The representative. [volume] (St. Paul, Minn.) 1893-1901, 1896-11-25
SOME INSIDE HISTORY.
THE PEOPLES PARTY NATION.
AL CONVENTION AT ST.
LOUIS,
How the e.Hunters Wrecked the
Great Party.
How We Were Sold Out by the Owen Crowd
How Our Platform Was Emasculated.

We copy from Morgan's Arkansaw
Buzz Saw the following extracts in
reference to the last National Con-
venton Of the Peoples Party, showing
how the candidates for Democratic
Endorsements, sold out the party
which patriots had been building up
for twenty years. 1t is an interes ting
and melancholy story. We are sorry
we have not room to give the whole
artcle.-E1. Rep.]
In the October issue we promised to
give some of the inside history of, and
expose the treason which turned the
st. Louis Peoples Party convention into
what appears at this date to have been
a Democratic ratification meeting 1t
will be remembered that more than a
year before the date for holding the con-
ventiOn, efforts were made looking tow
ard an emasculatiOn of the Populist
platform with the avowed intention of
forming an honorable union" of all re-
form forces.
The next prominent move on the polit-
ical checker board was the issuance of
document fell on the country like a sick
buzzard on dead dog.
But the democrats stole his issue and
several more with it and didn't nomin7
ate Teller.
In the meantime Major Warner had left
him to hold the sack while he presided
over the Ohio democratic state conven-
ton.
Stewart Immediately raised at the
mast head of his paper the names of the
democratic nominees.
Teller, Butler, Allen and others now
left him f1oundering on the sea of his
own inconsistencies and went over to
Bryan.
Then TauDeneck was mad.
He swore vengence against Bryan and
his friends.
Mcdowell was sent to Arkansas to
make an appeal for a straight middle-of-
the-rOad ticket.
A feeble effort was made to reverse
the position they had always held.
In the meantime Bryan's speech-the
''crown of thorns and cross of gold" set
the convention wild, and men who had
never heard of Bryan before were lifted
off their feet.
Then was conceived the plot by the
Democratic managers and the pie hunt
ing POpulists to deliver the Peoples par
ty over to the new democracy
Never was plot more deliberately
planned or more unscrupulOusly carried
out.
The memorable 22nd of July came.
The plotters were on the ground days
beforehand.
Senator Jones, chairman of the DEM
ocratic national committee was there.
Governor Stone, of Missouri, was
there.
Other prominent Democrats were on
hand to aid in the conspiracy.
Weaver, Allen, Butler, Holcomb,
Pence, and other prominent Populists
were in constant communication with
those leadind Democrats.
At first the middle-of-the-road men
were largely in the ascendency This
was because they came fresh from the
people and represented the sentiment of
the rank and file.
Two days before the convention the
battle began.
The conspirators worked mostly on the
leaders in the different delegations.
A LIST OF PIE-HUNTERS.
Nearly every prominent Bryan man
was either a candidate at the time or
expected to become one. Democratic
help was promised, locally, for assist
ance in securing the Endorsement of the
Democratic national ticket, Ga la Owen).
BY this means Allen saw his way clear
to reelection to the United States SEN
ate.
Contention was rife and nearly every
delegation was set to wrangling.
No convention ever gave as much dis
satisfaction and ended in as much con-
fusion as that one. Every particle of this
dissension was brought on by self-seek-
ing pie-hunters.
The ball was started to rolling with
the effort to permanently organize the
convention.
A GRAVE MISTAKE.
Here the Populist made a grave mis-
take by selecting a man from Maine
Champion-whom no one had ever heard
of before. Had man been selected that
could have united the dle-of-the-
road votes, they would, at this stage of
the proceedings, have succeeded in cap
tuy ..g the organization of the conven-
ton, and the result would doubtless have
been different. But while they realized
the Importance of this, no one dreamed
of the cruel, brutal methods which
Chairman Allen employed in riding
rough shod over the will of the conven-
ton. The last day he was drinking to
excess and some of his rulings were
brutal One of his rulings was that the
delegates had no right to appeal from
the decision of the chair. AS an illustra-
ton of Aliens tyranny we quote the fol-
lowing from the pen of Bob Schilling, of
Milwaukee,, one of the bravest, brainest,
and truest Populists in the country.
Senator Allen of Nebraska, who oc-