Populist party

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Populist Party, popular name for a third party of the 1890s, the People's Party of America. Organized nationally in May 1891 in Cincinnati, Ohio, the Populist party's first national nominating convention met in Omaha, Nebraska, the following year. There, the party nominated a presidential ticket headed by James B. Weaver of Iowa and James G. Field of Virginia, and fashioned what came to be called the Omaha platform, ratified and promulgated on 4 July 1892. To its adherents, this document symbolized a “second declaration of independence,” designed to restore the nation to a course they believed had been abandoned in Gilded Age America's headlong rush into a new urban‐industrial age in a political environment that placed corporate and financial interests above the general welfare. Thus, Populism came to stand for a politics designed to put the people first.

The Omaha platform emerged from political protests and organizational efforts that had been building since the 1870s among the nation's farmers. Southern and western farm organizations, together with earlier third parties, were especially active in formulating a program aimed at helping America's rural majority. This program, encompassed in the Omaha platform and its accompanying resolutions, called for the national government to exert a new and positive role on behalf of the general welfare and democratic reform. It urged government ownership of all transportation and communication systems; a graduated income tax; immigration restriction; the direct election of U.S. senators and other electoral reforms; and, in a bid for labor support, a shorter work week in industry. Although not without precedents, the call was historically significant in an era when most political leaders envisioned only a limited role for government, apart from government aid to business interests. In the 1892 election (in which Democrat Grover Cleveland defeated Republican Benjamin Harrison), Weaver received just over 1 million votes, or about 9 percent of the total. The party failed, however, to win much support in the South or in urban‐industrial districts.

In 1896, the Democratic party coopted an aspect of the Populists’ financial program, the free and unlimited coinage of silver, on behalf of the candidacy of William Jennings Bryan. The Populist party thus faced a dilemma: either nominate Bryan and support his fight against the gold standard or divide the reform vote and insure the election of Republican William McKinley. In the end McKinley won despite Populist support for Bryan, and the party gradually faded, leaving Populists with only the consoling thought that they had contributed to the conversion of the Democratic party to the cause of reform.

Throughout, the Populist party was strongest in Kansas, Nebraska, Colorado, Texas, and North Carolina, although its influence was also felt in other southern and western states. Out of its ranks emerged many talented and colorful figures, among them Ignatius Donnelly of Minnesota; Jeremiah Simpson, William A. Peffer, Mary E. Lease, and Annie Diggs of Kansas; and William V. Allen and William Neville of Nebraska. Among the prominent southern leaders were Thomas E. Watson of Georgia, Marion Butler of North Carolina, and James Harvey Davis of Texas.

From 1891 to 1903, fifty Populist party candidates, representing sixteen states and one territory, were elected to Congress, where they waged an educational campaign on behalf of the Populist program and spoke out on a wide range of issues, from the economic depression of 1893–96 to the nation's imperialist expansion. For many, the Populist movement remains a source of inspiration. As one historian has written: “The Populists’ message remains as relevant today as in the nineteenth century, and their vision of community still serves as a powerful critique of American society.”
See also Agriculture: Revolutionary War to 1890; Agriculture: The “Golden Age” (1890s–1920); Farmers’ Alliance Movement; Free Silver Movement; Greenback Labor Party; Immigration Law; Industrialization; Political Parties; Populist Era; Republican Party.

Bibliography

Lawrence Goodwyn , The Populist Moment, 1978.
Steven Hahn , The Roots of Southern Populism, 1983.
Gene Clanton , Populism: The Humane Preference in America, 1890–1900, 1991.
Robert C. McMath , American Populism: A Social History, 1993.
Peter H. Argersinger , The Limits of Agrarian Radicalism, 1995.
Gene Clanton , Congressional Populism and the Crisis of the Nineties, 1998.

Gene Clanton

Populist party in U.S. history, political party formed primarily to express the agrarian protest of the late 19th cent. In some states the party was known as the People's party.

