VIII - ORIGIN OF THE PEOPLE'S PARTY, IX - ORGANIZATION OF STATE PEOPLE'S PARTY, X - THE CRUSADE OF 1890

The Alliance began to resolve itself into the People's Party in the fall election of 1889. Reform tickets were put up in almost all of the counties under the name of Union Labor, or Alliance, according to the fancy of whoever happened to mention them. In Cowley county where the Alliance was probably stronger than in any other locality, a people's party was formed, and it came about in this manner. The Republicans were divided into two factions city and farmer. The city element, representing the Winfield office ring, captured the convention, and the farmers withdrew, denouncing the manner in which the convention was handled. Among those withdrawing were M. H. Markham, S. W. Chase and Samuel Strong, who were the Union Labor element of the Republican party. They suggested a fusion with the Union Labor and Democratic parties on a people's ticket. Conferences were held between the central committees of the two parties and finally a committee was appointed by the Union Labor party composed of Henry Vincent, C. C. Krow, Edward Green, George W. Gardenshire, and Benjamin H. Clover, to draft a plan for a people's ticket. This committee drew up a petition calling a convention of the people. It was signed by men of all parties who were opposed to the old order of things. Neither the Union Labor nor the Democratic parties held conventions, but everybody opposed to the Republican office ring united in the People's Convention, which was held September 31, 1889. They drew up the following platform, which was the first under that name:

1. Resolved that we, the People's Convention of Cowley county, Kansas, assembled, are in favor of legislation in favor of the producing classes. We want government, national, state and county so administered that the producing classes shall have a just reward of their labor.
2. We are opposed to all trusts, especially the Winfield office trust.
3. We are unalterably opposed to ring domination in the selection of candidates for public office, or any other means by which the masses are ignored, and the dictates of corrupt schemers are forced upon the people in the guise of party loyalty.
4. We are in favor of legislation to reduce the salaries of county officers to a figure commensurate with any other job of equal responsibility.
5. We regard with pleasure the organization over the state, of the Farmer's Alliance.
6. We commend postmaster-general Wannamaker for his efforts to secure cheap telegraph facilities.

In the November election the People's ticket snowed the ring politicians hopelessly under. The Winfield Courier, the Republican organ, poked its head out from under the debris and made the following observations:

The Courier did not have to wait long to find out. As quick as the results in Cowley County were known, inquiries came from all over the state to learn about the People's Party. "The way they did it in Cowley County," was on the lips of every reformer.

The Alliance at this time had very little in its creed that had not been propounded and expounded by the Greenbackers. The most complete set of resolutions found in print were those of the Jefferson County Alliance. This document contained the usual land, labor, tax, monetary and coinage planks. It also demanded a graduated income tax, and stretched the U. S. Senator election plank to include all national officers. The repeal of all laws not bearing equally upon capital and labor was demanded, the strict enforcement of all laws, the removal of unjust technicalities and discriminations, revision of tariff schedules to lay the heaviest burdens on luxuries, an equalization of all taxation to compel all classes to bear their just amount of the burdens of government, legislation to break up monopolies which operate to break up trade. Prohibition was favored, and education by a well regulated system of free schools. One of the planks was copied verbatim into the platform of the National Alliance which met at St. Louis the next December. It read:

The Jefferson County Alliance also had a plank providing for the immediate removal of the tariff from any article which had been made the object of a combine, in order to establish a monopoly on such article and raise the price. According to this plan, as soon as a monopoly was formed on any article, the article went on the free list.

The National Alliances, both Northern and Southern met in St. Louis, December 3, 1889, and effected an organization with the Knights of Labor and a number of other farmers' and wage-workers' organizations. The platform adopted was of little importance, being a rehash of the Kansas local platforms, and not covering the situation as thoroughly as the resolutions of the Jefferson County Alliance. But the report of the committee on the money question was important, and was the basis of the sub-treasury plan as advocated by the Alliance and by the People's Party from that date until the movement was absorbed in bi-metalism in 1896. After calling attention to the needs of the farmers for a monetary system which would make them independent of the money sharks and enable them to hold their products for a fair price and market them gradually as demand should require instead of being compelled to market them as soon as harvested at a low figure fixed by those who control the currency of the country, in which case both producer and consumer is robbed, the committee recommended that the United States modify its present financial system.

For a precedent as to the practicability of the plan, the committee refers us to the action of the French Government, which saved the country from ruin in 1848 by adopting this very system. A terrible panic was in progress which threatened the existence of the nation. The government opened up storehouses for the reception of all kinds of goods and produce. Money was put into circulation, business began to thrive and in two months a normal condition had been restored.

