LAD #23: Populist Party Platform

          The populist part was a notable third party that formed in the late eighteenth century. The party was one of the various responses to industrialization, and largely opposed big business. The party believes that America is degenerating as a result of industrialization; corruption is widespread in government; the majority of the workforce is impoverished while the nations wealth and land rests in the hand of a rich few, and silver used for coinage for all of history sits at a depreciated value; workman's very rights are constrained. The party seeks to put an end to falling prices, the formation of combines and rings, the impoverishment of the working class, and once again place the power of government in the hands of the common man.
Platform:
-Unions shall be permanent and perpetual
-Wealth belongs to him who creates it
-Railroads should be regulated by the government
Finance:
-Safe currency, silver coinage, increase $ in circulation, graduated income tax, $ should be kept in hands of people, establishment of postal savings banks by the government.
Transportation:
-the telegraph, telephone, and railroads should be controlled by the government in the interest of the people.
Land:
-Land and natural resources should not be monopolized for speculation, surplus land in the hands of companies and aliens (foreigners) should be reclaimed by the government and given to settlers.

The platform document also contains an expression of sentiments.