The Washington times., 1924-07-26
VOL OF
FARMERS,
CAUSE
VA Toilette Forces Must Fuse
Discomfort to Make
Marked Success
By WILLIAM HARD.

- - AAAAA<AAAA A<2 III Isl
As the campaign wears along
through its first phase and coils
Itself up with its appointments Of
managers and sub-managers and
official spell-binders and dopesters
to spring upon the voting public
and arouse and alarm and agitate
through the dog-days Of the SUM
naer and through the melancholy
days Of the early fall, il becomes
more and more apparent that this
years distinguishing novelty IN
campaigning is not SO much the
mere emergence Of the "a Toilette
independent party, but much more
spectacularly and Importantly the
effort now going on within that
party to do thing which never
successfully has been done in the
whole history Of American, poll
tics since the civil war namely,
to fuse the discomfort Of wage
earners in the East with the dis
content Of farmers in the West.
MonotonOus Novelty.
The La Toilette party itself, con.
sidered simply as third party"
can be called novelty: but. as
mere third party it is a recur.
rent and monotonous novelty.
TO see It in its right light from
that standpoint it is necessary to
look at it with a consideration Of
its background.
Al certain extremely curious fact
about third parties in the United
States since the civil war has never.
20 this writer's knowledge, been
publicly noted
This fact is as follows:
Each new decade since the civil
4 war has been signalized in it's early
7 years by the outbreak Of some new
progressive" or radical national
political movement, and has usually
also been signalized in its closing
years by the collapse Of that move
ment.
The first national election in the
decade immediately following the
civil war was that Of the year 1872,
and in 1872 there was organized the
first national labor party OF the
United States. calling itself the
Labor Reform party. It nom
mated Charles O'Conor for Presi-
dent, polled less than $4,000 votes,
and disappeared.
At the beginning Of the next de-
fnAn afhksN HtfrsrS Vskwy
rose to prominence, and In the year
1880 in a national election polled
some 100000 votes for its Presiden-
tial candidate, General James b.
Weaver Of Iowa.
Union Labor Party Arises.
Eight years later. in the national
election Of 1883, the "Greenback
Labor" party had disappeared and
had left behind It as its successor
an extremely puny Union Labor"
votes for its Presidential candidate,
Alison J. Streeter, of Illinois.
Nevertheless, at the beginning OF
the next decade "radicalismn again
revived and produced the Peoples
party, which in 1892 nominated
James B. Weaver again for the
Presidency and polled more than q
million votes for him and gave him
also twenty-five electoral votes
through carrying the States Of Kan
eas, Idaho, Colorado and Nevada
and through picking up two scat
tered electoral votes out Of North
Dakota and Oregon.
This startling achievement led
the managers of the Peoples"
party to predict that their party
would soon be the dominant party
In the United States.
Nevertheless, by the end Of the
decade, the Peoples party had
most Of 1t fused with the Demo.
cratic party and only feeble rem
nant Of 1t remained to drag out q
wretclled and hazardous existence
through few succeeding national
elections down to 1908, after which
even this remnant became extinct.
Rise Of Socialists
In the decade beginning with
1900, however, new movement, as
usual, appeared This time iSawas
the new Socialist party, headed by
Eugene ". Debs.
The one novelty politically in the
United States Is that whole decade
was the Socialist party. Western
Sgrarian radIcalism became sterile.
The old Changers" the old Green
hackers" the old "Populists, = lay
quiescent. That fact has a great
bearing upon the present situation.
1t indicates that the radicalssm OF
the farm, having expended itself,
can go to sleep while its supposed
ally, the radicalism OF the city work.
shop, wakes up but is allowed to
strive and agitate by itself.
In the decade beginning with 1900
the farmers were more prosperous
and more contented and more in.
clined toward becoming total alb.
Etainers from new radical agrarlan,
political movements while, through
the Socialist party, for the first
time. quite considerable radical
vote appeared among wage earners
In the East.
Meanwhile the reforming activities
ofTheodore Roosevelt In the White
House seemed to satisfy the mass OF
the oOnuIatfon. and fhe oilfloolf for.