What Economic Issues Gave Rise to the Populist Party

The Rise of Populism
The People'south Party (or Populist Party, every bit it was widely known) was much younger than the Democratic and Republican Parties, which had been founded earlier the Civil War. Agricultural areas in the West and South had been striking past economic low years earlier industrial areas. In the 1880s, as drought hit the wheat-growing areas of the Keen Plains and prices for Southern cotton wool sunk to new lows, many tenant farmers fell into deep debt. This exacerbated long-held grievances against railroads, lenders, grain-elevator owners, and others with whom farmers did business. By the early 1890s, equally the depression worsened, some industrial workers shared these farm families' views on labor andthe trusts.

In 1890 Populists won control of the Kansas state legislature, and Kansan William Peffer became the party'due south first U.S. Senator. Peffer, with his long white beard, was a humorous figure to many Eastern journalists and politicians, who saw little testify of Populism in their states and often treated the party as a joke. Nonetheless, Western and Southern Populists gained back up rapidly. In 1892 the national party was officially founded through a merger of the Farmers' Alliance and the Knights of Labor. In that year the Populist presidential candidate, James B. Weaver, won over 1 1000000 votes. Between 1892 and 1896, however, the party failed to make further gains, in part because of fraud, intimidation, and violence past Southern Democrats.

By 1896 the Populist arrangement was in even more than turmoil than that of Democrats. Two main factions had appeared. One, the fusion Populists, sought to merge with the Democrats, using the threat of contained organization to strength changes in the major party'due south platform. The Populist arrangement in Kansas had already "fused"--over the bitter protest of those who considered this a sell-out. Fusionists argued that the regionally based third party could never hold national power; the best strategy was to influence a major party that could.

The 2nd faction, chosen "mid-roaders," suspected (with good reason) that Autonomous leaders wanted to destroy the tertiary-party threat; fusion, they argued, would play into this plot. These Populists advocated staying "in the middle of the road," between the ii larger parties, and not merging with either. In exercise, these Populists were not "in the center," but more sweeping in their political goals than either of the major parties, while fusionists were more than willing to compromise in hopes of winning powerful Autonomous allies. Mid-roaders like Tom Watson warned that "fusion means the Populist party will play Jonah, and they will play the whale."

Inside the People's Party, mid-roaders sought to schedule the national convention before those of the Republicans and Democrats. They lost this fight, and fusionists selected a date later on the major-party meetings, hoping that silvery Democrats would win a dramatic victory in the Chicago convention. When this happened--with the nomination of William Jennings Bryan on a free-silver platform--mid-roaders institute themselves in a difficult spot.

The Populist Convention in St. Louis
July 24-26, 1896
Past the start of the convention, relations between mid-roaders and fusionists were tense; the latter were clearly in advice with Bryan'southward manager, James K. Jones of Arkansas. I of the most popular and eloquent mid-roaders, Tom Watson of Georgia, stayed domicile--either because he sensed disaster, or more than likely because hoped mid-roaders would win control of the convention and nominate him for president. Co-ordinate to tradition (which McKinley followed and Bryan did not), presidential hopefuls did not appear at the party's convention, only waited modestly at abode for news of their nomination.

The convention was a disaster for mid-roaders, as the convention endorsed the Democratic presidential nominee, making William Jennings Bryan the candidate of both the Democratic and Populist parties. When mid-roaders tried to stage a counter-rally, the lights in their meeting hall mysteriously went out--though they were burning brightly fifteen minutes after the group gave and went habitation.

Vice-Presidential Confusion
Mid-roaders did defeat the nomination of Arthur Sewall, Democrats' vice-presidential choice, who was too conservative and anti-labor for the Populist convention to stomach. Instead, Populists chose Tom Watson of Georgia. Watson, editor of the People's Party Paper, was a dedicated Populist who had endured abuse and expiry threats from some Democrats in his country who feared the People'southward Party.

Watson accepted the nomination only considering he believed a deal had been struck with Jones, in which Bryan would renounce Sewall, making "Bryan and Watson" both the Autonomous and Populist ticket. Fusionist leaders had not obtained such a promise--or, if they had, they were betrayed later past their old Democratic allies.

Upon discovering this when the convention was over, Watson refused to campaign for Bryan, denouncing the deceit. At the same time, he refused to step down in favor of Sewall. Watson and other mid-roaders argued that their party's platform was substantially unlike from the Democrats' Chicago platform, fifty-fifty if the latter represented a substantial shift for that party. Watson and others focused on issues rather than individuals, hoping to rescue the third party from the 1896 debacle and revive it some other year.

Fusionist Populists campaigned enthusiastically for Bryan; many Republicans and Gold Democrats depicted "Populists" and "Silver Democrats" as a united opposition, though this was far from the instance. Some mid-road Populists, similar the Kansas orator Mary Lease, reluctantly campaigned for Bryan while calling attention to Populists' broader goals.

The Populist Platform
Compared with silver Democrats, Populists advocated more sweeping federal intervention to first the economic depression, curtail corporate abuses, and preclude poverty amid farming and working-class families. They fabricated a stronger statement than the major parties in support of Cuban independence and raised other issues--such equally statehood for Territories and the District of Columbia--that Republicans and Democrats did not address. The platform was, notwithstanding, less radical than the state-level platforms of Western Populist organizations, some of which had chosen for adult female suffrage.

