when the first ray of light appeared and the people were looking with expectancy and with anxiety for relief, the party was not equal to the occasion; that it was stupid; it was blind; it kept “the middle of the road,” and missed the golden opportunity.”
Although most of the members of the convention were ready to cooperate with the Democrats, there was a very strong feeling that something should be done, if possible, to preserve the identity of the Populist party and to safeguard its future. An active minority, moreover, was opposed to any sort of fusion or cooperation. This “middle-of-the-road” group included some Western leaders of prominence, such as Peffer and Donnelly, but its main support came from the Southern delegates. To them an alliance with the Democratic party meant a surrender to the enemy, to an enemy with whom they had been struggling for four years for the control of their state and local governments. Passionately they pleaded with the convention to save them from such a calamity. Well they knew that small consideration would be given to those who had dared stand up and oppose the ruling aristocracy of the South, who had even shaken the Democratic grip upon the governments of some of the States. Further, a negro delegate from Georgia portrayed the disaster which would overwhelm the political aspirations of his people if the Populist party, which alone had given them full fellowship, should surrender to the Democrats.
The advocates of fusion won their first victory in the election of Senator Allen as permanent chairman, by a vote of 758 to 564. As the nomination of Bryan for President was practically a foregone conclusion, the “middle-of-the-road” element concentrated its energies on preventing the nomination of Arthur Sewall of Maine, the choice of the Democracy, for Vice-President. The convention was persuaded, by a narrow margin, to take the unusual step of selecting the candidate for Vice-President before the head of the ticket was chosen. On the first ballot Sewall received only 257 votes, while 469 were cast for Thomas Watson of Georgia. Watson, who was then nominated by acclamation, was a country editor who had made himself a force in the politics of his own State and had served the Populist cause conspicuously in Congress. Two motives influenced the convention in this procedure. As a bank president, a railroad director, and an employer of labor on a large scale, Sewall was felt to be utterly unsuited to carry the standard of the People’s Party. More effective than this feeling, however, was the desire to do something to preserve the identity of the party, to show that it had not wholly surrendered to the Democrats. It was a compromise, moreover, which was probably necessary to prevent a bolt of the “middle-of-the-road” element and the nomination of an entirely independent ticket.
Even with this concession the Southern delegates continued their opposition to fusion. Bryan was placed in nomination, quite appropriately, by General Weaver, who again expressed the sense of the convention: “After due consideration, in which I have fully canvassed every possible phase of the subject, I have failed to find a single good reason to justify us in placing a third ticket in the field . . . . I would not endorse the distinguished gentleman named at Chicago. I would nominate him outright, and make him our own, and then share justly and rightfully in his election.” The irreconcilables, nearly all from the South and including a hundred delegates from Texas, voted for S. F. Norton of Chicago, who received 321 votes as against 1042 for Bryan.
Because of the electoral system, the agreement of two parties to support the same candidate for President could have no effect, unless arrangements were made for fusion within the States. An address issued by the executive committee of the national committee of the People’s Party during the course of the campaign outlined the method of uniting “the voters of the country against McKinley,” and of overcoming the “obstacles and embarrassments which, if the Democratic party had put the cause first and party second,” would not have been encountered: “This could be accomplished only by arranging for a division of the electoral votes in every State possible, securing so many electors for Bryan and Watson and conceding so many to Bryan and Sewall. At the opening of the campaign this, under the circumstances, seemed the wisest course for your committee, and it is clearer today than ever that it was the only safe and wise course if your votes were to be cast and made effective for the relief of an oppressed and outraged people. Following this line of policy your committee has arranged electoral tickets in three-fourths of the States and will do all in its power to make the same arrangements in all of the States.”
The committee felt it necessary to warn the people of the danger of “a certain portion of the rank and file of the People’s Party being misled by so-called leaders, who, for reasons best known to themselves, or for want of reason, are advising voters to rebel against the joint electoral tickets and put up separate electoral tickets, or to withhold their support from the joint electoral tickets.” Such so-called leaders were said to be aided and abetted by “Democrats of the revenue stripe, who are not yet weaned from the flesh-pots of Egypt,” and by Republican “goldbugs” who in desperation were seizing upon every straw to prevent fusion and so to promote their own chances of success.
In the North and West, where the Populist had been fusing with the Democrats off and on for several years, the combinations were arranged with little difficulty. In apportioning the places on the electoral tickets the strength of the respective parties was roughly represented by the number of places assigned to each. Usually it was understood that all the electors, if victorious, would vote for Bryan, while the Democrats would cast their second place ballots for Sewall and the Populists for Watson.
