The Louisiana Populist Movement, 1881-1900 by Donna A. Barnes

Author:Donna A. Barnes [Barnes, Donna A.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: History, United States, State & Local, South (AL; AR; FL; GA; KY; LA; MS; NC; SC; TN; VA; WV)
ISBN: 9780807137277
Google: N2gBOhDemHYC
Publisher: LSU Press
Published: 2011-05-18T01:41:05+00:00

The large landowners in the black-belt, cotton parishes were not typically attracted to the LFU. They profited from the crop-lien loans that they extended to their tenants. The attacks by the LFU on the crop-lien financing system and its later advocacy of the subtreasury proposal, largely an effort to supplant that system, threatened their economic interests.

As for the CFA, it had limited appeal to the black tenant farmers who were prevalent in the alluvial cotton parishes. Participation in the early Alliance strategies, which focused heavily on cooperative stores and cotton withholding and bulking, required an economic autonomy that these black tenant farmers did not have. Consequently, the strategies proposed by the CFA were irrelevant to their economic lives. Furthermore, the lack of economic autonomy on the part of black tenant cotton farmers often translated into reduced political autonomy. Cotton planters, the vast majority of whom were Democrats, were very uneasy with the notion of black political influence. They were steeped in the white supremacy culture that dictated that whites alone should make all the important political decisions. They were particularly vigilant about black political influence in parishes where blacks comprised the vast majority of eligible voters. Importantly, the planters had the power to distort the electoral process so that they could remain politically dominant. They could demand that their black tenants stay home on Election Day. Or, given the absence of the secret ballot, they could demand that their black tenants vote for the Democratic Party. Among the economic consequences that they could impose should their tenants not abide by their demands were a refusal to provide future crop-lien financing and employment blacklists.88 So even if black tenant cotton farmers had been attracted to the third-party movement, the powerful white planter elite would have likely exercised its economic clout to prevent a strong third-party showing.

Neither had the LFU or CFA had much success in recruiting members in the black-belt sugar parishes. The framing of the farm crisis by these organizations held little attraction to sugar plantation owners. The cooperative store strategy was largely irrelevant to them, if not threatening since they profited from the high pricing practices in plantation stores that serviced their laborers. Neither were they attracted by a discussion of alternatives to crop-lien financing. They already had access to credit lines with reasonable interest rates, collateralized by their extensive land and sugar-processing equipment. Furthermore, the anti-tariff stance of the LFU was a threat. The Louisiana sugar industry was profitable only because of federal government subsidies provided by tariff legislation. The fall in the price of sugar from $0.06 per pound in 1889 to $0.03 by 1894 was cushioned by a $0.02 per pound bounty provided by existing tariff law. Any revision of those laws threatened their subsidies.89

As for laborers on the sugar plantations, their economic interests lay primarily in their demand for higher wages, paid in cash rather than scrip to be used solely at plantation stores. The leaders of the LFU and CFA had paid little attention to these issues.

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