About the Work
The Agrarian Crusade: A Chronicle of the Farmer in Politics is a historical study by Solon J. Buck examining the organized political movements of American farmers during the late nineteenth century. The book traces the rise and fall of successive agrarian protest movements—from the Granger movement of the 1870s through the Greenback party, the Farmers’ Alliances, and finally the People’s (Populist) Party of the 1890s—culminating in the free-silver battle of 1896. Buck, who acknowledges in his preface the assistance of Professor Lester B. Shippee of the University of Minnesota and his own wife in manuscript revision, frames the work as an account of how the passing of the frontier and the transformation of simple farming communities into complex industrial regions produced what he calls “radical agitations” among farmers.
The book is organized as a chronological narrative spanning roughly three decades of American agricultural history. It begins with the founding of the Patrons of Husbandry in the late 1860s and concludes with an assessment of the agrarian crusade’s lasting influence on American politics. The work combines economic analysis with political history, examining both the material conditions that drove farmers to organize and the specific legislative and electoral campaigns they undertook. Buck draws on contemporary sources including newspapers, convention proceedings, political pamphlets, and personal correspondence, and he includes statistical data on crop prices, land values, and voting patterns to support his analysis.
The volume is part of a larger series of historical chronicles, as indicated by its subtitle, and reflects early-twentieth-century scholarly approaches to American history. Buck’s treatment is generally sympathetic to the farmers’ grievances while remaining critical of some of their methods and economic theories. The book’s scope extends from the immediate post-Civil War period through the presidential election of 1896, with a concluding chapter that looks forward to the progressive movement of the early twentieth century.
Context
The agrarian crusade emerged from a period of profound transformation in American life following the Civil War. Buck notes that the last half-century of American history was characterized by rapid growth accompanied by painful readjustment, with change in the West approaching what he terms “complete metamorphosis.” The passing of the frontier, which had long offered an escape valve for dissatisfied farmers, meant the end of the old freedom and opportunity that had defined American agriculture. Simple farming communities were becoming complex industrial regions, and farmers found themselves losing their former preferred position in American society.
The economic context of the period was marked by dramatic fluctuations. The years 1870 to 1873 were a time of “rampant prosperity” for commercial, manufacturing, and speculative interests, but bitter depression for farmers. Following the Civil War, the production of staple crops expanded tremendously as demobilized soldiers, closing war industries, increased immigration, the homestead law, improved machinery, and rapid railroad advance all pushed the agricultural frontier westward. As acreage and production increased, prices fell according to the law of supply and demand. The panic of 1873, described as the greatest in national history, began a decade-long depression that restricted industry, commerce, and immigration while hitting farmers especially hard.
Political context was equally significant. The Republican party controlled the North in the years after the war, and charges of corruption were rife during Grant’s administration. The Liberal-Republican movement of 1872 represented a split within Republican ranks, though its candidate Horace Greeley proved unsatisfactory to many. Farmers had little representation in Congress or state legislatures; after the Civil War, the Southern planters who had traditionally represented agricultural interests were gone, and political power concentrated in the East and urban West. Only about seven per cent of Congress were farmers in 1870, though forty-seven per cent of the population was engaged in agriculture.
The book also situates the agrarian movement within broader international economic developments. Farmers sold staples abroad in competition with European products but bought manufactured articles at home at arbitrarily high protective-tariff prices. The application of power—first steam, then electricity—to machinery vastly increased productivity and stimulated invention, but tillers of the soil remained more nearly in their primitive condition than city dwellers. While mankind was better off overall, different groups progressed unequally, and farmers owed less to steam and electricity than urban craftsmen and artisans.
Structure of the Book
The book follows a chronological structure organized into thirteen chapters. Chapter I, “The Inception of the Grange,” covers the founding of the Patrons of Husbandry in 1867-1868, including Oliver Hudson Kelley’s mission to the South, the organization of the National Grange in Washington, and the early struggles to establish local Granges. Chapter II, “The Rising Spirit of Unrest,” examines the political and economic conditions of the early 1870s that created discontent among farmers, including corruption in the Grant administration, the Liberal-Republican movement, and the economic difficulties facing agriculture.
Chapter III, “The Granger Movement at Flood Tide,” traces the rapid expansion of the Grange from 1872 to 1874, including the adoption of the Declaration of Purposes at the St. Louis session of February 1874, and profiles key figures such as Ignatius Donnelly. Chapter IV, “Curbing the Railroads,” examines the Granger legislation in the Northwestern states and the court decisions that established the right of states to regulate railroad rates. Chapter V, “The Collapse of the Granger Movement,” analyzes the decline of the Grange after 1874, attributing it to rapid growth, business cooperation failures, and organizational weaknesses.
Chapter VI, “The Greenback Interlude,” covers the Greenback party from its origins in Eastern labor movements through the campaigns of 1876 and 1878. Chapter VII, “The Plight of the Farmer,” provides an extended analysis of agricultural economic conditions from the 1880s through the mid-1890s, including falling prices, mortgage burdens, and the “heart-breaking nineties.” Chapter VIII, “The Farmer’s Alliance,” examines the Alliance movement of the 1880s, including the Northwestern and Southern Alliances, their political activities, and the failed attempt at union.
Chapter IX, “The People’s Party Launched,” traces the formation of the Populist party from the elections of 1890 through the Cincinnati convention of May 1891. Chapter X, “The Populist Bombshell of 1892,” covers the Omaha convention, the party platform, the nomination of James B. Weaver, and the election campaign. Chapter XI, “The Silver Issue,” examines the monetary crisis of 1893, the propaganda campaign surrounding free silver, and the Kansas legislative crisis. Chapter XII, “The Battle of the Standards,” covers the campaign of 1896, including Bryan’s nomination, the Populist convention’s decision to fuse with the Democrats, and the election results. Chapter XIII, “The Leaven of Radicalism,” concludes the book with an assessment of the agrarian crusade’s lasting influence on American politics.
Detailed Section-by-Section Summary
The Preface: A Nation in Metamorphosis
Solon J. Buck opens his chronicle by framing the preceding half-century of American history as a period of rapid growth accompanied by painful readjustment. Nowhere was this change more profound than in the West, where the transformation approached a “complete metamorphosis.” With the passing of the frontier, the old freedoms and opportunities it afforded vanished, and the farmers who had once been the backbone of a simple agrarian society found themselves displaced in a complex industrial order. This loss of their preferred position bred a deep-seated protest, manifesting in a series of “radical agitations” that Buck collectively terms the “agrarian crusade.” This movement, he explains, spanned the Granger, Greenback, and Populist phases, reaching its climax in the great free-silver battle. In his acknowledgements, Buck credits Professor Lester B. Shippee for assistance with the Populism chapters and, most importantly, his wife for her aid at every stage, particularly in revising the manuscript.
