MACHINE POLITICS

Evening Post, Volume CVII, Issue 146, 21 June 1924, Page 7

MACHINE POLITICS

THIRD PARTY CONVENTION

AMERICAN FARMER-LABOUR GROUP.

(D.NITED PRESS ASSOCIATION.—COPYRIGHT.)

CABSTIIALIAN-NEW ZEALAND CAIiLB ASSOCIATiON.) NEW YORK, 19th June.

According to a message from St. Paul, Minnesota, the Farmer-Labour Party Convention ended -with the nomination of xMr. Duncan Macdonald, a miner, for ihe Presidency, and Mr. William Bouck, a farmer, for the Vice-Presidency.

The platform mainly endorses the nationalisation of industries and the abolition of private titles to land, and advocates loans free of interest to farmers.

These nominations, however, are merely provisional, because the party's National Committee may cancel' them, if Senator La Follettes's so-called Progressive National Convention, scheduled to meet on 4th July, offers a workable plan for the union of such as superficially are fanner Labourites.

The convention, despite its wide potentialities, ended as a disappointment, if not a failure. The membership consisted of such contradictory elements as to induce grave premonitions of failure. Nevertheless, the farmers scarcely expected to be submerged by the so-called Communist leaders^ who captured control of the convention and practically dealt a death-blow to the Farmer-Labour Party. However, Mr. Macdonald, in accepting nomination, voiced the convention's cordial discontent with the major parties, saying: "I am not a Communist, «iot a Red, but I prefer to be_ called a Communist or a Red to feeing smeared with oil or gaining the approval of Morgan and others who name the candidates and direct the policies of the old parties. Never has organised wealth been s0 entrenched as in the United States to-day "