duties than attentive to the world's
progress who are apt, from time to time, to raise this question,
appealing in favor of the "let alone" principle, it is really a
question already decided. The people both in England and in America
have grown quite away from _laissez faire_ doctrine, the tendency is
strong and constantly increasing in the direction of increase of
governmental intervention to redress the social balance. I believe it
is impossible that this tendency should be arrested. I believe it
would not be in the interest of humanity to arrest it. There is a vast
field for individualism, and in that field it is eminently useful.
There is a field also for society, for the State. The needs of the
people in this country to-day are such, the thought of the masses is
advancing so rapidly in the direction indicated that no political
party can long hold power that does not accept the socialistic
tendency and prudently experiment in that direction. There is, in
point of fact, no other possible direction in which society can move,
and it cannot stand still. From the necessity for some intervention in
aid of the weaker classes against the operation of the laws of demand
and supply, it follows that "no class legislation" is not a good cry
for a labor party.

The land question should have a distinct recognition as a true reform
issue, and while committal to the policy signified by the term single
tax, in its entirety, should be avoided, land speculation and monopoly
should be condemned as a monstrous evil, and against that evil should
be directed such special taxation of land values as will check and
ultimately destroy it, without too rudely disturbing existing values.

Government ownership of railroads, telegraphs, and of the anthracite
coal mines, should be favored.

Gas, electric lights, and street railroads should be municipalized.

Legislation, reducing gradually and prudently the hours of labor,
should be given urgency.

National aid to education, unwisely neglected by the Republicans, is
strong with labor, and will be stronger the more it is discussed.
Prohibitionists should advocate universal suffrage with universal
education.

Educational tests for the suffrage offer too easy a repose for the
conservatism of wealth, and to advocate them is to touch the wrong
note, that of distrust rather than trust in the masses. Stand with
Jefferson for Democracy and education, not for education first and the
ballot afterward