Formation of the Party

During the Panic of 1873 agricultural prices in the United States began to decline. The economic welfare of farmers suffered badly; many believed that the management of currency was at fault and that the government's currency policy was determined by Eastern bankers and industrialists. After attempts at independent political action failed (see Greenback party ), loosely knit confederations called Farmers' Alliances were formed during the 1880s. Separate organizations were founded in the North and South, and Southern blacks organized their own alliances.

The Farmers' Alliances agitated for railroad regulation, tax reform, and unlimited coinage of silver and attempted to influence the established political parties. Growth was so rapid, however, that interest in a third party began to increase; in 1891 delegates from farm and labor organizations met in Cincinnati. No decision was made to form a political party, but when the Republican and Democratic parties both straddled the currency question at the 1892 presidential conventions, a convention was held at Omaha, and the Populist party was formed (1892).

Goals

The party adopted a platform calling for free coinage of silver, abolition of national banks, a subtreasury scheme or some similar system, a graduated income tax, plenty of paper money, government ownership of all forms of transportation and communication, election of Senators by direct vote of the people, nonownership of land by foreigners, civil service reform, a working day of eight hours, postal banks, pensions, revision of the law of contracts, and reform of immigration regulations. The goal of the Populists in 1892 was no less than that of replacing the Democrats as the nation's second party by forming an alliance of the farmers of the West and South with the industrial workers of the East. James B. Weaver was the Populist candidate for President that year, and he polled over 1,041,000 votes. The Populist votes in the 1894 congressional elections increased to 1,471,000 as the party gained momentum.

Dissolution

In 1896, while the Republican party adhered to the "sound money" platform, the Populists kept intact their platform of 1892; the Democratic party, however, adopted the plank of free coinage of silver and nominated William Jennings Bryan for President. Although the Populists tried to retain their independence by repudiating the Democratic vice presidential candidate, the Democratic party, helped by the eloquence of Bryan, captured the bulk of the Populist votes in 1896. The 1896 election undermined agrarian insurgency, and a period of rapidly rising farm prices helped to bring about the dissolution of the Populist party. Another important factor in the failure of the party was its inability to effect a genuine urban-rural coalition; its program had little appeal for wage earners of the industrial East.

Bibliography

See R. Hofstadter, The Age of Reform (1955, repr. 1963); N. Pollack, ed., The Populist Mind (1967) and The Just Polity (1987); C. Beals, The Great Revolt and Its Leaders (1968).

Populist party was formed in 1891 by a combination of farmer and labor reform groups, chiefly from the West. For more than a decade its importance was exceeded only by that of the Republican and Democratic parties, and in 1896 the Populist candidate, Bryan, captured the Democratic convention with his advocacy of free coinage of silver. Other Populist policies included demands for government ownership of railroads, the eight‐hour day, pensions, a graduated income tax, increased paper money, and loans on nonperishable agricultural commodities. After Bryan's defeat, the party dwindled until its demise in 1904. Writers affected by Populist views included Hamlin Garland, whose A Spoil of Office (1892) particularly championed its politics.

Populist Party (USA) A US agrarian organization that began in 1889 as a grouping of southern and western interests seeking to remedy the lot of debtor farmers. It drew on the GRANGER MOVEMENT, the Farmers' Alliances, the Greenbacks, and other protest groups who met in Cincinnati to create the People's Party of the USA. Its members called for a flexible currency system under government control, a graduated income tax, and political reforms including direct election of US Senators. In 1892 its candidate for President, James B. Weaver, won over a million popular and 22 electoral votes. The movement then went into decline, largely because its objectives seemed more likely to be realized by other parties.

Populist Party (officially People's Party) US political party active in the 1890s. It originated among farmers' alliances in the South and West at a time of agrarian discontent. It won seats in local and state elections in 1890 and nominated a presidential candidate, James B. Weaver, in 1892, advocating free silver (unlimited minting of silver coins) and nationalization of transport. In 1896 the party supported the Democratic candidate, William Jennings Bryan. After 1908 it gradually disintegrated.