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The Progressive Platform contained many planks which have since
been made laws by the Democratic Party, which read the signs of
the times more quickly than did the Republicans. Especially many
of the suggestions relating to Labor, the improvement of the
currency, the control of corporate wealth, and oversight over
public hygiene, should be commended. In general, it promised to
bring the Government nearer to the people by giving the people a
more and more direct right over the Government. It declared for a
rational tariff and the creation of a non-partisan Tariff
Commission of experts, and it denounced alike the Republicans for
the Payne-Aldrich Bill, which dishonestly revised upwards, and
the Democrats, who wished to abolish protection altogether. It
urged proper military and naval preparation and the building of
two battleships a year--a plank which we can imagine Roosevelt
wrote in with peculiar satisfaction. It advocated direct
primaries; the conservation of natural resources; woman suffrage.
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