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The Commoner.
14
VOLUME 3, NUMBER 33,
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TH: OHIO PLATFORM
For governor, Tom L. Johnson, of
Cuyahoga county.
For lieutenant governor, Frank B.
Miles,, of Lucas county.
For supremo judge, Edward J.
Dompsey, of Hamilton county.
For attornoy general, Frank S. Mon
nott, of Franklin county.
For treasurer of state, V. J. Dahl,
of Fayette county.
For auditor of state, Charles A.
Kloob, of Auglaize county.
For school commissioner, J. H. Se
crest, of Putnam county.
For member, of board of public
works. T. H. B. Jones, of Lawrence
county. '
For United States senator, John H.
Clark, of Cuyahoga county.
Assembled in convention at Colum
bus, preparatory Co the state election
of 1903, we, the democrats of Ohio, re-
cfllrmlng the declarations on national
issues of our platform of 1902, adopted
at Sandusky, hereby ronew our alleg
iance to the democratic party of the
'nation, and again avow our devotion
to the principles of its last national
platform. "Wo accordingly condemn
colonialism and Imperialism, denounce
trusts and trust-fostering tariffs, re
pudiate government by injunction, and
epposo financial monopoly, together
with every other legalized monopoly
ond special privilege. Adhering to
those principles of the Kansas City
platform, we repeat our condemnation
of all efforts to renounce or ignore
them.
We nevertheless urge the people of
Ohio, regarldess of party, to consider
the transcendent importance of state
ever national issues at the coming
election. National policies are not at
stake. Although one seat in the Unit
ed States senate depends upon the
political complexion of our next leg
islature, no other national consldera
9 tion does; and tLe republican party is
60 largely in the majority in the
United States senate as to deprive that
consideration of all practical import
ance. The vital question, therefore,
which now confronts the voters of our
state, republicans as well as democrats,
is a local question. They are to de
termine whether the personal ambi
tions of one man for re-election to the
federal senate, shall be gratified at
the expense of placing the vast local
interests of all the people of Ohio at
the mercy of a state government nom
inated by and in alliance with the
privileged corporations.
Let the people of Ohio consider
what-is really involved in this election.
Great corporations, possessing valua
ble and oppressive franchises and
reaching out for more, have effected a
union with the leaders of the repub
lican party in Ohio. So intimate has
this union grown, that it can no longer
be determined where the legitimate
politics of the republican party leaves
oil and the corrupt politics of the
privileged corporations begins. In
consequence of that coalition of cor
poration magnates with republican
managers, vin some instances identical
in person, the people of all political
parties have been systematically plun
dered and oppressed.
Thus manipulated, the republican
party has been treacherously led by
its more recent managers, farther and
farther into the service of special in
terests inimical to the public welfare.
It has been made to protect and foster
Don't Scold.
Irritability is a nervous affection.
Strengthen the nerves with Dr. Miles'
Nervine. Sleep better, eat better,
work better, feel better, and be better.
Void on guarantee Book on nervos for postal
D.TmMa MraiQAi, Co., Elkhart, mo.
monopolies. Its officials have bur
dened tho farmers and small home
owners of the state with excessive
taxes In order to relieve public ser
vice corporations of their just obli
gations. It has enacted unconstitu
tional special laws. It lias thrown tho
city and village governments of tho
state into -confusion, thereby entail
ing large and useless expenditures of
public money, impairing municipal
credit and imposing upon the state
treasury tho cost of a special session
of the general assembly. To remedy
tho evils ,thus caused, tho present
managers of the republican party have
l'orced the enactment of a cumbersome
and centralizing municipal code for
the government of our cities and vil
lages, framing its provisions in de
fiance of the wishes of tho cities con
cerned, In disregard of the expressed
opinions of the state bar association
end the state and municipal chambers
of commerce, and with indifference to
the plain lessons of experience in Ohio
and elsewhere.
By embodying In this code unwise
and unjust provisions for the regula
tion of street railroads .these republi
can managers have rendered competi
tion more difficult and street car mo
nopolies more secure. By reserving
to the governor the power to appoint
municipal officers in certain cases, they
have dangerously concentrated the po
lice power and have complicated their
meager concessions of home rule with
tempting opportunities for Interfer
ence by the state government in the
local affairs of cities and villages. A
precedent has thus been set that would
altogether nullify the principle of
Lome rule.