The Inception of the Grange
The unlikely seed of the great agrarian movement was planted in 1866 when President Johnson authorized the Commissioner of Agriculture to send a clerk south to gather “statistical and other information.” That clerk was Oliver Hudson Kelley, a keen observer with a distinguished New England lineage, who had settled on a farm in Elk River, Minnesota. At forty, Kelley was a dignified, full-bearded man with a philosopher’s forehead and an enthusiast’s eyes, described as “an engine with too much steam on all the time.” Viewing the South with a fellow agriculturist’s eye, he was struck by the farmers’ antiquated methods and apathy, which he attributed to a “drear monotony” born of a lack of social opportunities. He concluded that a national secret order, modeled on the Freemasonry he knew, could bind farmers together for their social and intellectual advancement. His niece, Miss Carrie Hall, persuaded him to admit women to full membership, a decision he accepted.
In the summer and fall of 1867, seven men—”one fruit grower and six government clerks”—founded the Patrons of Husbandry, better known as the Grange. On December 4, 1867, they framed a constitution, adopted the motto Esto perpetua, and constituted themselves the National Grange, with Kelley as Secretary. Crucially, the founders sought advancement through education, not politics, hence the creation of the “Lecturer” office. The first local Grange was organized in Washington, D.C., largely among government clerks. In February 1868, Kelley resigned his clerkship, was voted a salary of $2,000 plus expenses, and with only $2.50 in his pocket, started for Minnesota to spread the order. His early efforts were misdirected at large cities, and four dispensations he sold—in Harrisburg, Columbus, Chicago, and Fredonia—resulted in only one permanent local, the one in Fredonia, New York. Working from his Minnesota farm, Kelley struggled financially as the order’s debt reached $150, and he later wrote that the foundation was laid on “solid nothing—the rock of poverty.” He advertised the Grange “as vigorously as if it were a patent medicine.” Progress was slow but steady: a Grange was established at Newton, Iowa, in May 1868, and the North Star Grange at St. Paul in September, with the help of Colonel D. A. Robertson. Robertson’s group shrewdly revised the circulars to appeal to farmers’ pocketbooks, emphasizing protection against corporations and the benefits of cooperative buying and selling. By the end of 1869, Minnesota had thirty-seven Granges, and by the end of 1870, the order had penetrated nine states, with its life centered in Minnesota, Iowa, Wisconsin, Illinois, and Indiana.
The Rising Spirit of Unrest
As the 1870s dawned, the North-South problem subsided, replaced by a new conflict: preserving economic and political democracy against the great accumulations of wealth. The Republican party controlled the North, and Grant was elected in 1868. During his first term, Republicans grew hostile toward Washington politicians, and charges of corruption were rife. Grant trusted his friends blindly and chose men by personal preference, while his Reconstruction policy evoked opposition from Northerners who suspected it meant looting by “greedy freedmen” and “unscrupulous carpetbaggers.” In 1871, Congress passed an act empowering the President to suspend habeas corpus and use military force against voter intimidation, giving the carpetbag governments unlimited powers. In 1872, the Liberal-Republican movement emerged as a revolt. Missouri Republicans, led by Senator Carl Schurz, bolted and won the governorship with Democratic help. The 1872 Cincinnati convention brought together tariff reformers, civil service reformers, and opponents of Reconstruction, along with disgruntled politicians. The platform denounced the President and declared for civil service reform, but the convention chose Horace Greeley as its candidate, the least suitable of the contenders. His protectionism repelled Democrats and tariff reformers, and the Nation called him “‘boiled crow.'” Republicans renominated Grant, and the Democrats swallowed the Liberal candidate. Many Liberal leaders, seeing Greeley as a lesser evil, ultimately supported Grant.
Economic Conditions and the Farmers’ Plight
The period from 1870 to 1873 was one of “rampant prosperity” for commercial, manufacturing, and speculative interests, but it was a time of bitter depression for farmers. Following the Civil War, the production of staple crops expanded tremendously as the frontier pushed westward, driven by demobilized armies, increased immigration, the homestead law, improved machinery, and rapid railroad advance. As acreage and production increased, prices fell according to the law of supply and demand. In the West and South, farmers commonly bought supplies on credit or mortgaged their crops in advance; one bad season could put them entirely in their creditors’ power. Many farms were heavily mortgaged at interest rates that ate up profits. Currency fluctuation and the high tariff worked especial hardship: farmers sold their staples abroad in competition with European products but were forced to buy manufactured articles at home at arbitrarily high protective-tariff prices. Previously, harassed farmers could move west for fresh opportunity, but now even frontier farmers, forced by natural conditions to produce staples, were as dependent on markets and transportation as their Eastern competitors.
The Panic of 1873 and the Railroad Grievance
In the fall of 1873 came the greatest panic in national history, beginning a decade-long depression. Farmers suffered especially: creditors became insistent for payment, mortgages could not be renewed, and foreclosures wiped out years of labor. Short-term loans became difficult to obtain, and private capitalists who performed this lending function asked usurious rates. Farmers attributed all their misfortunes to corporations or monopolies, especially the railroads. Initially, farmers had seen railroads as an unmixed blessing, opening territory and providing transportation to markets. Farmers and communities had eagerly bought railroad bonds and sympathized with government land grants. But by 1873, the government had given railroads about thirty-five million acres, with pledges of over one hundred forty-five million more to the Pacific roads alone. Land was less plentiful than when the policy began, and farmers resented railroads holding land for speculation or demanding higher prices than the government asked for adjacent land. When railroads merged or went into receivership, farmers’ shares were wiped out. “Watered” stock necessitated high freight charges to pay dividends. A farmer might lose his railroad stock, still owe the mortgage incurred to buy it, face increased township taxation, and suffer excessive railroad rates.
Political Representation and the Grange’s Expansion
Farmers had little representation in Congress or state legislatures. Before the Civil War, Southern planters had represented agricultural interests; afterward, Western farmers lost their Southern ally. Political power was concentrated in the East and the urban West, and Congress members increasingly came from manufacturing or the legal profession. Only about seven per cent of Congress were farmers, though in 1870 forty-seven per cent of the population was engaged in agriculture. The remedy was clear: farmers must organize as a class. In 1872, the real spread of the Grange began, growing from hundreds to thousands of new lodges. Iowa, Minnesota, South Carolina, and Mississippi were thoroughly organized. Opposition arose when Grangers spoke of business and political cooperation, and Southern commission men and merchants sometimes foreclosed mortgages of planters who joined, though persecution defeated its own end. Eastern retardation was due to the feeling that Western farmers were serious rivals with larger acreage and virgin soil. In January 1873, the sixth session of the National Grange saw the temporary organization of government clerks replaced by a permanent corporation officered by farmers, with Dudley W. Adams of Iowa made Master. From spring 1873 to spring 1874, granges more than quadrupled, centered in the Middle West.
