Equal rights for all, special privileges for none.

We meet in the midst of a nation brought to the verge of moral, political, and material ruin.

Corruption dominates the ballot-box, the Legislatures, the Congress, and touches even the ermine of the bench.

The people are demoralized; most of the States have been compelled to isolate the voters at the polling places to prevent universal intimidation.

The fruits of the toil of millions are badly stolen to build up colossal fortunes for a few, unprecedented in the history of mankind; and the possessors of these, in turn, despise the Republic and endanger liberty.

The national power to create money is appropriated to enrich bond-holders… adding millions to the burdens of the people.

We have witnessed for more than a quarter of a century the struggles of the two great political parties for power and plunder, while grievous wrongs have been inflicted upon the suffering people. We charge that the controlling influences dominating both these parties have permitted the existing dreadful conditions to develop without serious effort to prevent or restrain them. Neither do they now promise us any substantial reform.

We assert our purposes to be identical with the purposes of the National Constitution; to form a more perfect union and establish justice, insure domestic tranquillity, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty for ourselves and our posterity. . . .

—From the People’s Party Platform.

This was written in 1892, in the heart of America’s industrial revolution, when concentrated wealth and political corruption had become central facts of American life. The country answered that crisis in the decades that followed by breaking up monopolies, strengthening democratic institutions and organizing labor. We are here again, at the beginning of another industrial revolution. That should encourage us. History repeats. So does our capacity to respond. The solutions are repeatable too. Dylan.

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