In the South much more difficulty was experienced in arranging fusion tickets, and the spectacle of Populists cooperating with Republicans in state elections and with Democrats in the national election illustrated the truth of the adage that “politics makes strange bedfellows.” Only in Arkansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Missouri, and North Carolina, of the Southern States, were joint electoral tickets finally agreed upon. In Tennessee the Populists offered to support the Democratic electors if they would all promise to vote for Watson, a proposal which was naturally declined. In Florida the chairman of the state committee of the People’s Party, went so far on the eve of the election as to advise all members of the party to vote for McKinley; and in Texas there was an organized bolt of a large part of the Populists to the Republican party, notwithstanding its gold standard and protective tariff platform.
No campaign since that of 1860 was so hotly and bitterly contested as the “Battle of the Standards” in 1896. The Republicans broke all previous records in the amount of printed matter which they scattered broadcast over the country. Money was freely spent. McKinley remained at his home in Canton, Ohio, and received, day after day, delegations of pilgrims come to harken to his words of wisdom, which were then, through the medium of the press, presented to similar groups from Maine to California. For weeks, ten to twenty-five thousand people a day sought “the shrine of the golden calf.”
In the meantime Bryan, as the Democrat-Populist candidate, toured the country, traveling over thirteen thousand miles, reaching twenty-nine States, and addressing millions of voters. It was estimated, for instance, that in the course of his tour of West Virginia at least half the electorate must have heard his voice. Most of the influential newspapers were opposed to Bryan, but his tours and meetings and speeches had so much news value that they received the widest publicity. As the campaign drew to a close, it tended more and more to become a class contest. That it was so conceived by the Populist executive committee is apparent from one of its manifestoes:
“There are but two sides in the conflict that is being waged in this country today. On the one side are the allied hosts of monopolies, the money power, great trusts and railroad corporations, who seek the enactment of laws to benefit them and impoverish the people. On the other side are the farmers, laborers, merchants, and all others who produce wealth and bear the burdens of taxation. The one represents the wealthy and powerful classes who want the control of the Government to plunder the people. The other represents the people, contending for equality before the law, and the rights of man. Between these two there is no middle ground.”
When the smoke of battle cleared away the election returns of 1896 showed that McKinley had received 600,000 more popular votes than Bryan and would have 271 electoral votes to 176 for the Democrat-Populist candidate. West of the Mississippi River the cohorts of Bryan captured the electoral vote in every State except California, Minnesota, North Dakota, Iowa, and Oregon. The South continued its Democratic solidity, except that West Virginia and Kentucky went to McKinley. All the electoral votes of the region east of the Mississippi and north of Mason’s and Dixon’s line were Republican. The old Northwest, together with Iowa, Minnesota, and North Dakota, a region which had been the principal theater of the Granger movement a generation before, now joined forces with the conservative and industrial East to defeat a combination of the South with the newer agrarian and mining frontiers of the West.
The People’s Party had staked all on a throw of the dice and had lost. It had given its life as a political organization to further the election of Bryan, and he had not been elected. Its hope for independent existence was now gone; its strength was considerably less in 1896 than it had been in 1892 and 1894.* The explanation would seem to be, in part at least, that the People’s Party was “bivertebrate as well as bimetallic.” It was composed of men who not long since had other political affiliations, who had left one party for the sake of the cause, and who consequently did not find it difficult to leave another for the same reason. In the West large numbers of former Populists undoubtedly went over completely to the Democracy, even when they had the opportunity of voting for the same Bryan electors under a Populist label. In the South many members of the party, disgusted at the predicament in which they found themselves, threw in their lot with the Republicans. The capture of the Democracy by the forces of free silver gave the death blow to Populism.