The Declaration of Purposes
By the end of 1873, the Grange had penetrated all but four states, with thirty-two state Granges. At the seventh annual session in St. Louis in February 1874, thirty-three men and twelve women attended, representing about half a million members. They adopted the “Declaration of Purposes of the National Grange,” stating their general purpose “to labor for the good of our Order, our Country, and Mankind.” The practical applications included enhancing home comfort, maintaining laws, advancing agricultural and industrial education, diversifying crops, systematizing farm work, and establishing cooperative buying and selling. They declared themselves enemies not of capital but of monopoly tyranny, not of railroads but of high freight tariffs and transportation monopoly. The Grange was not to be a political or party organization, but members were to perform their political duties as individuals. Many farmers still objected to the Grange—some for its secrecy, some for its nonpartisanship, some as too conservative, and some as too radical. Farmers’ clubs arose, lacking secrecy and avowedly political, marking the farmers’ definite entrance into politics.
Ignatius Donnelly: The Sage of Nininger
Among the leaders of the Anti-Monopolist movement, Ignatius Donnelly of Minnesota was the one outstanding exception, remaining a captain of radical cohorts in every agrarian movement until his death in 1901. A red-headed, aggressive Irishman with a magnetic personality and remarkable intellect, he went to Minnesota from Pennsylvania in 1856, speculating in town sites on a large scale. Left stranded by the panic of 1857, he entered politics on his principle that “to hide one’s light under a bushel is to extinguish it.” Having been a Democrat in Pennsylvania, sympathy for the oppressed made him an opponent of slavery and consequently a Republican. In 1859, he was nominated for lieutenant governor, and his caustic wit and eloquence made him valuable in the battle for Minnesota. As lieutenant governor, he championed laws lowering the legal rate of interest and making foreclosure on mortgages more humane. During the Civil War, he served as acting governor and issued the first proclamation for raising Minnesota troops in response to President Lincoln’s call. Elected to Congress in 1862, he served three terms, usually supporting progressive legislation. His ambition for the Senate alarmed Senator Ramsey’s friends, who controlled the state Republican party, and they determined to prevent his renomination in 1868. After a bitter controversy and a divided convention, a Democrat was ultimately elected. In 1870, he ran for Congress as an independent Republican on a low tariff platform and was defeated. Two years later, he joined the Liberal Republicans supporting Greeley. In 1873, when Granges sprang up, Donnelly saw political possibilities and played a leading part in organizing the Anti-Monopoly party. Elected to the state senate in 1873, he started the newspaper the Anti-Monopolist in 1874. Though technically a farmer, he left farm management to his capable wife, making politics his profession. His career was a kaleidoscope: Democrat, Republican, Liberal-Republican, Anti-Monopolist; speculator, lawyer, farmer, lecturer, editor, author; always a radical.
Curbing the Railroads
The Patrons of Husbandry was avowedly non-political, but the term “Granger” is justified for the radical railroad legislation in the Northwestern states in the seventies. The Grange made political action possible by establishing mutual confidence among farmers, who had previously been isolated, unsocial, and suspicious. “Coöperation” and “Down with Monopoly” were the slogans responsible for its expansion. Farmers’ bitterness was partly due to prejudice, but much suspicion was founded: stock manipulation cheated farmers and towns, and railroads gave passes to officials from local supervisors to Supreme Court judges. An Iowa farmer burned corn for fuel because at fifteen cents a bushel it was cheaper than coal, though it sold for a dollar in the East—he accused the railroads of extortion. The fundamental issue in Illinois, Minnesota, Iowa, and Wisconsin was whether a state had the power to regulate railway tariffs of companies incorporated under its laws. The railway companies argued they were private concerns, and state interference was tyranny. The advocates argued that railroads, though private corporations, were public servants subject to state regulation. Some states had safeguarded their rights: Wisconsin’s constitution declared laws creating corporations might be altered or repealed; Minnesota’s constitution asserted railroads were common carriers that must carry freight on equal and reasonable terms; and Iowa’s legislature reserved the right to regulate railroad companies when granting them federal lands. In 1869, the Illinois legislature passed an act limiting railroads to “just, reasonable, and uniform rates,” but with no provision for determining such rates, it was a mere encumbrance. The new state constitution of 1870, influenced by a Producers’ Convention, directed the legislature to “
Early Greenback Political Organization
The first organized political activity for greenbackism came not from Western farmers but from Eastern laboring men. The National Labor Union, formed in 1868 amid growing class consciousness, declared for inflation in response to government contraction policy, falling prices, and widespread unemployment. The proposed “American System of Finance” called for government-issued legal-tender paper redeemable only with low-interest bonds, which could be converted back into greenbacks at the holder’s option. The National Labor Union recommended workingmen’s candidates and organized a National Labor party, which convened in Columbus in February 1872, adopted a Greenback platform, and nominated David Davis of Illinois for president. After Horace Greeley’s nomination by Liberal Republicans, Davis declined, and the executive committee decided it was too late to name another candidate.
Two Periods of Greenbackism
This early phase is described as “the social reform period, or the wage-earners’ period of greenbackism,” distinguished from the later “inflationist, or farmers’ period.” Labor reformers sought to lower interest rates and reduce taxation by transforming war debt into interconvertible bonds. Farmers wanted currency expansion for higher product prices. Only after the panic of 1873 intensified agricultural depression and the Granger movement failed did Western farmers embrace greenbackism. Granger-period independent parties generally opposed inflation; some platforms demanded speedy specie resumption. In 1873, Ignatius Donnelly’s pamphlet Facts for the Granges declared too much paper money existed, and that specie payments would add eighteen cents to every bushel of wheat sold. However, Indiana and Illinois independent parties were captured by Greenbackers; Indiana issued the call for the Indianapolis conference of November 1874, leading to the National Greenback party.
The Indianapolis Conference and Cleveland Convention
Representatives from seven states attended, including former Labor Reform figures. James Buchanan of Indianapolis, lawyer and editor of the Sun weekly, was called “the political Moses of the ‘New Party'” by the Chicago Tribune. The platform committee favored “a new political organization of the people, by the people, and for the people” to restrain combined capital, reduce taxation, correct abuses, and purify government. The money question—greenbacks interconvertible with bonds—was declared the most important issue. A national convention was called for Cleveland on March 11, 1875.
