Page:Adolph Douai - Better Times (1877).djvu/33

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page needs to be proofread.

— 31 —

all, together with Culture, Freedom, Progress, and Humanity would be buried, unless we hurl into it that Capitalistic system itself.

Our war is a war of principle against principle. Our principle is a moral and irrefutable one, while the Capitalistic principle is utterly wrong, immoral, and ruinous. We are, therefore, fully convinced that our principle must be, and must soon be, completely victorious. It is for that reason that we deprecate and shun all violence, all wanton disregard of existing laws, how bad so ever they be, and all bloodshed, unless we be provoked and wantonly attacked, and forced to resist.


PLATFORM AND PRINCIPLES

OF THE

Workingmen's Party of the United States.


The Emancipation of the Working Classes must be achieved by the Working Classes themselves, independent of all political parties of the propertied class.

The struggle for the Emancipation of the Working Classes means not a struggle for Class privileges and monopolies, but for Equal Rights and Duties, and the abolition of all Class Rule.

The Economical subjection of the man of Labor to the monopolizer of the means of labor—the sources of life—lies at the bottom of servitude in all its forms, of all social misery, mental degradation, and political dependence.

The Economical Emancipation of the Working Classes is therefore the great end, to which every political movement ought to be subordinate as a means.

All efforts aiming at that great end have hitherto failed from want of solidarity between the manifold Divisions of Labor in each country, and from the absence of concerted action between the Workingmen of all countries.

The Emancipation of Labor is neither a local nor a national, but a Social Problem, embracing all countries in which modern society exists, and depending for its solution upon the practical and theoretical concurrence and co-operation of the most advanced countries.

For these reasons, the Workingmen's Party of the United States has been founded.

It enters into proper relations and connection with the Workingmen of other countries.

Whereas, Political Liberty without Economical Freedom is but an empty phrase; therefore we will in the first place direct our efforts to the Eco-