Considering the presidential campaign hinged on the currency issue, this plank (which Populists had held since the early 1890s, and now shared with the Democrats) received well-nigh attending and debate.

The Stop of Populism--or Not?
In the national campaign, Populists served more often than not as a symbol for Republicans, who warned that the silver Democrats had allied themselves with ignorant "hayseeds" and "anarchists." Bryan virtually ignored the People's Party, fifty-fifty though he was its nominee. While the nomination of Bryan had destroyed the hopes of mid-roaders, Bryan's defeat demoralized the fusionists, leaving the whole political party in butchery. Equally Watson had predicted, fusion on the "free silver" upshot de-railed the rest of Populists' agenda and killed the political party's hopes for national power. While Populists continued to hold power in a few Western states, the political party vanished from the larger balloter map.

Withal, Populist ideas survived into the new century. Progressive Republican Theodore Roosevelt resurrected many Populist planks and re-cast them in new forms every bit he tentatively expanded federal regulations of business corporations. The Progressive Party, which Roosevelt headed in the "Balderdash Moose campaign" of 1912, too echoed many People'due south Party concerns. By constitutional amendment, directly ballot of U.S. Senators became law in 1912. Other Populist planks--particularly those calling for assistance to farmers and employment on public works in fourth dimension of low--became reality during the 1930s, under the New Deal administrations of Democrat Franklin Roosevelt.

I say it fearlessly, and it can not be denied, that reforms for which the masses have been clamoring for years--whether information technology be silver or labor or income revenue enhancement or popular rights or resistance to regime past injuction--had never been written, and might never accept been written, into a Democratic platform, until the Populist political party, 1,800,000 stiff, thundered in the ears of Democratic leaders the announcement that a mighty multitude demanded these reforms.

The burning question of today is, shall nosotros fuse with the democrats? Shall all the reform elements of this country drop every other reform issue, except free coinage of golden and argent, join easily with the free argent democrats and fight the mutual enemy--plutocratic republicanism?
If the democrats would practise one-half of the "fusing," I for 1 would say yes. But do the democrats offer the reformers i single concession? I fail to see it equally yet.
... Nosotros forced them into making free coinage the issue; shall we then drop all other reform issues and run to run into them with open arms? Shall the outraged girl, who forces her seducer to marry her at the signal of a revolver, drop her mother, sisters and brothers at his command, in club to brand the marriage perfect and happy?
... No, my brother; the autonomous party can non swallow me downward unless it swallows all the populist reform bug. There are also many horrors fresh in my memory--too many scenes of poverty and desire, at which a democratic assistants turned a deaf ear.

The Populist gathering of this twelvemonth lacked the drill and stardom and wealth of the Republican convention held the month before in the same building. It had not the ebullient aggressiveness of the revolutionary Autonomous assembly at Chicago, nor the brilliant drivers who rode the storm in that location. Every i commented on the number of grayness heads--heads many of them grown white in previous contained party movements. The delegates were poor men.... Cases are well known of delegates who walked because besides poor to pay their railroad fare. It was one day discovered that certain members of one of the well-nigh important delegations were actually suffering for food. They had no regular sleeping place, having had to relieve what money they had for their nickel meals at the lunch counter.

The old plutocratic politicians have been out-generaled past the flank move of the People's party. They invaded our field, stole our leader, set up him up on a platform they builded from materials they likewise purloined from us for the occasion. The aesthetic dodge of securing the nomination of a TRUE Populist Vice-President will forcefulness the designers against the people's rights, who had cunningly secured the nomination of a banker and railroad magnate, in the new Republic, to the wall--Wall street where they belong.

The nomination of Thomas E. Watson for the vice presidency past the Populists complicates the situation in an unfortunate degree. Information technology may be believed that the middle-of-the-route division, which has been opposed to Bryan, is highly pleased at the turn of affairs. . . . At this writing it is impossible to tell what plough matters may accept.

Don't ask me after all my service with the People'south party to impale information technology now. I am going to stand by it till information technology dies, and I desire no man to say that I was the homo who stabbed it to the heart.... No; Sewall has got to come down. He brings no votes to Bryan. He drives votes away from Bryan.

Mr. Watson really ought to be the offset man on the ticket, with Mr. Bryan second; for he is much the superior in disrespect, in thorough-going acceptance of his principles co-ordinate to their logical conclusions, and in sincerity of faith.... Mr. Watson belongs to that schoolhouse of southern Populists who honestly believe that the respectable and commonplace people who own banks, railroads, dry out goods stores, factories, and the like, are persons of mental and social attributes that unpleasantly distinguish Heliogabalus, Nero, Caligula, and other worthies of later on Rome.... If he got the chance he would lash the nation with a whip of scorpions, while Bryan would be content with the torture or ordinary thongs.

The Populist platform is almost too cool to merit serious discussion.

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© 2000, Rebecca Edwards, Vassar Higher

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Source: http://projects.vassar.edu/1896/populists.html

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