The 1876 Campaign
The Cleveland convention completed organization of the Independent party (official name). The nominating convention at Indianapolis on May 17, 1876, had 240 delegates from eighteen states. Donnelly, having changed his views since 1873, served as temporary president. The platform demanded “the immediate and unconditional repeal of the specie-resumption act” (passed January 1875, fixing January 1, 1879 for redemption in coin), denouncing it as “suicidal and destructive policy of contraction.” Another plank protested selling bonds to purchase silver for substituting fractional currency, claiming this would enrich silver mine owners while oppressing taxpayers. Eastern delegates opposed David Davis’s nomination, remembering his 1872 desertion. Peter Cooper of New York, an eighty-five-year-old philanthropist and iron-manufacturing pioneer who endowed Cooper Union, was selected. He initially hoped old parties would adopt currency planks but later accepted unconditionally without active campaigning.
State Organization and Propaganda
Indiana and Illinois independents joined the new party, though some Illinois leaders returned to old parties. Other Western states’ third parties had collapsed or been absorbed through fusion. An Indiana Republican wrote to Hayes: “A bloody-shirt campaign, with money, and Indiana is safe; a financial campaign and no money and we are beaten.” The 1876 campaign was weak due to empty party coffers. A Chicago meeting in August featured Samuel F. Cary, vice-presidential nominee, with torchlight procession. Papers supporting the movement included Buchanan’s Indianapolis Star, Noonan’s Industrial Age of Chicago, and Donnelly’s Anti-Monopolist of St. Paul. The Greenback Club proved the most effective propaganda means. A Detroit conference in August 1875 recommended organizing clubs nationwide under Marcus M. “Brick” Pomeroy, a journalist whose sobriquet came from his Brickdust Sketches of Wisconsin men. After his New York paper Brick Pomeroy’s Democrat failed, he edited a Chicago Greenback paper and organized clubs, writing tracts titled Hot Drops and Meat for Men. Several thousand clubs formed in the Northwest, mainly rural; their secrecy raised fears of communism. Club members were the more radical Greenbackers, opposing fusion with Democrats.
Election Results of 1876
The ticket polled about 80,000 votes (under one percent). Pennsylvania was the only Eastern state with considerable showing. Five Western states—Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, Iowa, Kansas—each cast over 6,000 votes. Illinois’s 17,000 votes was less than a quarter of the 1874 Independent Reform party vote when railroad regulation dominated. The only tangible achievement was electing several Illinois legislators who held the balance and sent David Davis to the U.S. Senate, which kept him off the electoral commission and “probably prevented Tilden from becoming President.”
1877–1878: Fresh Impetus
1877 brought exceptional unrest: greater agricultural depression and great railroad strikes. Greenback party grew rapidly; labor parties reappeared with Greenback planks. In state elections from Massachusetts to Kansas, Greenback and labor candidates polled 5 to 15 percent. In Wisconsin, Democrats and Greenbackers differed little on currency; even Republicans leaned toward inflation in their platform though candidates opposed it. In February 1878, several hundred delegates assembled at the Toledo Conference.
General Causes of Agrarian Unrest
General causes must be examined before local circumstances that aggravated unrest in the United States. The application of power—first steam, then electricity—to machinery vastly increased productivity and stimulated invention, lengthening the distance between mankind and famine. Population increased tremendously: England, overcrowded centuries earlier with fewer than four million people, now fed and clothed forty millions. Though mankind was better off overall, different groups progressed unequally. Tillers of the soil remained more nearly in their primitive condition than city dwellers. The farmer produced greater yields, had more comforts, and enjoyed more leisure than ever before—the scythe and cradle had been supplanted by the mower and reaper; horse harrows, cultivators, and rakes transferred physical exertion to draft animals—but the farmer owed less to steam and electricity than urban craftsmen and artisans.
Rural vs. Urban Wealth and Population
Census reports showed rural wealth increased from nearly $4,000,000,000 in 1850 to not quite $16,000,000,000 in 1890, but urban wealth advanced from a little over $3,000,000,000 to more than $49,000,000,000. Forty years before, rural capital comprised more than half the country’s total; now only twenty-five per cent. Rural population decreased proportionately: in 1790 country dwellers outnumbered city dwellers ten to one, but by century’s end they formed only about one-third of the total. The intelligent farmer might explain this by noting fewer hands could produce food more bountifully, but the average farmer, seeing sons and neighbors’ sons seek town work, concluded farming was in peril. The boy who went to the city boasted shorter hours, less severe toil, and greater money returns—and the farmer knew this was true. The farmer may not have realized his compensations: greater security of position and reasonable expectation of a home in old age, untroubled by the worries attending artisans or shopkeepers.
Falling Agricultural Prices, 1883–1892
The farmer perceived clearly that something was wrong. From 1883 to 1889 inclusive, average wheat was seventy-three cents a bushel, corn thirty-six cents, oats twenty-eight cents. In 1890 crops were poor in most grain areas while manufacturing regions prospered; corn and oats nearly doubled, wheat advanced 20 per cent, but the shortage meant total returns were smaller. In 1891 bumper crops of wheat, corn, oats, rye, and barley drove prices down on all except wheat and rye, but not to 1889 levels. Despite a much smaller harvest in 1892, decline continued, disgustingly for Nebraska and Minnesota farmers who failed to note world wheat production was normal, considerable previous-crop stores were held over, and more than a third of the U.S. yield competed with Argentine, Russian, and other grain-producing countries. The average Mississippi basin farmer was ready to hear any remedy. Cotton averaged nearly eleven cents a pound for the decade ending 1890, dropped below nine cents in 1891, below eight in 1892. Cattle, hogs, sheep, horses, and mules brought more in the late than early eighties but declined about 1890. Wool, over one dollar a pound in October 1864, dropped with peace, rose slightly before the panic of 1873, then declined with almost no reaction until reaching thirty-three cents for the highest grade in 1892.
The “Heart-Breaking Nineties”
The “roaring eighties” had not brought equal cheer to all. In February 1893, the Philadelphia and Reading Railroad Company failed, a stock market break followed, and an old-fashioned panic seized the country. Unparalleled speculative frenzy ended; sober years followed for contemplating evils from the economic debauch. Agricultural prices continued downward. Wheat touched bottom in 1894 at forty-nine cents average; corn reached twenty-one cents two years later. Middling cotton sold at eight and a half cents in 1893, dropped below seven cents in 1894, recovered to nearly eight cents in 1896, and was lowest in 1898 at just under six cents. Only cattle, hay, and hogs maintained pre-1892 price levels. Average prices understated farmers’ returns: in December 1891 corn averaged about forty cents, but in Nebraska on January 1, 1892, it brought only twenty-six cents. Later, when corn was statistically just over twenty-one cents, it was literally cheaper to burn it in Kansas or Nebraska than to cart it to town, sell it, and buy coal—which hundreds of despairing farmers did. Even crop shortage did little to raise prices: drought in Ohio, Indiana, and Michigan in 1895 was offset by importation from farther west.
