1888 Prohibition Party Platform

  The Prohibition party, in National Convention assembled, acknowledging Almighty God as the source of all power in government, do hereby declare:

  1. That the manufacture, importation, exportation, transportation and sale of alcoholic beverages should be made public crimes, and prohibited as such.

  2. That such Prohibition must be secured through Amendments to our National and State Constitutions, enforced by adequate laws adequately supported by administrative authority; and to this end the organization of the Prohibition party is imperatively demanded in State and Nation.

  3. That any form of license, taxation or regulation of the liquor traffic is contrary to good government; that any party which supports regulation, license or taxation enters into alliance with such traffic and becomes the actual foe of the State's welfare, and that we arraign the Republican and Democratic parties for their persistent attitude in favor of the license iniquity, whereby they oppose the demand of the people for Prohibition, and, through open complicity with the liquor crime, defeat the enforcement of law.

  4. For the immediate abolition of the Internal Revenue system, whereby our National Government is deriving support from our greatest national vice.

  5. That an adequate public revenue being necessary, it may properly be raised by import duties; but import duties should be so reduced that no surplus shall be accumulated in the Treasury, and that the burdens of taxation shall be removed from foods, clothing and other comforts and necessaries of life, and imposed on such articles of import as will give protection both to the manufacturing employer and producing laborer against the competition of the world.

  6. That the right of suffrage rests on no mere circumstance of race, color, sex or nationality, and that where, from any cause, it has been withheld from citizens who are of suitable age, and mentally and morally qualified for the exercise of an intelligent ballot, it should be restored by the people through the Legislatures of the several States, on such educational basis as they may deem wise.

  7. That civil service appointments for all civil offices, chiefly clerical in their duties, should be based upon moral, intellectual and physical qualifications, and not upon party service or party necessity.

  8. For the abolition of polygamy and the establishment of uniform laws governing marriage and divorce.

  9. For prohibiting all combinations of capital to control and to increase the cost of products for popular consumption.

  10. For the preservation and defense of the Sabbath as a civil institution, without oppressing any who religiously observe the same on any other than the first day of the week.

  11. That arbitration is the Christian, wise and economical method of settling national differences, and the same method should, by judicious legislation, be applied to the settlement of disputes between large bodies of employees and their emloyers; that the abolition of the saloon would remove the burdens, moral, physical, pecuniary and social, which now oppress labor and rob it of its earnings, and would prove to be a wise and successful way of promoting labor reform, and we invite labor and capital to unite with us for the accomplishment thereof; that monopoly in land is a wrong to the people, and the public lands should be reserved to the actual settlers; and that men and women should receive equal wages for equal work.

  12. That our immigration laws should be so enforced as to prevent the introduction into our country of all convicts, inmates of other dependent institutions, and others physically incapacitated for self-support, and that no person should have the ballot in any State who is not a citizen of the United States.

  13. Recognizing and declaring that Prohibition of the liquor traffic has become the dominant issue in national politics, we invite to full party fellowship all those who, on this one dominant issue, are with us agreed, in the full belief that this party can and will remove sectional differences, promote national unity, and insure the best welfare of our entire land.

  Resolved, That we hold that men are born free and equal, and should be made secure in all their civil and political rights.

  Resolved, That we condemn the Democratic and Republican parties for persistently denying the right of self-government to the 600,000 people of Dakota.