Items of Interest May 17, 1900 Issue

Items of Interest

The convention of the anti-fusion element of the People's party, otherwise known as the Middle-of-the-Roaders, opened in Cincinnati, O., May 9. Nearly seven hundred delegates were present representing every state in the Union, except Arizona, New Mexico, North and South Carolina, and Vermont. On May 10 the convention nominated Wharton Barker of Pennsylvania for President, and Ignatius Donnelly of Minnesota for VicePresident. The platform adopted demands the "initiative and referendum," "imperative mandate," public ownership and operation of railroads, telegraph and telephone lines, coal mines, etc., the reclamation by the government of all lands held by railroads and other corporations in excess of their actual needs, and all lands owned by aliens, free coinage at sixteen to one, a graduated income tax, the election of the President, Vice-President, Federal Judges, and United States Senators by direct vote of the people. The platform denounces trusts and declares that the only adequate remedy is public ownership of public utilities.

The national convention of the Populist party was held at Sioux Falls, S. D., last week, and nominated William J. Bryan for President and Charles A. Towne for VicePresident. Mr. Towne was born in Michigan and is a graduate of the University of Michigan. He has practised law in Duluth, Minn., since 1890. He was a Republican member of the 54th Congress. In the presidential canvass of 1896 he worked with the Silver Republican party in the interests of Bryan and the free silver cause. He is very popular in the West, and he is in entire sympathy with Bryan's aims. The platform adopted by the convention denounces the recently enacted banking law, demands the free coinage of silver at sixteen to one, also the abolishment of all tariffs on trust goods, and indorses the initiative and referendum. It denounces the administration's policy in the Philippines, and also the Porto Rican tax; tenders sympathy to the Boers, and denounces any foreign alliance. Municipal ownership of public utilities is endorsed.

A committee from the American Publishers' Association, which represents twenty-two thousand newspapers, has presented a memorial to Congress affirming that the price of printing paper has been increased from sixty to one hundred per cent without any adequate reason so far as the conditions of the industry are concerned, and appealing for relief through legislation against the Trust.

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