Turning Left in the Heartland

Lyle Fulks

Forgotten Populists:
When Farmers Turned Left to Save Democracy
By Steve Babson
Mission Point Press, Traverse City, Michigan 2023,
65 pages with graphics, 8 x 11, $14.95 paperback.

WHEN RETIRED DETROIT labor educator, author and union activist Steve Babson became exasperated by the casual use of the term populism to include both Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump he decided to compile a short history with graphics, noting:

“‘Populism’ in today’s a-historical rendering has become little more than a handy pejorative, a Halloween costume of dangerous and hidden potentials, used to vilify rowdy commoners when they challenge favored elites … many pundits will address any protest against elite opinion in the same scary costume. ‘They must be populists! Circle the wagons!’” (48)

Forgotten Populists: When Farmers Turned Left to Save Democracy aims to set the record straight by telling the story of the great revolt that was the Populist movement in the 1880s and ’90s. It is a concise, popularly written narrative of an important chapter, and perhaps lost opportunity, in U.S. history.

The Populists arose as a movement of reform in the aftermath of the Civil War and Reconstruction, a time that became known as the Gilded Age. Enormous profits had been made during the War by railroads and other industrial barons.

Nearly three-quarters of the nation’s wealth was owned by only nine percent of U.S. families. But most of the country was made up of farmers. Two out of every three people were engaged in agriculture.

It was a time of enormous immigration. As millions poured into the country, while many joined the emerging industrial working class, more headed west and took up farming. These farmers found themselves at the mercy of railroads and industrial corporations.

An important component of the economy was its being tethered to gold, in Babson’s phrase. A gold standard for currency, modeled on the system used in the British Empire, kept money expensive — too expensive for farmers.

The farmers themselves favored a silver standard and the issuance of paper “greenback” dollar bills backed by the Government, not metal. The farmers relied on loans every year to buy seed, feed, and equipment. Whether or not money was expensive was a kitchen table issue on the farm.

Organizing for Survival

By the 1880s the farmers began to organize themselves and some 10,000 local Farmers’ Alliances were created. These were organized by a phalanx of circuit riders and covered much of the South and Midwest.

Soon a set of policy proposals began to precipitate from the farm crisis. A prominent idea was called the Sub-Treasury plan. This would allow farmers to temporarily store a harvest and based on the warehouse receipt they could qualify for publicly financed loans. Loans would also be made available to farmers utilizing the value of their land at low rates.

The Populists also proposed replacing privately owned National Banks with Post Office savings banks. With proposals like these the Farmers Alliances began to run candidates for public office and those candidates began to win. By 1892 a national Peoples Party was being organized. Babson reports:

“Fifty populists won election to Congress from 16 states. Seven of them served in the U.S. Senate. A third of these congressmen were engaged full- or part-time in agriculture — four times more than the rest of Congress — and half had some college education. North Carolina, Oregon, South Dakota, Nebraska, Kansas and Colorado all elected Populist governors. Populists and their allies passed legislation that included votes for women (Colorado and Idaho), the 8-hour day for state workers, regulation of railroads, and expansion of voting rights to include referendum and recall.” (31)

With their power base in the South and West, the Populists were nevertheless still unable to establish themselves across the country. Even in their strongholds they had to contend throughout the South with Democratic Party-inspired violence, voter suppression and fraud.

Still, the Populists looked forward to the 1896 elections to spread their support wider across the country and deepen alliances with the labor movement. Sadly, none of that came to be.

Strategic Error and Decline

The Populists made a fatal error in the run-up to the 1896 elections. Confident that the two capitalist parties would both nominate “goldbugs” (the name applied to supporters of the gold standard), the Populists determined to wait until the major parties announced their tickets.

That seemed a reasonable enough calculation given that the capitalist class was largely united behind gold — but not entirely. The Democrats nominated William Jennings Bryan, an acknowledged reformer who opposed the gold standard. Bryan took the nomination after denouncing the money lending class who wanted to “crucify humanity on a cross of gold.”

