At that convention, the Party adopted a platform that began by denouncing capitalism as a system that produced, among other evils, an “extortionate cost of living”: “Under this system the working class is exposed to poisonous conditions, to frightful and needless perils to life and limb, is walled around with court decisions, injunctions and unjust laws, and is preyed upon incessantly for the benefit of the controlling oligarchy of wealth.”