* Of the 6,509,000 votes which Bryan received, about 4,669,000 were cast for the fusion electoral tickets. In only seven of the fusion States is it possible to distinguish between Democrat and Populist votes; the totals here are 1,499,000 and 93,000 respectively. The fusion Populist vote of 45,000 was essential for the success of the Bryan electors in Kansas; and in California the similar vote of 22,000, added to that of the Democrats, gave Bryan one of the electors. In no other State in this group did the Populist vote have any effect upon the result. The part played by the People’s party in the other twenty-two of the fusio-States is difficult to determine; in some cases, however, the situation is revealed in the results of state elections. The best example of this is North Carolina, where the Democrat-Populist electors had a majority of 19,000, while at the same election Fusion between Republicans and Populists for all state officers except governor and lieutenant governor was victorious. The Populist candidate for governor received about 31,000 votes and the Republican was elected. It is evident that the third party held the balance of power in North Carolina. The Populist votes were probably essential for the fusion victories in Idaho, Montana, Nebraska, and Washington; but, as there was fusion on state tickets also, it is impossible to estimate the part played by the respective parties. The total Populist vote in the ten States in which there were independent Democratic and Populist electoral tickets was 122,000 (of which 80,000 were cast in Texas and 24,000 in Alabama) and as none of the ten were close States the failure to agree on electoral tickets had no effect on the result. The “middle-of-the-road” Populist votes, in States where there were also fusion tickets amounted to only 8000–of which 6000 were cast in Pennsylvania and 1000 each in Illinois and Kansas.
The Populist vote as a whole was much larger than 223,000–the total usually given in the tables—for this figure does not include the vote in the twenty-two fusion States in which the ballots were not separately counted. This is apparent from the fact that the twenty-seven electoral votes from ten States which were cast for Watson came, with one exception, from States in which no separate Populist vote was recorded. It is evident, nevertheless, from the figures in States where comparisons are possible, that the party had lost ground.
CHAPTER XIII. THE LEAVEN OF RADICALISM
The People’s Party was mortally stricken by the events of 1896. Most of the cohorts which had been led into the camp of Democracy were thereafter beyond the control of their leaders; and even the remnant that still called itself Populist was divided into two factions. In 1900 the radical group refused to endorse the Fusionists’ nomination of Bryan and ran an independent ticket headed by Wharton Barker of Pennsylvania and that inveterate rebel, Ignatius Donnelly. This ticket, however, received only 50,000 votes, nearly one-half of which came from Texas. When the Democrats nominated Judge Alton B. Parker of New York in 1904, the Populists formally dissolved the alliance with the Democracy and nominated Thomas E. Watson of Georgia for President. By this defection the Democrats may have lost something; but the Populists gained little. Most of the radicals who deserted the Democracy at this time went over to Roosevelt, the Republican candidate. In 1908 the Populist vote fell to 29,000; in 1912 the party gave up the ghost in a thinly-attended convention which neither made nominations of its own nor endorsed any other candidate. In Congress the forces of Populism dwindled rapidly, from the 27 members of 1897 to but 10 in 1899, and none at all in 1903.
The men who had been leaders in the heyday of Populism retired from national prominence to mere local celebrity. Donnelly died in 1901, leaving a picturesque legacy of friendships and animosities, of literary controversy and radical political theory. Weaver remained with the fusion Populists through the campaign of 1900; but by 1904 he had gone over to the Democratic party. The erstwhile candidate for the presidency was content to serve as mayor of the small town of Colfax, Iowa, where he made his home until his death in 1912, respected by his neighbors and forgotten by the world. Peffer, at the expiration of his term in the Senate, ran an unsuccessful tilt for the governorship of Kansas on the Prohibition ticket. In 1900 he returned to the comfort of the Republican fold, to become an ardent supporter of McKinley and Roosevelt.
But the defection and death of Populist leaders, the collapse of the party, and the disintegration of the. alliances could not stay the farmers’ movement. It ebbed for a time, just as at the end of the Granger period, but it was destined to rise again. The unprecedented prosperity, especially among the farmers, which began with the closing years of the nineteenth century and has continued with little reaction down to the present has removed many causes for agrarian discontent; but some of the old evils are left, and fresh grievances have come to the front. Experience taught the farmer one lesson which he has never forgotten: that whether prosperous or not, he can and must promote his welfare by organization. So it is that, as one association or group of associations declines, others arise. In some States, where the Grange has survived or has been reintroduced, it is once more the leading organ of the agricultural class. Elsewhere other organizations, sometimes confined to a single State, sometimes transcending state lines, hold the farmers’ allegiance more or less firmly; and an attempt is now being made to unite all of these associations in an American Federation of Farmers.
