“The continuance of this country as a Republic depends upon the restoration of the independent citizen.  To-day there are fewer men engaged in independent work, as manufacturers and merchants, than there were ten years ago; to-day the great bulk of the wealth of the country is concentrated in the hands of a few thousand men.  These men have become the masters of the Nation; on their payrolls are to be found three-fourths of all the working inhabitants of the land, men, women, and children.

“Men, women and children, I repeat, for where is the man who can earn a sufficient wage to provide proper food and raiment for his family by his single effort?

“As the hope of the people rests on the recovery of the independence of the individual, the platform of this party must declare unequivocally for the abolition of all forms of private monopoly.  This must be the main plank in our platform.”

These words, uttered in a voice that reaches the remotest corners of the auditorium, call forth a tumultuous shout.

“With private Monopolies destroyed and the channels they control opened to the people, the billions of revenue that now go to increase the fortunes of the Masters of Commerce, will be enjoyed by the toilers who create our National prosperity.

“The statistics of the future shall record the existence in this land of thousands, hundreds of thousands of independent business men.  The columns devoted to enumerating the Child Labor of the land will be dispensed with; there will be an increase in the number of mothers and a decrease in the number of women who are forced to earn a living by manual toil.

“The platform we adopt must contain a plank providing for the imposition of a tax on a man according to his ability to pay.  There is no sanction for a law to govern a community, however large, however populous, if this law is in contradiction of the principles that govern a household; for we cannot conceive of a government that is not built on the household as the unit.

“Where is the father so inhuman that he will demand of the stripling, the infirm, the feminine members of his family to procure the means of support, before he has exhausted every other effort that can be made by himself and his stalwart sons?  Even the insatiate Trust Magnates, were they suddenly to be reduced to penury, would shield their wives, their daughters and their indigent.

“Then who shall say that this Republic, a household on a mammoth scale, is not justified in collecting the taxes necessary for its maintenance from the incomes of the rich, and not from the paltry possessions of the wage-earner?  The hundredth part of the income of the rich will more than pay for the legitimate expenses of the Government.

“I am a firm believer in ‘vested rights’ and carry my adherence back to the dawn of creation.  Then it was that God vested mankind with the right to live upon this earth.  He endowed man with the ability to earn a living, and gave to each and every man an equal inheritance—­opportunity.