the definite plunge of the Alliance into politics.156

The year 1889 witnessed several important farmers' conventions other than that at Auburn. The most significant of these was the Farmers' National Congress which convened for a three-day session in Montgomery in November. This gathering was fraught with tremendous possibilities either for good or bad.157 The largest number of delegates and the most states were represented of any agricultural conference in the United States. This auspicious meeting was the result of the energy of its President, Commissioner Kolb, since the Chicago meeting in 1887.158 It had a high class of delegates from all parts of the South and West, as well as from nearly all of the Central States. Governor Seay was expected to speak but is reported to have withdrawn upon seeing the inclination of the delegates to dwell upon political questions, especially the money question. Delegates from twentythree of the states were appointed by the governors and it was dominated by northern leaders. Especially prominent was Judge W. H. Lawrence of Ohio, an old Granger and Republican, "a famous lobbyist" at Washington for the National Woolgrowers Association. The Congress by 170 to 89 voted resolutions favoring a high protective tariff and an excise tax, thus appeasing the woolen interests. The southern delegates opposed the tariff resolution, claiming that the vote was on a sectional basis, and that the delegates should not be appointed by governors on a political basis but elected by their respective agricultural organizations.159 An elaborate set of resolutions set forth the farmers' ills against the banks, railroads, manufacturies; demanded that Congress improve trade relations with South America; improve irrigation and navigation facilities in the West, and urged the farmers to vote to right the wrongs and discriminations against them. Kolb on motion of Lawrence and a second from Smith (once Radical Governor of Alabama), was re-elected president160 unanimously. This was considered a

156 Advertiser, Aug. 18, 1889; Age-Herald, Dec. 24, 1889. Four months later Kolb formally announced his candidacy in the AgeHerald.

157 Advertiser, Nov. 16, 1889.

158 DuBose, Article No. 79, in Jones, V, p. 53.

159 DuBose, Article No. 80.

160 Advertiser, Nov. 27, 1889. This congress was held at Montgomery while the Southern Exposition Fair was in session, and on November 12, Alliance Day, people came by thousands, in trains, wagons, buggies, carriages and on foot. Commissioner

political trick to break the solid South.

Thus the Alliance161 as an ostensible agricultural order was now ready to plunge forth as the precursor of the next political monument in the state, namely, the Populist party.

"Why should the farmer delve and ditch,162

Why should the farmer's wife darn and stitch?
The Government can make them rich,

And the People's Party knows it.

So hurrah, hurrah for great P. P.

Kolb and L. F. Livingston, President of the Georgia Alliance, and S. M. Adams, President of the Alabama Alliance, addressed the throngs. (Advertiser, Nov. 13, 1889; DuBose, Article No. 79, in Jones, V, p. 53.)

161 Miller, Alabama, p. 282; DuBose, Article No. 82; Advertiser, March 13, 1889.

162 Quoted from Greensboro, (N. C.) Record, by J. D. Hicks, in N. C. Hist. Rev., April, 1925.

CHAPTER IV

THE ALLIANCE ENTERS POLITICS

THE ST LOUIS "PLATFORM" AND THE OCALA "DEMANDS."

Beginning with the year 1890 the people of Alabama passed through six years of economic distress and political upheaval never before or since equaled in ferocity. All the factors and agencies of discontent which had been developing during the two preceding decades seemed now to burst forth in all their fury. Economical and nonpolitical agencies formed for the relief of the rural people finding their achievements short of expectations, cast aside their non-political garments and engaged in party politics hoping to obtain through political action what they had failed otherwise to accomplish.1 With the twoparty system so thoroughly entrenched-indeed one might almost say the one-party system in Alabama-it meant much forty years ago to break loose from the old party alignment. Even to suspect party disloyalty was anathema. The Democratic party was sacred to the South especially to the machine politicians, and no thought of defection or a division in the party could be tolerated. White supremacy was ever emblazoned before their eyes.2 A strong effort was made by the farmers and laborers, through the Alliance, to win their aims in the Democratic party, but failing either to obtain relief or to break the power of the Democratic machine, the Alliance's next step was independent political action, with the hope of fusing with all political forces other than the Democrats, the party in power. Indeed it was a left wing of the Democratic party. From the beginning, opposition from the Democratic press was quite more severe than that from the Republican. Evidences of desire for fusion between Republicans and Populists were not lacking from the first. These were minority parties and success could be anticipated only by coöperation. This was quite the reverse of the alignment in the West where Democrats and Populists often united.

