Platform of the Progressive Liberty Party, American Eagle (July 26, 1906)

The American Eagle Supplement

Vol. I Estero, Florida, July 26, 1906 No. 8

Progressive Liberty Party Platform

Full Text of Platform as Revised with Additional Planks Introduced in Convention and Adopted at Fort Myers, Fla., July 24, 1906

We, Citizens of Lee County, Declare:

That a public office is a public trust.

That purity in politics in absolutely necessary to good government.

That under no government can there be extreme riches and poverty where the public utilities and necessities belong to the people, and there obtains an equitable distribution of the products of industry.

That publicity of all administrative affairs and acts tends to make the government the expressed wish of the people, checks graft and undue expenditures, promotes justice, and lessens the opportunity for corruption.

That we believe in the principles involved in the Initiative the Referendum and the Imperative Mandate, and

That to promote the integrity in office, the Progressive Liberty Party demands of every candidate it places before the people, that upon nomination he sign his resignation to the office to which he may be elected and membership in the party, the date to be left blank to be filled in by his electors, on default of trust, or as circumstances warrant. This we believe will save the people from the recurrence of such shameful example of defalcation as has characterized the present administration. We believe in the adoption of every measure that will insure honest administration and official integrity.

We are unalterably opposed to taxation without representation.

We are opposed to the division of the county, either for economic or political reasons.

We are opposed to private monopoly in land and favor the policy of its restoration to the people by equitable means.

We believe that public utilities and necessities should be owned and operated by the people rather than by individuals or corporations.

We favor the introduction of a system of taxation that in its operation will be so equitably distributed tha the term “burden” will no longer be applicable.

We believe in the economical administration of county affairs so that the rate of taxation need not be increased, and in the equitable adjustment of expenditures so that no one part of the county receives attention at the expense of another.

We are opposed to the prostitution of public rights or utilities for private gains; to the granting of valuable franchises without an adequate return, and due consideration of the interests of all people.

We believe that the rivers, bays, and lakes within the county belong to the people, and should be protected from being despoiled of their wealth by non-resident corporations or individuals noce of whose revenues go into the public treasury.

We believe the office should seek the man rather than the man the office, that therefore no candidate should be permitted to contribute to the campaign fund, for thereby he feels that he purchases the office from the people rather than accepting it from them as a public trust.

We believe that every possible available means should be employed to insure to the children of the county the benefits derived from education. That to secure these ends the county should undertake to provide free to its school children the necessities for obtaining a schooling.

We are opposed to a system that imposes a tax on labor by assessing the small property holder, while the non-resident is enabled to hold vast tracts of land at practically no assessment, thus retarding the development of the county and making the taxes of the poor a burden grievous to be born.

We believe that the Board of County Commissioners, the administrative board of the county, should be comprised of good, practical men, whose sense of public duty is such that when they meet, the question will be, how can the revenues of the county be the most judiciously disbursed in the interest of all the people, rather than how to apportion the public moneys to further personal or party ends.

We favor making every part of the county accessible and of easy communication, as rapidly as possible, by the extension of good roads and bridges, thus affording a sure means of increasing the wealth of the county. That in order to do this from the meager revenues that may be available, without increasing the taxes, it is necessary that the most practical men among us be selected to administer the county affairs.

We believe that all efforts at education are vain if the result is but the repetition of the struggle against greed and graft, sin and shame, such as permeates the social fabric of the older sections of our country. In Lee County is afforded an opportunity to establish a higher standard of citizenship. Let the youth be taught by example that the highest individual good can be attained only as one gives his service in the interest of the common weal.

We ask only that which is right and will not submit to that which is wrong.