What would the Populists do at their convention — run independently, or endorse Bryan? Babson recounts:

“The outcome was settled when left-wing Populists failed to persuade Eugene Debs to accept the party’s nomination — Debs being the only ‘name’ candidate who might have matched Bryan’s appeal at the party’s nominating convention. After a riotous campaign marked by physical brawls between opposing delegates, the People’s Party voted to endorse William Jennings Bryant — the Democrat — for President.” (37-8)

Bryan would turn to the silver mining companies to finance his campaign. Bryan rejected the Populist policy program, especially the Sub-teasury proposal which he had long opposed. The Populists found themselves out-maneuvered as the Democrats absorbed the Populist voters.

Supporters of conservative Republican William McKinley swamped the country with a massive anti-Populist-themed campaign which not only successfully won the election but would also go a long way to destroy the Populists.

After 1896 the populists would never recover. The Peoples Party collapse was as sudden as its rise. Babson notes that in 1896 there were some 1500 newspapers that championed the Populists, by 1904 there were only 25.

Movement’s Social Impact

1895 cartoon from The Representative: a farmer losing his corn to the landlord, moneylord, railroad and politician.

Among the strengths of Forgotten Populists is the way that Babson weaves into the history of the Populists the story of their impact on women, African Americans, and the labor movement. Each was affected by the Populist movement and the Populists affected each.

Babson quotes one Texas populist “Ladies! Listen! We have no right to vote, but we have the right to talk, thank God.”

Some 250,000 women joined the Party. Susan B. Anthony attended the 1894 Kansas State Party convention that endorsed women’s suffrage. Indeed, it was the Populists who brought women’s suffrage to Colorado and Idaho.

The Populists often hoped for an alliance with the labor movement, at this time largely embodied by the Knights of Labor. The Knights combined the economic and political program and activities of trade unions with the organizational scheme of secret benevolent societies like the Masons or the Oddfellows.

But the Knights moment came in the late 1880s and by the mid-’90s was a shrunken shadow of its former self, and faction ridden to boot. The potential for a Farmer and Labor alliance as the basis for a powerful reform movement evaporated.

The story of Populists and African Americans is a more complex one. Babson tells us that “It would be the new party’s opening to African Americans that made it especially unique.” Camp meetings, picnics and barbeques were organized for Black farmers. White and Black were welcome at Party rallies, although seating was separate.

More advanced Populists argued, in effect, for political equality but not for social equality. Any equality enraged the Southern Democratic elite, and the imposition of Jim Crow laws went hand in hand with voter suppression and violence against Populists, Black or white. (29-30)

By Election Day 1896 the Populists were in a downward spiral. They were outmaneuvered by the Democrats and victimized by Democratic Party violence and electoral fraud on the one hand, and on the other by the Republican campaign of fear-mongering that painted Bryan as a dangerous Populist. The movement’s moment slipped away.

Babson concludes by tracing the use of the term “populism” in American political theory and usage.

“Even fascists were said to be ‘populistic’ because they championed the same polarizing style of political rhetoric: one in which the ‘common people’ are urged to oppose a ‘corrupt elite.’ This anti-elitist phrasing is supposedly populism’s defining feature.” (47)

Babson wants the record set straight about the true populists of U.S. history. While this is a brief text, the author supplies extensive endnotes that provide references to the vast scholarly literature. And although rural America today is completely changed, “The Gilded Age still echoes in our time. By 2017, three men, Bill Gates, Jeff Bezos, and Warren Buffet, owned more wealth than 160 million Americans.” (50)

The numerous illustrations in both black-and-white and color are a valuable addition to the text. They highlight the ordinary people who animated this extraordinary movement. Babson’s book is the story of the farmers who stood up for themselves and for democracy. Forgotten Populists is a fine introduction to this movement and this moment.

September-October 2023, ATC 232