The corrupt union which the repub
lican managers of Ohio, treacherous
alike to the rank and file of their own
party and to the rest of tho people,
have made with privileged corpora
tions, is further shown by the recent
Listory of Ohio taxation. After re
peated acknowledgements by the re
publican party, in its platform and
other public declarations, of the in
justice of existing tax laws, the re
publican legislature has rejected even
the simplest remedies. The law by
which telegraph, telephone and ex
press companies are taxed, provides a
simple method of arriving at the real
value for taxation of steam railroad,
street railroad, and similar classes of
franchise property. Yet the republi
can legislature refused to apply that
method to the property of those pow
erful corporations. It has retained
the objectionable laws under which,
with the aid of friendly state equaliz
ing boards and local auditors, steam
railroads and street car companies
have for years been able to shift from
themselves to the small home owners
and farmers of the state, two-thirds of
the burden of taxation which in jus
tice these corporations ought to bear.
By way of pretended remedy for this
flagrant abuse, the legislature has, at
the dictation of republican managers
and their corporate allies, imposed an
annual tax upon the capital stock of
all corporations, including unprivil
eged business companies. While bring
ing a diminishing revenue into the
state treasury and proving a burden
some restriction upon legitimate busi
ness, this tax falls most heavilv unnn
corporations least able to bear it, and
will practically exempt those that are
enriciiea oy valuable special privileges.
Besides making such trifling and de
ceptive alterations in our tax laws in
the name of remedial legislation, the
republican managers have been guilty
of manifest duplicity. In deference to
overwhelming public demands for tax
reform, they permitted the adoption by
the legislature of a resolution sub
netting to the people an amendment to
the state constitution authoiizlng a
fair classlflcaion of property for pur-
1
poses of taxation. But supposing that
iiow the popular feeling on the sub
ject may have temporarily subsided,
vet not daring to risic a. popular vote
bn this amendment, they have pre
vented tho republican convention from
approving it. The amendment is
tuereby deprived of the benefit of a
place in the republican column on the
oulcial ballot
in consequence of the alliance of
privileged corporations and republi
can managers in Onio, tho recent his
tory of the republican party of this
state in connection with taxation is a
glaring and unvarying record of dou
ble deaiiuK with the people, of favorit
ism toward railroad, street car, and
other public service corporations, of
arbitrary interference with such local
officials as have tried to remedy these
fiscal abuses, and of free pass bribery
open, bold and habitual together
with indications of kinds of bribery
more profitable and potent, though
less audacious. With such a record,
it is natural that the republican lead
ers and their corporate allies and ben
eficiaries should endeavor to evade a
campaign on state issues. Their bad
record in state and municipal govern
ment is explanation enough of their
challenge to a controversy upon na
tional issues, at a time when and in a
state where no national -principle or
policy is at stake, either directly or in
directly. That the alliance of republican lead
ers in Ohio with the privileged corpor
ations has the aid of some; Ohio demo
crats, we freely concede." But these
democrats are not in control of the
democratic party of the state; and
that party as nov organized is rebuk
ing and disowning them as fast as it
finds them out An object lesson on
this point was furnished at the special
session of the legislature. Eight dem
ocratic legislators supported the cor
poration alliance by voting for the
Cincinnati "curative act." F6r this
treachery to their party and violation
of their pledges to the people, every
one of them has been relegated, to pri
vate life by the democratic party.
While conceding that some Ohio dem
ocrats are corruptly allied with t
privileged corporations, we ask tire
people of the state to observe an im
portant fact in that connection. In
the democratic party as now organ
ized, democrats who serve such al
liances are punished; whereas, in the
republican party as now controlled, re
publicans who make such alliances are
rewarded.
We believe that the awakened vot
ers of the republican party in Ohio
will no longer tolerate the betrayal of
the public interests and their own con
fidence, by their party managers and
the privileged corporations to whose
service those party managers are pri
marily devoted. Republicans by thou
sands have refused to do so in the
city of Cleveland, where the demo
cratic party is now successfully lead
ing the fight of the people against the
privileged corporations and their con
federates in both parties. But this Is
a state fight and must be waged In
every part of the state. The legisla
ture must be recovered from the cor
porations and restored to its proper
place as an agent of popular govern
ment The fight for that object must
be unfaltering and unremitting, it
must be not for one campaign only,
but for all campaigns until the cor
porations are driven out of politics.
The present campaign is especially op-
liuiLuue ior mis purpose. The ab
sence from it of every reasonable
ground for solicitude respecting na
tional issues, enables the people to ex
press themselves without hesitation
or reservation in favor of home rule
and just taxation and against the con
tinued reign of privileged corporations
in the state of Ohio.
As a more specific statement of the
principles and purposes of tho demo
cratic party of Ohio on these and oth
er questions, we declare:
First All taxable property should
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