Mortgages, Foreclosures, and Taxation
Prices dropped but mortgage interest remained the same. One hundred seventy-four bushels of wheat paid 8 per cent interest on a $2000 mortgage in 1888; in 1894 or 1895, with wheat near fifty cents, it took 320 bushels. Interest frequently exceeded 8 per cent, and outrageous renewal commissions increased burdens. Foreclosures followed one after another. The mortgage shark was identified as servant of the “Wall Street Octopus.” In Kansas, according to contemporary investigator G. T. Fairchild, the whole western third of the State was settled by a farm-land boom; multitudes of settlers took claims without means, expecting to pay from immediate farming profits, mortgaged for improvements, and expended mortgage proceeds in living.
Northwestern Alliance Activities
The Northwestern Alliance engaged in less business cooperation than Southern groups, but established grain elevators in Minnesota and Dakota, creameries in Illinois, and appointed agents for produce and supply purchasing. Its political activity was most notable. The 1886 Minnesota State Alliance resolutions declared the Alliance “not a partisan association” but “political” in seeking to correct misgovernment via the ballot-box, urging producers to unite at the polls in November. Specific demands included: state regulation of railroads, free coinage of silver, tariff reduction to a revenue basis, patent law revision, high taxation of oleomargarine, and reducing the legal interest rate from 10 to 8 percent. The secretary was to forward resolutions to federal and state officers and the congressional delegation; local alliances were urged to submit the platform to legislative candidates and vote as a unit against any refusing to subscribe.
National Alliance 1887 Resolutions
Political purposes became more comprehensive than in 1881. First plank: free coinage of silver and issuance of “all paper money direct to the people.” Railroad regulation demand included a statement that “the ultimate solution of the transportation problem may be found in the ownership and operation by the Government of one or more transcontinental lines,” suggesting immediate acquisition of the financially troubled Union Pacific. Other resolutions: government ownership and operation of the telegraph, waterway improvement, liquor traffic restriction, industrial education in public schools, restoration of agricultural colleges “to the high purpose of their creation,” and popular election of Senators. The national body did not force its platform on candidates but urged farmers to organize to “act in concert.”
1889-1890 Culmination and Failed Union
The Farmers’ and Laborers’ Union and Northwestern Alliance met at St. Louis on December 3, 1889. The Southern organization (renamed National Farmers’ Alliance and Industrial Union) had about 100 delegates from Indiana, Kansas, and every Southern State from Maryland to Texas except West Virginia. Committees of conference were appointed. The Southern Alliance wanted a complete merger but insisted on retaining secret features and excluding negroes (at least from the national body); the Northwestern Alliance preferred a federation retaining each organization’s identity. Future conferences were arranged but nothing came of them. Real obstacles: differences over political activity and a survival of sectional feeling.
Ocala Meeting (December 1890)
After union failed, the Southern Alliance worked in Northern States. At Ocala, Florida, delegates came from seven Northern and Western States. The Farmers’ Mutual Benefit Association (secret order, ~200,000 members) had a committee in attendance; the Colored Farmers’ Alliance (founded in Texas in 1886, claimed over a million members) held its national meeting simultaneously.
The Silver Crusade and the Panic of 1893
The monetary crisis that culminated in the panic of 1893 had been brewing for years. Under the Bland-Allison Act, the Treasury had struggled to keep silver dollars and certificates in circulation while simultaneously maintaining an adequate gold reserve. When the Silver Purchase Act took effect, it exacerbated these difficulties, and the resulting financial collapse made the silver issue a matter of national discussion. The country was flooded with controversial writings that appealed to those without formal training in economics, and among these, W. H. Harvey’s Coin’s Financial School became the most widely read campaign document. “Coin’s” arguments, presented with answers to questions from editors, bankers, professors, and even J. R. Sovereign of the Knights of Labor, appealed directly to farmers. The book’s woodcuts depicted the farmers’ plight, and “Coin” converted many to the silver cause, convincing voters that gold was a weapon used by English and American bankers to slay silver, maintain high interest rates, reduce prices, and shackle labor. He exploited anti-English sentiment, arguing that the United States need not adopt England’s metal standard. He compared the Mexican farmer’s dollar-per-bushel wheat to the American farmer’s fifty cents, calling the latter “writing its history, in letters of blood” on a cloud of debt. Many farmers shouted with “Coin” to “Give the people back their favored primary money,” demanding silver as the “right arm” and gold as the “left,” calling gold the money of the rich and silver the money of the people, and urging the faithful to “Drive these money-changers from our temples.”
The Populist party’s relationship to silver was a product of both conviction and expediency. Cheap money had long been a demand of farmers, stretching back to the Greenback movement and the very beginning of American history, as pioneers needed capital. Western farmers preferred direct government paper issue, but the Mountain States had silver interests of their own. Many voters saw bimetallism as sound, so inflationists waived their preference on the form of money. Before the People’s Party was formally organized, farmers’ organizations had advocated free silver; after the election of 1892, free silver captured the Populist organization itself. Populist leaders also used a secret organization, the Industrial League of the United States, led by People’s Party officials, to control silverites in the West and South.
In 1893, Judge William V. Allen was selected by Nebraska Democrats and Independents for the U.S. Senate. Born in Ohio in a house that was an “underground railroad” station, Allen moved to Iowa at ten, enlisted in the Union Army at fifteen, serving from 1862 to the war’s end, studied law, and was admitted to the bar in 1869. He moved to Madison County, Nebraska in 1884, and was elected district judge by Populists in 1891. A former Republican, he said a party is “simply a means to an end,” to be abandoned like “wornout clothes.” As Senator, Allen gave a fifteen-hour speech against repealing the Silver Purchase Act, and an Eastern review praised him, suggesting that an “epidemic of this Western malady” might benefit Eastern communities.
The Kansas Legislative War
Kansas became a storm-center over control of the lower house of its legislature. Republicans had a majority, but contested seats could give Populists the edge. On January 10, both factions elected their own speakers, who ignored each other and tried to conduct business. Members slept on benches; the speakers called a truce at 2 a.m., lying down with their gavels. For over two weeks, two houses held tumultuous sessions. Armed men crowded into Topeka. On February 15, the Populist house retreated to the Capitol corridor. Populist sympathizers besieged the chamber, immuring Republicans and suffrage lobby women. Food was sent in baskets or drawn up by ropes. The Populist janitor turned off the heat; Republicans got oil stoves. The Republican sheriff swore in deputies; the Populist governor called out the militia. “Sockless” Jerry Simpson counseled letting the courts decide, arguing that judges could be impeached if they ruled against the Populists. Mrs. Lease doubted Populist courage for impeachment, and events proved her right. The Republicans kept the house; the Populists kept the senate. In joint session, Republicans could be outvoted, so a silver Democrat, John Martin, was sent to Washington to work with Peffer for silver.
