Populist Party

The Populist Party (formally, The People's Party) was an American third party that flourished 1890-94. Based on a coalition of wheat farmers in the Plains states, cotton tenant farmersoin the deep South, silver miners in the West, and coal miners in the Midwest, it carried several states in the 1892 election. It suffered heavy losses to the resurgent Republican party in 1894, and in 1896 endosed the Democratic party candidate, William Jennings Bruan. It virtually disappeared after 1896.

Origins

The party was organized at St. Louis in February 1892, represented, in general, three groups: 1) Western agrarians who had achieved some political success by means of independent parties in the congressional and state elections since 1890; 2) Southern agrarians who, through the Farmers' Alliances, had sought to capture their state Democratic organizations as a means of achieving their aims; and 3) representatives of several labor unions and other reform groups. Farmers' Alliance leaders from Southern states generally opposed the formation of a third party, fearing that such action would endanger white supremacy in the South. Leadership in the contest for control went to Western agrarians and remained in their hands during the early years of the party's history. This raised the problem of achieving unity among the Westerners, who were mostly former Republicans, and the Southerners, former Democrats.

Campaign of 1892

The party convention, meeting at Omaha, Nebraska, July 4, 1892, with 1,776 official delegates, nominated James B. Weaver, of Iowa, for president, and James G. Field, of Virginia, for vice-president and adopted a platform embodying Farmers' Alliance demands relating to land, currency, and transportation reform. Other planks called for a graduated income tax, direct election of United States Senators, and other democratic measures and labor reforms. The principal currency reform involved the free coinage of silver and gold at a ratio of 16 to 1. The party polled over 1,000,000 popular votes and entered the electoral college with 22 votes, mostly from the states of the Middle West.

1896

The Populists attracted additional support in the ensuing years, and the party leaders looked hopefully to the election of 1896. Neither of the major parties seemed disposed to espouse free coinage, which by 1896 had become the principal demand of agrarians. The silver wing of the Democratic Party, led by William Jennings Bryan, captured the national organization, which declared for free coinage of silver; thereupon the Populists endorsed Bryan, virtually committing political suicide. A middle-of-the-road Populist faction favoring independent action refused to follow the leadership of Bryan. In 1900 the Populists again endorsed Bryan, but from this second venture the party never recovered. Although the Populists entered candidates in 1904 and 1908, the party had become a minor Southern agrarian political faction.

South

North Carolina

In 1890, Marion Butler was elected to the North Carolina state legislature as a Democrat supported by the Farmers' Alliance. By 1892, Butler had bcome leader of the state's Populist Party, which held the balance of power between the two traditional parties. North Carolina politics was in turmoil 1892-98. In 1894 and 1896, Republicans and Populists combined for legislative elections and won control of the legislature. It elected Butler and Republican Jeter Pritchard to the U.S. Senate. Republican Daniel Russell won the governorship, and North Carolina's election laws were made more democratic. A rabidly racist and physically intimidating campaign of 1898 by the Democrats destroyed the party.

Mississippi

The Populist movement failed to attract the large following in Mississippi that it did in most other Southern states. Mississippi possessed able Populist leaders, such as newspaper editor Frank Burkitt, but poor farmers refused to follow the leadership of the Farmers' Alliance. Few farmers were willing to support the subtreasury plan, an alliance system of aiding farmers by providing low-cost federal loans secured by crops. The Democratic Party machine, the increasing activism of the National Grange, and fear of black political domination also contributed to the failure of Mississippi populism. By the birth of the People's Party in 1892, Mississippi populism had weakened to the point of near death.

Biracial coalition?

Winsboro and Musoke (2003) examine whether the Populist movement in the South was a truly biracial movement or one that made promises to blacks just to gain their votes. Underlying the Populist claims for unity against Bourbon elitism was the issue of white supremacy, a factor that put African Americans between Populist promises and political realities. Populist leaders had little to offer blacks, since poverty precluded them from Populist demands for currency reform and lower taxes. These demands had little to do with challenging white supremacy, as politically astute blacks well knew. Whites may have been divided on political issues, but in one Southern state after another they were unified on the issue of race. Blacks knew that Populist leaders such as Tom Watson were more interested in black votes than in racial equity.

