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50 As now administered the government is little else than a huge engine for filling the pockets of those avaricious and dishonest men, into whose hands it has most unluckily fallen.

"Will the Liberal party," asks The Golden Age, "meet the demands of the Independents to-day? The number of voters who are actually Independents and who are indifferent to either of the old parties, if not disgusted with both of them, is very great. Were they consolidated in an organization of their own—workingmen and all—they would vastly outnumber either of the old parties of the country."

The following is the Declaration of Principles and that part of the platform relating to the monetary interests of the country, as adopted by the Independent Party, organized at Cleveland, Ohio, in March, 1875.

Our Government is founded solely upon the consent of the people, and its powers are subject to their control. The evils we now suffer have resulted from the acts of unfaithful representatives who have set the interest of party above that of the people. These evils are chiefly displayed in our monetary system and the monopolies which it has engendered. This system being monarchical in its principles and subversive of Republican Government, and as experience demonstrates that we can have no hope of reform from existing political parties, it becomes our imperative duty to organize a new party to the end that we may resist the encroachments of the money power upon the rights