The Elections of 1894 and the Road to 1896
In the elections of 1894, the total Populist vote was nearly a million and a half. In the West, the party was less successful than in 1892 due to failed fusion. Nebraska elected a free-silver Democrat-Populist governor; Nevada was carried by the silver party; but Colorado, Idaho, Wyoming, Kansas, and North Dakota returned to the Republicans. In the South, Populist-Republican fusion against Democrats was more successful, electing Congressmen. In South Carolina, Democrats adopted the Farmers’ Alliance platform and sent “Pitchfork” Tillman to the Senate as an anti-administration Democrat. Tillman mocked Eastern financial wisdom and Cleveland, saying “I’ll stick my pitchfork into his old ribs!”
Every move was now calculated for the 1896 presidential election. Both old parties were “inoculated” with free-silver. Silver men could pass a free coinage bill but were restrained by Cleveland’s veto. Free silver was the chief demand of Populism and desired by most west of the Alleghanies. General Weaver moved to add the American Bimetallic League and silver Democrats to the People’s Party. Silver Democrats organized to control their own party.
Bryan’s Nomination and the Populist Dilemma
Bryan countered Senator Hill’s arguments with polished retorts refined through years of public speaking, holding the Democratic convention “in the hollow of his hand.” The platform was adopted by more than two-to-one. Bryan himself opposed immediate nomination, but the next day five ballots set aside all favorite sons, including Richard P. Bland (“Father of Free Silver”), making Bryan the party’s standard bearer. The Populist convention met in St. Louis in late July, contrasting sharply with the earlier Republican gathering. Many of the 1,300 delegates were elderly reformers; some walked long distances to save railroad fare, others suffered from lack of food and lodging during the extended convention.
The Populists’ hopes of absorbing all anti-monopolists and silverites were dashed—one old party had “stolen its loudest thunder.” Placing the convention after both major parties proved an error, as expected gold platforms did not materialize. Delegates faced a choice: support the Democratic nominee with real victory prospects, or preserve party identity, split the silver vote, and hand the election to gold Republicans. Senator William V. Allen of Nebraska argued for fusion, asking whether a third ticket would defeat free coinage, bank issue-power withdrawal, government ownership of railroads, telephones, and telegraphs, and the income tax—while foisting gold monometallism and high taxation. He urged seizing the “golden opportunity” rather than keeping “the middle of the road.”
An active minority opposed fusion entirely. This “middle-of-the-road” group included Western leaders Peffer and Donnelly, but drew its main support from Southern delegates, who saw alliance with Democrats as surrender to enemies they had fought for four years over state governments. A negro delegate from Georgia warned that fusion would destroy his people’s political aspirations, since Populism alone offered them full fellowship. The fusionists won when Allen became permanent chairman by a vote of 758 to 564. The middle-of-the-road faction then fought the Vice-Presidential nomination of Arthur Sewall of Maine. The convention unusually selected the Vice-Presidential candidate first. Sewall received 257 votes; Thomas Watson of Georgia, a country editor and prominent Populist Congressman, received 469 and was nominated by acclamation. The motives were clear: Sewall—a bank president, railroad director, and large employer—seemed unsuited; more importantly, the choice preserved party identity and prevented a bolt by the middle-of-the-roaders.
General Weaver nominated Bryan, declaring he found no reason for a third ticket and would “nominate him outright.” The irreconcilables, nearly all Southerners including 100 Texas delegates, voted for S. F. Norton of Chicago: 321 votes against Bryan’s 1,042. The executive committee arranged joint electoral tickets in three-fourths of the States, dividing electors between Bryan-Watson and Bryan-Sewall. The committee warned against “so-called leaders” advising rebellion against joint tickets, aided by “Democrats of the revenue stripe” and Republican “goldbugs.”
The Battle of the Standards
In the North and West, fusion was arranged easily, with electors apportioned by party strength; Democrats cast second-place ballots for Sewall, Populists for Watson. In the South, difficulty abounded—Populists cooperated with Republicans in state elections and Democrats nationally. Only Arkansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Missouri, and North Carolina agreed on joint tickets. Tennessee’s Populists offered to support Democratic electors if all voted for Watson—the offer was declined. Florida’s state chairman advised voting for McKinley; Texas saw an organized bolt to Republicans.
The “Battle of the Standards” was the hottest since 1860. Republicans spent freely on printed matter. McKinley stayed in Canton, Ohio, receiving 10,000 to 25,000 pilgrims daily at “the shrine of the golden calf.” Bryan toured 13,000 miles through 29 States; in West Virginia, half the electorate likely heard him. Despite hostile newspapers, his speeches received wide publicity. The Populist executive committee framed it as class conflict: monopolies, money power, trusts, and railroads versus farmers, laborers, merchants, and taxpayers—”no middle ground.”
McKinley won by 600,000 popular votes; the electoral vote was 271 to 176. Bryan captured every State west of the Mississippi except California, Minnesota, North Dakota, Iowa, and Oregon. The South stayed Democratic except West Virginia and Kentucky. The old Northwest plus Iowa, Minnesota, and North Dakota—the Granger region—joined the industrial East against the South and Western frontiers.
The Death of Populism
The People’s Party “staked all on a throw of the dice and lost.” Its strength fell below 1892 and 1894 levels. The party was “bivertebrate as well as bimetallic”—members had left one party for the cause and could leave another. Western Populists went over to Democracy; Southerners disgusted with fusion joined Republicans. Free silver’s capture of Democracy dealt the death blow. Bryan’s 6,509,000 votes included about 4,669,000 from fusion tickets; only seven fusion States distinguished party votes, with 1,499,000 Democrat and 93,000 Populist. Populist votes were essential in Kansas, where they numbered 45,000, and in California, where 22,000 secured one elector. In North Carolina, Democrat-Populist electors won by 19,000 while Republicans-Populists won state offices.
The Legacy of the Agrarian Crusade
The two most hopeful developments in recent American politics are identified as the progressive movement, with its program of social justice, and the growth of independent voting. Both developments were made possible in large part by the agrarian crusade. The most significant contribution of the farmers’ movement was the training of the agricultural population to independent thought and action. No political party can now count on the farmer vote as a certainty, regardless of its platform and candidates. A resolution of the Farmers’ Alliance of Kansas declared: “that we will no longer divide on party lines and will only cast our votes for candidates of the people, by the people, and for the people.” This was a declaration of political independence maintained and strengthened by farmers throughout the West. Each successive revolt took additional voters from the ranks of the old parties; once ties were severed, even if the wanderers returned, their allegiance could be retained only by due regard for their interests and desires.