Until recently these orders have devoted their energies principally to promoting the social and intellectual welfare of the farmer and to business cooperation, sometimes on a large scale. But, as soon as an organization has drawn into its ranks a considerable proportion of the farmers of a State, especially in the West, the temptation to use its power in the field of politics is almost irresistible. At first, political activity is usually confined to declarations in favor of measures believed to be in the interests of the farmers as a class; but from this it is only a short step to the support of candidates for office who are expected to work for those measures; and thence the gradation is easy to actual nominations by the order or by a farmers’ convention which it has called into being. With direct primaries in operation in most of the Western States, these movements no longer culminate in the formation of the third party but in ambitious efforts to capture the dominant party in the State. Thus in Wisconsin the president of the state union of the American Society of Equity, a farmers’ organization which has heretofore been mainly interested in cooperative buying and selling, was recently put forward by a “Farmers and Laborers Conference” as candidate for the nomination for governor on the Republican ticket and had the active support of the official organ of the society. In North Dakota, the Non-Partisan League, a farmers’ organization avowedly political in its purposes, captured the Republican party a few years ago and now has complete control of the state government. The attempt of the League to seize the reins in Minnesota has been unsuccessful as yet, but Democratic and Republican managers are very much alarmed at its growing power. The organized farmers are once more a power in Western politics.
It is not, however, by votes cast and elections won or by the permanence of parties and organizations that the political results of the agrarian crusade are to be measured. The People’s Party and its predecessors, with the farmers’ organizations which supported them, professed to put measures before men and promulgated definite programs of legislation. Many of the proposals in these programs which were ridiculed at the time have long since passed beyond the stage of speculation and discussion. Regulation of railroad charges by national and state government, graduated income taxes, popular election of United States Senators, a parcels post, postal savings banks, and rural free delivery of mail are a few of these once visionary demands which have been satisfied by Federal law and constitutional amendment. Antitrust legislation has been enacted to meet the demand for the curbing of monopolies; and the Federal land bank system which has recently gone into operation is practically the proposal of the Northwestern Alliance for government loans to farmers, with the greenback feature eliminated. Even the demand for greater volume and flexibility of currency has been met, though in ways quite different from those proposed by the farmers.*
* In July, 1894, when the People’s Party was growing rapidly, the editor of the Review of Reviews declared: “Whether the Populist party is to prove itself capable of amalgamating a great national political organization or whether its work is to be done through a leavening of the old parties to a more or less extent with its doctrines and ideas, remains to be seen. At present its influence evidently is that of a leavening ingredient.” The inclusion of the income tax in the revenue bill put through by the Democratic majority in Congress was described as “a mighty manifestation of the working of the Populist leaven”; and it was pointed out that “the Populist leaven in the direction of free silver at the ratio of 16 to 1 is working yet more deeply and ominously.” The truth of the last assertion was demonstrated two years later.
In general it may be said that the farmers’ organizations and parties stood for increased governmental activity; they scorned the economic and political doctrine of laissez faire; they believed that the people’s governments could and should be used in many ways for promoting the welfare of the people, for assuring social justice, and for restoring or preserving economic as well as political equality. They were pioneers in this field of social politics, but they did not work alone. Independent reformers, either singly or in groups, labor organizations and parties, and radicals everywhere cooperated with them. Both the old parties were split into factions by this progressive movement; and in 1912 a Progressive party appeared on the scene and leaped to second place in its first election, only to vanish from the stage in 1916 when both the old parties were believed to have become progressive.
The two most hopeful developments in American politics during recent years have been the progressive movement, with its program of social justice, and the growth of independent voting–both developments made possible in large part by the agrarian crusade. Perhaps the most significant contribution of the farmers’ movement to American politics has been the training of the agricultural population to independent thought and action. No longer can a political party, regardless of its platform and candidates, count on the farmer vote as a certainty. The resolution of the Farmers’ Alliance of Kansas “that we will no longer divide on party lines and will only cast our votes for candidates of the people, by the people, and for the people,” was a declaration of a political independence which the farmers throughout the West have maintained and strengthened. Each successive revolt took additional voters from the ranks of the old parties; and, once these ties were severed, even though the wanderers might return, their allegiance could be retained only by a due regard for their interests and desires.
BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE
The sources for the history of the agrarian crusade are to be found largely in contemporary newspapers, periodical articles, and the pamphlet proceedings of national and state organizations, which are too numerous to permit of their being listed here. The issues of such publications as the “Tribune Almanac”, the “Annual Cyclopedia” (1862-1903), and Edward McPherson’s “Handbook of Politics” (1868-1894) contain platforms, election returns, and other useful material; and some of the important documents for the Granger period are in volume X of the “Documentary History of American Industrial Society” (1911), edited by John R. Commons.
