Movements for Change: Populism and Progressivism

Sources

Populists. The spirit of protest —whether generated by radicals and labor unionists, by critics such as George and Bellamy, or by farmers reeling from low prices—ani-mated third-party politics in the 1880s and 1890s. During the 1880s diverse agrarian organizations such as the Farmers’ Union, the Texas State Alliance, and the National Colored Farmer’s Alliance joined forces to form two large national organizations: the Southern Alliance and the National Farmers Alliance of the Northwest. These groups singled out several enemies, including the “Eastern money interests” that controlled monetary supply and policy, the network of middlemen who moved crops from field to market, the large railroad companies whose influence over the agricultural economy and national politics was widespread, industrial monopolies, and supporters of the gold standard. Eager for a solution to the many problems faced by farmers in the 1880s and 1890s, the alliances supported a broad program of political, economic, and monetary reform.

The People’s Party. The genesis of the People’s Party, or Populists, came in December 1889, when representatives of the two farmers alliances and labor groups met in Saint Louis with members of the Grange—a militant group that had been forming farm cooperatives and fighting for government regulation of the rates charged farmers by railroads and warehouses—and members of the Greenback Party, founded in 1875 by Grangers and others favoring the circulation of more paper money and opposing a return to the gold standard. The Greenback Party had unsuccessfully fielded presidential candidates in the 1876, 1880, and 1884 elections and had had some success in the congressional elections of 1878, but it had become largely defunct after 1884. The People’s Party combined agrarian and labor protests and the farming interests of the South and West against the rich and more politically powerful East. The first statewide People’s Party was formed in Kansas, and more soon fol-lowed. On 19 May 1891 at a gathering in Cincinnati more than fourteen hundred delegates from thirty-two states formed the national People’s Party.

The Populist Platform. The Populists called for many of the reforms demanded by farm and labor interests, including increased coinage of silver money, a national cur-rency, governmental regulation or ownership of all transportation and communication lines, a graduated income tax, lower tariffs on manufactured goods, a postal savings bank, direct elections of U.S. senators, adoption of the secret ballot, the establishment of the initiative and the referendum (measures that allowed the introduction and passage of laws by direct vote of the people), prohibition of foreign ownership of land, a shorter workweek, and restrictions on immigration. One of the Populists’ more radical proposals was Southern Alliance leader Charles W. Macunis’s “sub-treasury system,” a plan that called for government warehouses where farmers could deposit their crops and receive credit—in the form of green-backs—until the crops were sold.

Setting a National Agenda. The Populist Party proved to be an important force in national politics, with impressive showings in the 1892 and 1894 elections, and the party succeeded in bringing the issues of money supply, labor and farm grievances, anxiety about monopolies (particularly the railroads), and the unfair effects of the tariff to the national stage. Many Americans were frightened by the Populist alliance between farmers and labor-ers, seeing their ideas as radical and potentially dangerous for the country. While the Populist Party went down to defeat in the 1896 presidential election, when they endorsed the Democrats’ free-silver candidate, William Jennings Bryan, many of their proposals were taken over by progressive candidates in other parties, and the Populist movement continued to animate national politics until World War I.

Progressivism. By the end of the nineteenth century reformers in both major political parties were calling themselves “progressives” to indicate their commitment to a just and equitable society. These reformers were spurred on by accounts of urban blight written by reporters such as Jacob Riis, by political orators such as Populist and Democrat Williams Jennings Bryan, and by grassroots organizations such as the Nationalist Clubs and the Single-Tax Clubs. Furthermore, Constant agitation over the limited money supply, poor working condi-tions, the discriminatory tariff, and the restriction of women from voting, led many reformminded citizens and politicians to search for new ways to address problems spawned by rapid urbanization and industrializa-tion. Rather than a single party, progressivism was a loose coalition of reform groups and impulses that shaped national and local politics well into the twentieth century.

Cleaning up Corruption. Progressivism developed from a wide variety of pressures for modernizing society and for cleaning up corruption on local, state, and national levels. Moral reformers attacked the spoils system, political corruption, boodle, and the power of saloons. Many of these reformers worked at the municipal level, and helped to elect reform mayors and city councils in small and large cities. Other groups sought to establish a more sound political democracy, advocating direct election of senators, a secret ballot, and votes for women. Still others hoped to modernize government by bringing the navy and military up to date and by building a stronger federal government that could regulate corporations and the economy. Many hoped to take what they saw as the short-sighted, narrow-minded focus of partisan politics out of important national policy issues such as the money supply and tariffs and to create a governing class that would watch out for national rather than local and party-based allegiances.

Working within the Two-Party System. Progressive reformers continued build a political power base through elections. As with the Greenback Labor Party, the Popu-lists, Henry George, and the prohibition movements, progressives attempted to gain control of political parties and to win elections on the state and national levels. Unlike earlier reformers, however, progressives worked within the Democratic and Republican Parties, lining up behind whichever candidate endorsed the reforms they supported.

Sources

Lawrence Goodwyn, The Populist Movement: A Short History of the Agrarian Revolt in America (New York: Oxford University Press, 1978);

Steven Hahn, The Roots of Southern Populism: Yeoman Farmers and the Transformation of the Georgia Up Country, 1850-1890 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1983);

Richard Hofstadter, The Age of Reform: From Bryan to F.D.R. (New York: Knopf, 1955);

Morton Keller, Affairs of State: Public Life in Late Nineteenth Century America (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1977).