Just as the navigable rivers are public to the beggar and the millionaire alike, just as the Bay and the Gulf and the Harbor and the navigable Lakes are the common property of the rich and the poor, the high and low, the black and white, so we believe that the roads should be common ground upon which every citizen should be free to pass upon terms of equality, and that the iron highways of today, which were taken from the people by the exercise of the right of Eminent Domain, should be restored to the public by the same law of Eminent Domain, a fair compensation having been paid, and the property operated hereafter for the benefit of all the people. So with the Telegraph and the Telephone and Express Companies. In every city and town we believe that the municipality, which is a part of the state’s sovereignty, should take over to itself those public utilities which in their very nature are monopolies, and, just compensation having been paid, that these utilities should be used for the benefit of the people, to whom they belong. * * * * * We believe that the government should be supported by a system of taxation in which each citizen will pay taxes _in proportion to his ability to pay_. We believe in a Tax on the Franchises enjoyed by private corporations. We believe that the Income Tax would be the fairest of all taxes, because it would take for the support of the government, not the property of the citizen, but a portion of the income which the citizen derives from that property, or from his individual exertions, and the tax would be proportioned to the income. That property or that salary could not be enjoyed without the protection and the advantages which flow from government, and it is eminently fair, where the government has protected me, or where it affords me such opportunities, that I can receive a large income from any source whatever, I should pay to the government, in return for its protection and its advantages, a fair share of that which I could not have made without that protection and those advantages. Under our present system a man like John D. Rockefeller pays no more Tariff tax when he buys a hat than a doctor or lawyer or preacher pays when he buys a hat. So with the shoes, the clothes, the crockery on the table, the furniture in the house. Many a citizen whose income does not amount to ten thousand dollars per year pays fully as much Tariff tax in the purchasing of necessary articles of clothing, furniture and food as John D. Rockefeller pays, whose income is counted monthly by the millions of dollars. The same thing is true of Carnegie, Morgan, Hill, Harriman, Gould, Cassatt, Vanderbilt. Many a farmer whose income from his farm may not do more than give his family an actual support, after the operating expenses are paid, contributes annually a greater sum in Tariff tax to the Federal Government than is paid by the fabulously wealthy beneficiaries of class legislation.