Main Arguments
The central argument of the book is that the agrarian crusade represented a fundamental and necessary response to the transformation of American agriculture and society in the late nineteenth century. Buck argues that farmers, who had once enjoyed a preferred position in American life, found themselves increasingly disadvantaged as the frontier closed and industrial capitalism reshaped the economy. The book shows that farmers faced a distinctive set of economic problems: they sold staples in competitive world markets but bought manufactured goods protected by high tariffs; they depended on railroads for access to markets but had no control over rates; and they borrowed money at high interest rates while crop prices steadily declined.
A second major argument concerns the relationship between organization and political power. Buck demonstrates that farmers were virtually powerless in American politics before they organized, with only about seven per cent of Congress being farmers in 1870 despite agriculture engaging forty-seven per cent of the population. The Grange, despite its official nonpolitical stance, established mutual confidence among farmers who had previously been isolated, unsocial, narrow-minded, and suspicious. This organizational foundation made political action possible, and each successive movement—the Grange, the Greenback party, the Alliances, and the Populist party—built on the previous one’s achievements.
The book also argues that the railroad issue was central to the agrarian movement. Buck shows that railroads were initially seen as an unmixed blessing by farmers, opening territory and providing transportation to markets, but by 1873 the government had given railroads about thirty-five million acres and was pledged to give Pacific roads alone about one hundred forty-five million more. Farmers resented railroads holding land for speculation, watered stock that necessitated high freight charges, and the corruption that gave railroad passes to officials from local supervisors to Supreme Court judges. The Granger court decisions, which established the right of states to fix maximum charges for businesses public in nature or clothed with public interest, are described as the most significant achievements of the anti-monopoly movement of the seventies.
A further argument concerns the evolution of farmers’ political consciousness. Buck traces how farmers moved from reliance on the old parties through independent political action, showing that each successive revolt took additional voters from the ranks of the old parties. The Greenback party, though it polled only about 80,000 votes in 1876, established organizational structures and propaganda methods that later movements would use. The Alliances of the 1880s represented a more sophisticated understanding of political action, with specific legislative demands and methods for holding candidates accountable. The Populist party of 1892 represented the culmination of this evolution, with a comprehensive platform addressing currency, transportation, land policy, and political reform.
The book argues that the monetary issue, particularly free silver, became the vehicle through which agrarian discontent found national expression. Buck shows that cheap money had long been a demand of farmers, from the Greenback movement and the beginning of American history, as pioneers needed capital. The Populist party’s relation to silver was a result of both conviction and expediency, with Western farmers preferring direct government paper issue but Mountain States having silver interests. The campaign of 1896, in which the Democratic party adopted free silver and Bryan was nominated, represented both the climax and the death blow of the Populist movement.
Key Concepts
The Grange, formally the Patrons of Husbandry, is a central concept in the book. Founded in 1867 by Oliver Hudson Kelley and six other men—”one fruit grower and six government clerks”—the Grange was conceived as a national secret order resembling Freemasonry that would bind farmers for social and intellectual advancement. The founders sought advancement through education, not politics, hence the office of “Lecturer” in each Grange. The Grange admitted women to full membership, a progressive feature that Kelley accepted at the urging of his niece, Miss Carrie Hall. The order adopted the motto Esto perpetua and framed its constitution on December 4, 1867.
The Declaration of Purposes of the National Grange, adopted at the seventh annual session in St. Louis in February 1874, is another key concept. Its general purpose was “to labor for the good of our Order, our Country, and Mankind.” Practical applications included enhancing home comfort, maintaining laws, advancing agricultural and industrial education, diversifying crops, systematizing farm work, establishing cooperative buying and selling, and suppressing personal, local, sectional, and national prejudices. The Declaration specifically disclaimed enmity toward capital, declaring enemies to be monopoly tyranny, and disclaimed enmity toward railroads, declaring the enemy to be high freight tariffs and transportation monopoly. The Grange was not to be a political or party organization, though members performed political duties as individuals.
The “Granger movement” is used to describe the radical railroad legislation in Northwestern states in the 1870s, justified by the term “Granger” because the Grange made political action possible by establishing mutual confidence among farmers. The slogans “Coöperation” and “Down with Monopoly” were used by the Grange between 1870 and 1875 and were responsible for its expansion. The Granger court decisions established principles still vital to business and politics: no one has since denied the right of States to fix maximum charges for businesses public in nature or clothed with public interest.
The Rochdale plan represents the Grange’s most sophisticated approach to cooperative retailing. Stock was sold only to Patrons at five dollars a share, with limited amounts; all stockholders had equal voice; stores sold at ordinary rates, then divided profits among purchasers by amount purchased after paying small dividends. This plan avoided violent competition but found little favor in the Middle West due to bad experiences, while in the East and South it was adopted more generally with sufficient success.
Greenbackism is a key concept covering the movement for government-issued paper currency. The book distinguishes two periods: “the social reform period, or the wage-earners’ period of greenbackism,” and the later “inflationist, or farmers’ period.” Labor reformers sought to lower interest rates and reduce taxation by transforming war debt into interconvertible bonds, while farmers wanted currency expansion for higher product prices. The proposed “American System of Finance” called for government-issued legal-tender paper redeemable only with low-interest bonds, which could be converted back into greenbacks at the holder’s option.
The sub-treasury system was a specific proposal in the Populist platform, calling for loans to farmers through government sub-treasuries. The platform demanded “the sub-treasury system of loans ‘or a better system'” as part of its monetary planks. The concept represented an attempt to provide farmers with credit at low interest rates through government intervention.
Free silver, or the free and unlimited coinage of silver and gold at sixteen to one, became the central demand of the agrarian movement in the 1890s. The book shows how W. H. Harvey’s Coin’s Financial School became the most widely read campaign document, converting many to silver by arguing that gold was a weapon used by English and American bankers to slay silver, maintain high interest rates, reduce prices, and shackle labor. The book compares the Mexican farmer’s one dollar per bushel wheat to the U.S. farmer’s fifty cents, calling the latter “writing its history, in letters of blood” on a cloud of debt.
The “middle-of-the-road” faction within the Populist party opposed fusion with the Democrats in 1896, preferring to maintain party identity even at the cost of splitting the silver vote. This faction included Western leaders Peffer and Donnelly but drew main support from Southern delegates, who saw alliance with Democrats as surrender to enemies they had fought for four years over state governments.
Themes
A recurring theme in the book is the transformation of American society from an agrarian to an industrial nation and the resulting displacement of farmers from their former preferred position. Buck shows how the passing of the frontier, which had always offered an escape for dissatisfied farmers, coincided with the rise of industrial capitalism to trap farmers in a dependent position. The farmer produced greater yields, had more comforts, and enjoyed more leisure than ever before—the scythe and cradle had been supplanted by the mower and reaper—but the farmer owed less to steam and electricity than urban craftsmen and artisans. Census reports showed rural wealth increased from nearly four billion dollars in 1850 to not quite sixteen billion in 1890, but urban wealth advanced from a little over three billion to more than forty-nine billion. Forty years before, rural capital comprised more than half the country’s total; now only twenty-five per cent.
