidding the employment of children under sixteen
years of age.
5. By the co-operative organization of the industries in the
federal penitentiaries for the benefit of the convicts and their dependents.
6. By forbidding the interstate transportation of the
products of child labor, of convict labor and of all uninspected factories and mines.
7. By abolishing the profit system in government work, and
substituting either the direct hire of labor or the awarding of contracts to co-operative
groups of workers.
8. By establishing minimum wage scales.
9. By abolishing official charity and substituting a
non-contributory system of old-age pensions, a general system of insurance by the state of all
its members against unemployment and invalidism and a system of compulsory
insurance by employers of their workers, without cost to the latter, against in
diseases, accidents and death.
Political Demands
1. The absolute freedom of press, speech and assemblage.
2. The adoption of a graduated income tax, the increase of
the rates of the present corporation tax and the extension of inheritance taxes,
graduated in proportion to the value of the estate and to nearness of kin—the proceeds of
these taxes to be employed in the socialization of industry.
3. The abolition of the monopoly ownership of patents and
the substitution of collective ownership, with direct rewards to inventors by premiums or
royalties.
4. Unrestricted and equal suffrage for men and women.
5. The adoption of the initiative, referendum and recall and
of proportional representation, nationally as well as locally.
6. The abolition of the Senate and of the veto power of the
President.
7. The election of the President and the Vice-President by
direct vote of the people.
8. The abolition of the power usurped by the Supreme Court
of the United States to pass upon the constitutionality of the legislation enacted by
Congress. National laws to be repealed only by act of Congress or by a referendum vote of
the whole people.
9. The abolition of the present restrictions upon the
amendment of the constitution, so that instrument may be made amendable by a majority of the
voters in the country.
10. The granting of the right of suffrage in the District of
Columbia with representation in Congress and a democratic form of municipal government for
purely local affairs.
11. The extension of democratic government to all United
States territory.
12. The enactment of further measures for general education
and particularly for vocational education in useful pursuits. The Bureau of
Education to be made a department.
13. The enactment of further measures for the conservation
of health. The creation of an independent bureau of health, with such restrictions as will
secure full liberty to all schools of practice.
14. The separation of the present Bureau of Labor from the
Department of Commerce and Labor and its elevation to the rank of a department.
15. Abolition of all federal district courts and the United
States Circuit Courts of Appeals. State courts to have jurisdiction in all cases arising
between citizens of the several states and foreign corporations. The election of all judges
for short terms.
16. The immediate curbing of the power of the courts to
issue injunctions.
17. The free administration of the law.
18. The calling of a convention for the revision of the
constitution of the United States
Just think how we would be if these were enacted.
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