When each wave of the movement for agricultural organization was at its crest, enterprising publishers seized the opportunity to bring out books dealing with the troubles of the farmers, the proposed remedies, and the origin and growth of the orders. These works, hastily compiled for sale by agents, are partisan and unreliable, but they contain material not elsewhere available, and they help the reader to appreciate the spirit of the movement. Books of this sort for the Granger period include: Edward W. Martin’s (pseud. of J. D. McCabe) “History of the Grange Movement” (1874), Jonathan Periam’s “The Groundswell” (1874), Oliver H. Kelley’s “Origin and Progress of the Order of he Patrons of Husbandry” (1875), and Ezra S. Carr’s “The Patrons of Husbandry on the Pacific Coast” (1875). Similar works induced by the Alliance movement are: “History of the Farmers’ Alliance, the Agricultural Wheel”, etc., compiled and edited by the “St. Louis Journal of Agriculture” (1890), “Labor and Capital, Containing an Account of the Various Organizations of Farmers, Planters, and Mechanics” (1891), edited by Emory A. Allen, W. Scott Morgan’s “History of the Wheel and Alliance and the Impending Revolution” (1891), H. R. Chamberlain’s “The Farmers’ Alliance” (1891), “The Farmers’ Alliance History and Agricultural Digest” (1891), edited by N. A. Dunning, and N. B. Ashby’s “The Riddle of the Sphinx” (1890). Other contemporary books dealing with the evils of which the farmers complained are: D. C. Cloud’s “Monopolies and the People” (1873), William A. Peffer’s “The Farmer’s Side” (1891), James B. Weaver’s “A Call to Action” (1891), Charles H. Otken’s “The Ills of the South” (1894), Henry D. Lloyd’s “Wealth against Commonwealth” (1894), and William H. Harvey’s “Coin’s Financial School” (1894).
The nearest approach to a comprehensive account of the farmers’ movement is contained in Fred E. Haynes’s “Third Party Movements Since the Civil War, with Special Reference to Iowa” (1916). The first phase of the subject is treated by Solon J. Buck in “The Granger Movement” (1913), which contains an extensive bibliography. Frank L. McVey’s “The Populist Movement” (1896) is valuable principally for its bibliography of contemporary material, especially newspapers and magazine articles. For accounts of agrarian activity in the individual States, the investigator turns to the many state histories without much satisfaction. Nor can he find monographic studies for more than a few States. A. E. Paine’s “The Granger Movement in Illinois” (1904 University of Illinois Studies, vol. I, No. 8) and Ellis B. Usher’s “The Greenback Movement of 1875-1884 and Wisconsin’s Part in It” (1911) practically exhaust the list. Elizabeth N. Barr’s “The Populist Uprising”, in volume II of William E. Connelley’s “Standard History of Kansas” (1918), is a vivid and sympathetic but uncritical narrative. Briefer articles have been written by Melvin J. White, “Populism in Louisiana during the Nineties”, in the Mississippi “Valley Historical Review” (June, 1918), and by Ernest D. Stewart, “The Populist Party in Indiana” in the “Indiana Magazine of History” (December, 1918). Biographical material on the Populist leaders is also scant. For Donnelly there is Everett W. Fish’s “Donnelliana” (1892), a curious eulogy supplemented by “excerpts from the wit, wisdom, poetry and eloquence” of the versatile hero; and a life of General Weaver is soon to be issued by the State Historical Society of Iowa. William J. Bryan’s “The First Battle” (1896) and numerous biographies of “the Commoner” treat of his connection with the Populists and the campaign of 1896. Herbert Croly’s “Marcus A. Hanna “(1912) should also be consulted in this connection.
Several of the general histories of the United States since the Civil War devote considerable space to various phases of the farmers’ movement. The best in this respect are Charles A. Beard’s “Contemporary American History” (1914) and Frederic L. Paxson’s “The New Nation” (1915). Harry Thurston Peck’s “Twenty Years of the Republic”, 1885-1905 (1906) contains an entertaining account of Populism and the campaign of 1896. Pertinent chapters and useful bibliographies will also be found in the following volumes of the “American Nation”: William A. Dunning’s “Reconstruction, Political and Economic”, 1865-1877 (1907), Edwin E. Sparks’s “National Development”, 1877-1885 (1907), and David R. Dewey’s “National Problems”, 1885-1897 (1907).