The theme of economic inequality between producers and nonproducers runs throughout the book. Farmers saw middlemen as nonproducers and parasites, and they resented the fact that commission merchants used storage facilities and market knowledge to profit from fluctuations, buying low from farmers and reselling higher. Retail dealers in small communities faced no competition and could combine to fix prices. The book quotes the Populist platform’s declaration that “wealth belongs to him who creates it, and every dollar taken from industry without an equivalent is robbery.” This producerist ideology, which distinguished between productive farmers and parasitic middlemen, financiers, and speculators, gave moral force to the agrarian protest.
The theme of political education and the growth of independent thought is central to the book’s conclusion. Buck argues that the most significant contribution of the farmers’ movement was the training of the agricultural population to independent thought and action. The Farmers’ Alliance of Kansas declared “that we will no longer divide on party lines and will only cast our votes for candidates of the people, by the people, and for the people,” which the book describes as a declaration of political independence maintained and strengthened by farmers throughout the West. No political party could now count on the farmer vote as a certainty, regardless of its platform and candidates.
The theme of sectionalism and regional conflict appears in the book’s treatment of the different interests of Eastern and Western farmers, Northern and Southern Alliances, and the varying success of Populism in different regions. Eastern farmers initially resisted the Grange because they felt Western farmers were serious rivals with larger acreage and virgin soil, and they didn’t want lower freight charges for competitors. The Southern Alliance wanted a complete merger with the Northwestern Alliance but insisted on retaining secret features and excluding negroes, while the Northwestern Alliance preferred a federation retaining each organization’s identity. The election of 1896 showed a clear sectional division: Bryan captured every State west of the Mississippi except California, Minnesota, North Dakota, Iowa, and Oregon, while the old Northwest plus Iowa, Minnesota, and North Dakota—the Granger region—joined the industrial East against the South and Western frontiers.
The theme of reform and radicalism, and the tension between them, is explored through the careers of figures like Ignatius Donnelly, who was described as “always a radical” and remained “a captain of radical cohorts in every agrarian movement until his death in 1901.” The book also examines the more conservative elements within the movements, such as the Grange’s official nonpolitical stance and the Populist party’s internal conflicts between fusionists and middle-of-the-roaders. The progressive movement of the early twentieth century, with its program of social justice, and the growth of independent voting are identified as the two most hopeful developments in recent American politics, both made possible in large part by the agrarian crusade.
The Author’s Conclusions
Buck concludes that the agrarian crusade, despite the failure of its specific programs and the collapse of its organizations, had a lasting and beneficial influence on American politics. The two most hopeful developments in recent American politics, he argues, are the progressive movement with its program of social justice and the growth of independent voting, and both were made possible in large part by the agrarian crusade. The farmers’ movement trained the agricultural population in independent thought and action, breaking the hold of the old parties on the farm vote.
The book’s final assessment emphasizes that no political party can now count on the farmer vote as a certainty, regardless of its platform and candidates. This represents a fundamental change from the situation in the 1870s, when farmers were politically powerless and unorganized. The resolution of the Farmers’ Alliance of Kansas—”that we will no longer divide on party lines and will only cast our votes for candidates of the people, by the people, and for the people”—is quoted as a declaration of political independence that was maintained and strengthened by farmers throughout the West.
Buck also concludes that each successive revolt took additional voters from the ranks of the old parties, and once ties were severed, even if the wanderers returned, the old unquestioning loyalty was gone. The Granger movement, the Greenback party, the Alliances, and the Populist party each contributed to this process of political education and independence. Even the failures of specific movements—the collapse of the Grange, the meager vote of the Greenback party, the defeat of Populism in 1896—contributed to the long-term transformation of American politics.
The book’s treatment of the 1896 election suggests that while the People’s Party “staked all on a throw of the dice and lost,” the silver issue that captured the Democratic party represented a partial victory for the agrarian program. The party was “bivertebrate as well as bimetallic”—members had left one party for the cause and could leave another. Western Populists went over to Democracy; Southerners disgusted with fusion joined Republicans. Free silver’s capture of Democracy dealt the death blow to the Populist party, but the issues it raised remained on the national agenda.
The concluding chapter looks forward to the progressive movement as the heir of the agrarian crusade. The book suggests that the farmers’ movement, despite its specific failures, helped create the conditions for progressive reform by breaking the power of the old parties over the agricultural population and by demonstrating the possibility of organized political action by ordinary citizens. The growth of independent voting, which the book identifies as one of the two most hopeful developments in recent American politics, is directly traced to the agrarian crusade’s training of farmers in independent thought and action.
Significance
The book’s significance lies in its comprehensive treatment of a crucial period in American political history and its argument that the agrarian crusade had lasting effects beyond the specific movements it describes. Buck’s account demonstrates how farmers, who had been politically powerless and unorganized, learned through successive movements to organize, articulate their grievances, and demand political responsiveness. The Granger movement established the principle of state regulation of railroads, a principle that remains vital to American business and politics. The Greenback party, despite its small vote, developed organizational methods and propaganda techniques that later movements would use. The Alliances created a network of local organizations that could be mobilized for political action. The Populist party brought a comprehensive program of reform to the national stage.
The book also contributes to understanding the relationship between economic conditions and political movements. Buck shows how falling prices, mortgage burdens, railroad rates, and monetary policy created the material conditions for agrarian protest. His analysis of the “heart-breaking nineties”—when wheat touched bottom at forty-nine cents a bushel in 1894, corn reached twenty-one cents two years later, and cotton dropped below seven cents in 1894—explains why farmers were ready to hear any remedy. The book’s treatment of the monetary issue, from greenbacks through free silver, shows how a technical economic question became a powerful political symbol.
The book’s significance also lies in its treatment of the Populist party as a serious political movement rather than a mere protest or aberration. Buck takes the Populist platform seriously, examining its specific proposals for currency reform, railroad regulation, land policy, and political reform. He shows that the Populists addressed real grievances and proposed concrete solutions, even if those solutions were economically questionable. The book’s account of the 1896 campaign, including the strategic dilemma facing the Populist convention and the fusion with the Democrats, provides insight into the difficulties of third-party politics in America.
Finally, the book’s conclusion that the agrarian crusade contributed to the progressive movement and the growth of independent voting gives it significance for understanding the broader trajectory of American political history. Buck’s argument that the farmers’ movement trained the agricultural population in independent thought and action suggests that even failed movements can have lasting effects. The book thus offers a more optimistic assessment of the agrarian crusade than its immediate failures might suggest, finding significance in the long-term transformation of American politics that the farmers’ movements helped to bring about.
