, for
demanding the enforcement of the state laws against the contractors.

_They Reek With Corruption._

Both the Republican and Democratic parties reek with corruption in their
servility to the capitalist class, and both are torn with strife in
their mad scramble for the spoils of office.

The Democratic party has had little excuse for existence since the
Civil War, and its utter impotency to deal with present conditions was
made glaringly manifest during its brief lease of power under the
Cleveland administration. Should this party succeed to national power
once more, seething as it is with conflicting elements which are held
together by the prospect of official spoils, its career as a national
party would be brought to an early close by self-destruction.

The Republican convention at Chicago and the Democratic convention at
Baltimore were composed of professional politicians, office-holders,
office-seekers, capitalists, retainers, and swarms of parasites and
mercenaries of all descriptions.

There were no workingmen in either convention. They were not fit to be
there. All they are fit for is to march in the mud, yell themselves
hoarse, and ratify the choice of their masters on election day.

The working class was not represented in the Republican convention at
Chicago or the Democratic convention at Baltimore. Those were the
political conventions of the capitalist class and the few flattering
platform phrases in reference to labor were incorporated for the sole
purpose of catching the votes of the working class.

Let the American workers remember that they are not fit to sit as
delegates in a Republican or Democratic national convention; that they
are not fit to write a Republican or Democratic national platform; that
all they are fit for is to elect the candidates of their masters to
office so that when they go out on strike against starvation they may
be shot dead in their tracks as the reward of their servility to their
masters and their treason to themselves.

_Vital Issue Ignored._

The vital issue before the country and the world is not touched, nor
even mentioned in the Republican or Democratic platforms. Wage-slavery
under capitalism, the legalized robbery of the workers of what is
produced by their labor, is the fundamental crime against modern
humanity, but there is no room for the mention of this vital fact, this
living issue in the platforms of the Republican and Democratic parties.
They c