The Wichita daily eagle. [volume] (Wichita, Kan.) 1890-1906, 1896-07-21
WHENCE popUL1sM. AND WHITTIER

|
national convention in St Louis. VIII
it be their last? The events of this
! week alone can divulge this. The
western Populists, dominated largely
by the Kansas crowd which turned
over ten electoral votes to General
| Weaver, not TO elect Weaver but to
help defeat Harrison, are anxious for
the Endorsement Of Bryan and in their
anxiety, foreDell this result at St Louis.
The southern Populists all these years
I have been fighting the Democrats In
| the south in an alliance with the min
GRITTY Republicans and consequently
these southern Populists demur strong
| ly from an alliance with the Democrats,
which the Endorsement of Mr.. Bryan
would mean.
If the Endorsement or nomination OF
Bryan is accomplished it means an END
of Populism SO far as the name Is con-
cerned. Populism is only four years
| old by that name 1t is over six years
old in reality. Under the name OF
4 DcUiUpOp IL may NV oS'
| longer. 1t has diverged completely
from its principles from the time or Its
origin and it will diverge more in the
future.
The Populist of today is the Alliance
man Of 1890, SO far as his name on the
tax-rou goes. He will be seen living
on the same farm, getting very little
more for his corn and good deal less
for his wheat and much les sfOr his hogs.
But mentally the Populist of today is
as widely separated from the Alliance
man of 1890 as Dan is from Beersheba.
Although the Alliance had its origin
among us here in Kansas We have for
gotten what the original Alliance man
really was. On May 20, 1880, the Eagle
published as a curious item the fact
that farmers of Butler county had
formed themselves into an alliance and
After resolving to put up an Alliance
county legislative and congressional
ticket, further resolved TO nominate no
man who was after Office Or who had
held an office or no man who had ever
d
This does not sound like Populism to
day with its regularly conducted can
vases before the nominating conven-
tons. 1t would be useless for anyone
to deny that Lewelling and Harris,
both seeking the gubernatorial nOmina-
ton today, are as near this Butler
county nomination standard, as Dan is
to Beersheba-
On August IA, 1890, the Alliance peo-
pie gathered together in Topeka and
named state ticket with John Willis
at the head for governor. There were
80 men present and the platform they
adopted resolved for
Shorter hours for Ia.borers; the equal
distribution of lands for homes; the
passage by congress OF a series of PEN
sion bills; the equalizing of paper
money and gold values; the payment Of
ex-prisoners of war for the time spent
in confinement, and a national arbitIa-
ton law.
The platform condemns the Pinker-
tom detective system and condemns the
Blair bill
But what of it? What were the Al
lance men talking in favor of equaliz-
ing paper money On gold values for!
What Are the very men who are to
day talking so rabidly against gold, so
rabidly in favor of silver, metallic
money,-are these the offspring OF a
condition of mind which six years ago
was in favor OF making paper money
with a reserve and standard of gold?
We do not find here the sub-ueasury
warehouse or the government owner
ship of railroads. The sub-treasury
warehouse was laughed down before it
had q chance to get into state plat
FORM The government ownership OF
railroads came later and appeared in
the St Louis and Omaha platforms.
But there is nothing in this first Kan
sas Alliance platform which suggests
the Populist Of today, just about to be-
come the Demopop. We hear nothing
in Populist platforms today about de-
tective systems or the pensioning of ex-
prisoners of war or shorter hours for
laborers.
While these demands appeared in
the platform it was mild compared
with the interests made by Alliance
men in their county conventions.
County platforms suggested every
thing. Lawyers were in some cases
diSfranchised or at least denied the
right TO hold office; postmasters were to
be elected by the people; Republican
newspapers We're to be boycotted; Re
publican merchants were to be run out
of business; members of the organiZa-
lance exchanges.
That portion of the people of Kansas
who were not in the Farmers Alliance
became frightened as they had a right
TO be. When Jerry Simpson was nomi-
mated the Eagle sent to Medicine Lodge
to discover his history. Its correspond
ent there wrote back that Jerry Simp-
son had been the dogCatcher there for
some time, was an agitator of no conse-
quence, whose principal utterance up to
that time had been that the red flag
of the Chicago Anarchists was as good
as the stars and stripes
This sort Of language was common
with the early Alliance man, and it
thrashed them Soundly more than once.
The people were not ready for revolu-
ton and they sat down on the Populists
hard. 1t has not been three years