The Populist Moment: A Short History of the Agrarian Revolt in America by Goodwyn Lawrence

Author:Goodwyn, Lawrence [Goodwyn, Lawrence]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Published: 1978-11-30T08:00:00+00:00

The Kansans had done all they could to help. Whenever they could spare the time from their own political movement in, Kansas, Henry and Cuthbert Vincent, Jerry Simpson, Mary Lease, William Peffer, and others toured the South to provide visible evidence that non-Southerners had made the break with political tradition, too. Indeed, the willingness of the Kansans to expend such energies provided a measure both of their concern and their need.

Polk’s concern matched those of his Western allies. In Birmingham the Alliance president engaged in the delicate business of holding together a “nonpartisan” order as it moved into independent political action. The two-day conference of thirtyseven top Alliance officials from eleven Southern states endured intermittent tension, but ended on a relatively amicable note addressed specifically to “the brotherhood in the North and great Northwest.” The Southerners announced their intention to work “in unison,” to “stand by them in all laudable efforts to redeem this country from the clutches of organized capital,” and, finally, to “stand with them at the ballot box for the enforcement of our demands.” Though the Alliance statement was signed by all thirty-seven participants, the delicacy of the situation was underscored by an additional fact not included in the press announcement: despite Polk’s importunings, the Southern Alliance leaders declined, by a vote of 21 to 16, publicly to express an outright endorsement of the People’s Party. Tennessee and Florida, both with prominent “Alliance Democrats” high in their counsels, were balking and Ben Tillman was working zealously to clamp a lid on insurgency in South Carolina. Even in North Carolina, young Marion Butler, who had replaced Polk as state leader when the latter had assumed the order’s national presidency, had fashioned an elaborate scheme that involved cooperation with North Carolina Democrats in state races while charting a third party course in national politics. Clearly, the radical agrarian leadership in the South had much work still to perform. The cause of independent political action in the states of the Old Confederacy still rested on shaky grounds. Polk’s energies, skill, and prestige obviously confronted an ultimate test.

Meanwhile, throughout the nation, radicals held their precinct, county, and state conventions to select the delegates who would go to Omaha to convene the new People’s Party of the United States. The selection procedures worked unevenly, needless to say, but by one method or another, through democratic processes or through self-selection, some 1400 certified Populists appeared in Omaha on July 4, 1892, to nominate the national standardbearer of the “new party of the industrial millions.”

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.