Historiography

Since the 1890s historians have vigorously debated the nature of Populism, especially the Populist Party that in 180-92-94 carried Plains states (notably Kansas and Nebraska), silver states (Colorado), and made a strong showing in the Deep South (Alabama and North Carolina).

Frederick Jackson Turner and a succession of western historians depicted the Populist as responding to the closure of the frontier. Turner explained:

The Farmers' Alliance and the Populist demand for government ownership of the railroad is a phase of the same effort of the pioneer farmer, on his latest frontier. The proposals have taken increasing proportions in each region of Western Advance. Taken as a whole, Populism is a manifestation of the old pioneer ideals of the native American, with the added element of increasing readiness to utilize the national government to effect its ends.

In the 1930s C. Vann Woodward stressed the southern base, seeing the possibility of a black-and-white coalition of poor against the overbearing rich. Georgia politician Tom Watson served as Woodward's hero. In the 1950s, however, scholars such as Richard Hofstadter portrayed the Populist movement as an irrational response of backward-looking farmers to the challenges of modernity. The antithesis of anti-modern Populism was modernizing Progressivism in this model, with such leading progressives as Theodore Roosevelt, Robert LaFollette and Woodrow Wilson had been vehement enemies of Populism, though William Jennings Bryan did cooperate with them and accepted the Populist nomination in 1896.

In 2007 Charles Postel rejected the notion that the Populists were traditionalistic and anti-modern. Quite the reverse, he argued, the Populists aggressively sought self-consciously progressive goals. They sought diffusion of scientific and technical knowledge, formed highly centralized organizations, launched large-scale incorporated businesses, and pressed for an array of state-centered reforms. Hundreds of thousands of women committed to Populism seeking a more modern life, education, and employment in schools and offices. A large section of the labor movement looked to Populism for answers, forging a political coalition with farmers that gave impetus to the regulatory state. Progress, however, was also menacing and inhumane, Postel notes. White Populists, embraced social-Darwinist notions of racial improvement, Chinese exclusion and the humiliation and brutality of separate-but-equal.

Bibliography

• Clanton, O. Gene. A Common Humanity: Kansas Populism and the Battle for Justice and Equality, 1854-1903. (2004), 328pp; expanded version of Kansas Populism: Ideas and Men, (1969).
• Creech, Joe. Righteous Indignation: Religion and the Populist Revolution. (2006). 232 pp
• Faulkner, Harold U.; Politics, Reform, and Expansion, 1890-1900 (1959), scholarly survey, strong on economic and political history online edition
• Hahn, Steven. The Roots of Southern Populism: Yeoman Farmers and the Transformation of the Georgia Upcountry, 1850-1890. (1983, 2006). 354 pp.
• Hunt, James L. Marion Butler and American Populism. (2003). 337 pp. on a North Carolina leader online review

• Postel, Charles. The Populist Vision (2007) excerpt and text search
• Voss-Hubbard, Mark. "The 'Third Party Tradition' Reconsidered: Third Parties and American Public Life, 1830-1900." Journal of American History 1999 86(1): 121-150. Issn: 0021-8723 Fulltext: online JSTOR
• Winsboro, Irvin D. S., and Moses S. Musoke, "Lead Us Not into Temptation: Race, Rhetoric, and Reality in Southern Populism." Historian 2003 65(6): 1354-1374. Issn: 0018-2370 Fulltext: Ebsco
• Woodward, C. Vann. Tom Watson: Agrarian Rebel (1938)
• Woodward, C. Vann. "Tom Watson and the Negro in Agrarian Politics," The Journal of Southern History, Vol. 4, No. 1 (Feb., 1938), pp. 14-33 in JSTOR

See also

• American election campaigns, 19th century
• Gilded Age
• Third Party System
• U.S. Republican Party, history
• U.S. Democratic Party, history