1 A. T. Goodwyn, loc. cit.

2 Brown, Lower South, pp. 248 ff.

3 Delap, The Populist Party in N. C., p. 50; Haynes, Third Parties, passim

4

It is the purpose of Chapters IV and V to show, with considerable detail, the gradual transition of the Alliance into politics, first within the Democratic party, but failing to capture that party in 1890, then to launch into the Populist movement as such in 1892 where the contest raged with continued bitterness at the next two biennial elections. Political parties in the United States are national and not merely state affairs. A party bounded by state lines could never be influential under our system. It is the national and not the state organization that formulates platforms and sets the standards, other than mere local issues, to which the state organizations adhere. This being true, what happened in Alabama, for instance, in connection with the Populist party was determined to no small degree by the activities of the national organization. The virus was in the air and affected all that came within its swoop. Hence the necessity for an understanding of the various national conventions, first of the Alliance and later of the People's party. In all there were some five national conventions5 which shaped the activities of the new political party of the early 'nineties. Two of these were held before the Alliance had made the recognized plunge into a party organization. The first was at St. Louis in December, 1889, and the second at Ocala, Florida, a year later, December, 1890. Although no definite agreement as to launching a third party was made at either of these conferences, the question was warmly discussed, and the Alliance "demands" outlined at these conferences formed the fundamental tenets of the People's party of 1892. These two conferences were quasi-political.

The St. Louis convention of December, 1889 followed closely upon the heels of the several farmers' conferences held in Alabama during the autumn of 1889. It was a joint conference of the National Farmers' Alliance and the Knights of Labor in an effort to fuse the two organizations. The St. Louis convention resulted in an

4 Brown, Alabama, p. 307.

5 McVey, Populist Movement, pp. 136-138; Morgan, Wheel and Alliance, pp. 147-184.

6 McVey, loc. cit.; Advertiser, Dec. 22 and 24, 1889.

7 McVey, Populist Movement, page 137; Muzzey, United States, II, p. 230; DuBose, Article No. 82 in Jones, Scrap Book, V. 59; Advertiser, Jan. 15 and 17, 1890; Appleton, Cyclopædia, 1890, pp. 299-301. Paxson, Recent History, pp. 171-2. Alabama's delegates at this convention, which was composed predominantly of southern delegates, had been appointed at the Auburn Alliance Conference

incongruous amalgamation of the farmers and laborers into the National Farmers' Alliance and Industrial Union, an oath-bound, secret organization. It was now really a political party but refrained temporarily from declaring itself such. A comprehensive series of resolutions, expressing the economic demands of the new order were passed. These resolutions or "platforms" and the Ocala "demands" of a year later, with a few subsequent alterations, constituted the platform of the People's or Populist party of 1892. Some of the "radical platforms" of the St. Louis Convention' were (1) Free and unlimited coinage of silver at the ration of 16 to 1; sufficient money to give $50 per capita; (2) abolition of national banks of issue and the substitution of legal-tender treasury notes issued direct by the government instead of national bank notes, national bank issues being particularly objectionable because they were private corporations and had driven out of existence the state bank notes. These state banks had once supplied to the farmer the necessary currency with farm land as collateral; (3) establishment of Federal subtreasuries where farmers might receive credit or money on the deposit of their agricultural products; (4) government ownership of railroads and other means of transportation and communication as in the case of the United States mails; (5) non-ownership of land by aliens; (6) reduction of postage; (7) an income tax; (8) a bounty to American sugar growers, improvement of trade facilities, irrigation and canalization work by Congress, 19 limitation of state expenses, etc.

Of these propositions or planks which were at the time regarded by many as wild, speculative schemes, none received more severe criticism than the subtreasury plan, which anticipated the issue by the government of money,

in August, 1889. They were President S. M. Adams, Commissioner R. F. Kolb, Major J. H. Harris of the State Dept. of Agriculture and Hector D. Lane of Madison county, editor of one of the Alliance journals. T. J. Carlisle and J. H. Higgins were to represent the State Wheel.

8 DuBose, Article No. 79, in Jones, Scrap Book, V. p. 53; DuBose, Article No. 82, in Jones, Scrap Book, V, p. 59; McVey, Populist Movement, p. 137; Muzzey, II, pp. 230, 233.

9 McVey, p. 137; DuBose, Article, No. 79, Jones, V, p. 53; F. E. Haynes, "The New Sectionalism" in Quart. Jr. Econ., X, p. 272. Buck, Agrarian Crusade, p. 129.

10 DuBose, Article No. 78, Jones, V, p. 52; Arnett, loc. cit., pp. 82 ff; J. R. Commons, History of Labor in the U. S., II, pp. 490 ff; Haynes, Third Parties, p. 230.