The Populist Movement 543That convention nominated General James B.
Weaver of Iowa for president (with a one-legged
Confederate veteran as his running mate) and drafted
a platform that called for a graduated income tax and
national ownership of railroads, the telegraph, and
telephone systems. It also advocated a “subtreasury”
plan that would permit farmers to keep nonperishable
crops off the market when prices were low. Under this
proposal the government would make loans in the
form of greenbacks to farmers, secured by crops held
in storage in federal warehouses. When prices rose,
the farmers could sell their crops and repay the loans.
To combat deflation further, the platform demanded
the unlimited coinage of silver and an increase in the
money supply “to no less than $50 per capita.”
To make the government more responsive to
public opinion, the Populists urged the adoption of
the initiative and referendum procedures and the
election of U.S. senators by popular vote. To win the
support of industrial workers, their platform
denounced the use of Pinkerton detectives in labor
disputes and backed the eight-hour day and the
restriction of “undesirable” immigration.
The Populists saw themselves not as a persecuted
minority but as a victimized majority betrayed by
what would a century later be called the establish-
ment. They were at most ambivalent about the free
enterprise system, and they tended to attribute social
and economic injustices not to built-in inequities in
the system but to nefarious conspiracies organized by
selfish interests in order to subvert the system.
The appearance of the new party was the most
exciting and significant aspect of the presidential cam-
paign of 1892, which saw Harrison and Cleveland
refighting the election of 1888. The Populists put
forth a host of colorful spellbinders: Tom Watson, a
Georgia congressman whose temper was such that on
one occasion he administered a beating to a local
planter with the man’s own riding crop; William A.
Peffer, a senator from Kansas whose long beard and
grave demeanor gave him the look of a Hebrew
prophet; “Sockless Jerry” Simpson of Kansas, unlet-
tered but full of grassroots shrewdness and wit, a for-
mer Greenbacker, and an admirer of the single tax
doctrine of Henry George; and Ignatius Donnelly,
the “Minnesota Sage,” who claimed to be an author-
ity on science, economics, and Shakespeare. (He
believed that Francis Bacon wrote the plays.)
In the one-party South, Populist strategists
sought to wean black farmers away from the ruling
Democratic organization. Southern black farmers had
their own Colored Farmers’ Alliance, and even before
1892 their leaders had worked closely with the white
alliances. Nearly 100 black delegates had attended the
Populist convention at St. Louis. Of course, the blacks
would be useless to the party if they could not vote;
therefore, white Populist leaders opposed the south-
ern trend toward disfranchising African Americans and
called for full civil rights for all.
The results proved disappointing. Tom Watson lost
his seat in Congress, and Donnelly ran a poor third in
the Minnesota gubernatorial race. The Populists did
sweep Kansas. They elected numbers of local officials in
other western states and cast over a million votes for
General Weaver. But the effort to unite white and black
farmers in the South failed miserably. Conservative
Democrats, while continuing with considerable success
to attract black voters, played on racial fears cruelly,
insisting that the Populists sought to undermine white
supremacy. Since most white Populists saw the alliance
with blacks as at best a marriage of convenience, this
argument had a deadly effect. Elsewhere, even in the old
centers of the Granger movement, the party made no
significant impression. Urban workers remained aloof.
By standing firmly for conservative financial poli-
cies, Cleveland attracted considerable Republican sup-
port and won a solid victory over Harrison in the
electoral college, 277 to 145. Weaver received twenty-
two electoral votes.Mary Elizabeth Lease, the Populist Crusader
atwww.myhistorylab.comThe People’s Party Platform
atwww.myhistorylab.comReadtheDocumentReadtheDocumentMary Elizabeth Lease was a prominent Populist, noted for her
rallying cry to “raise less corn and more hell.”
Source: Kansas State Historical Society.