This sub-treasury was the most important thing in the Populist doctrine which had not been advanced by other Third Parties to any great extent.

A state meeting of the Alliance met at Newton, December 16, but nothing of importance in a political way was done. Shortly after the first of the year President Clover called a meeting of the presidents of the County Alliances to assemble in Topeka, March 25, 1890. In the meantime a convention was held at Emporia, March 5, at which the following State organizations were represented: The Farmers' Alliance, the Farmers' Mutual Benefit Association, the Industrial Union, the Grange, and the Knights of Labor. They formed themselves into the Farmers' Alliance and Industrial Union, and adopted a set of resolutions which were essentially the same as those of the Jefferson County and Cowley County organizations, with the following additions: Free sugar was asked for (with a bounty to home producers equal to the present tariff). The sub-treasury plan was heartily endorsed, and any further extension of credit to the railroads was opposed as well as the voting of bonds to railroads. Legislation against usurious interest was demanded, also the State-publication of school text-books and the adoption of the Australian ballot system. A plan was drawn up to have lectures prepared upon each one of the entire set of resolutions. These lectures were used upon the platform, in the reform press, and printed in pamphlet form for distribution.

The county presidents met pursuant to call an March 25. They drew up a whole volume of resolutions, thoroughly canvassing the economic conditions in every detail. The fact that Kansas corn was stacked along the railroad tracks like cordwood was called to the attention of Congress, and a law to allow free trade with Mexico was demanded, especially protesting against the tariff on silver ore, which provoked retaliatory measures on the part of the Mexican government against Kansas meat and farm produce. Congress was asked to put some of the Government money into circulation to help the laborers, suggesting the building of a double track, trans-continental railroad.

A petition was drawn up to be circulated among Alliance people asking Congress to pass a law authorizing the loaning of money to farmers on their land at 4 per cent per annum. A lecture bureau was provided for to carry the economic doctrines to the people, resolutions were passed against Senator John J. Ingalls, who had by this time ceased to be a representative of the people, and the following demands were made:

The following resolution suggestive of political action was passed:

This conclusion was arrived at after reviewing the failure of the Legislature to pass laws for the relief of the farmers and laboring people, and the laws they passed in direct opposition to the interests of these two classes.

The cumulative land tax mentioned in the resolutions, savored of Henry George. It provided for the lowest possible rate on the first $1,000 of property, after which one-tenth of a per cent of the tax on original $1,000 should be added for each thousand up to $10,000. In this way the second thousand would be taxed at 1.1 times the original, the third at one and one-fifth, the fourth at one and three-tenths, and so on. On values exceeding $10,000 and up to $100,000, one-tenth should be added to each succeeding $10,000, based on the tax assessed on the original $10,000. This went on in the same manner, basing the taxes of each succeeding $100,000 on the original $100,000 and adding a tenth.

The graduated income tax was on the same plan. The income tax was to get at the holder of mortgages and bonds to make him bear his part of the burdens of government and the land tax was calculated to make it unprofitable to hold land for speculation which people needed for homes and to do away with the land capitalist getting rich on the labor of the people who were building up the country and making his land valuable.

The convention which formed the People's Party of Kansas was called to order in Topeka, June 12, 1890, by John F. Willits, of Jefferson County, who was probably in a large measure responsible for the Jefferson County Alliance platform. It was a meeting for all those who had decided to fall away from the old parties and was attended by forty-one delegates of the Farmers' Alliance and Industrial Union, ten of the Mutual Benefit Association, and seven Patrons of Husbandry, twenty-eight Knights of Labor, and four from the Single Tax clubs.

A resolution to place a full state and congressional ticket in the field was passed unanimously, and the name of the People's Party was officially adopted. The St. Louis platform of December, 1889, was taken as the basis of political principles. One man from each Congressional district made up the State Central Committee as follows: S. C. Rightmire, of Pottawatomie county; Z. T. Stevenson, of Cedar Junction; S. W. Chase, of Winfield; Charles Drake, Council Grove; G. W. King, Solomon City; Joseph Darling, Norton; E. M. Black.. Sterling. One of the leaders of this convention, of course, was B. H. Clover. Among the resolutions was one refusing to vote for any of their number who would accept a nomination from either of the old parties, one demanding the abrogation of all laws not bearing equally on capital and labor, and one demanding that all honorably discharged soldiers, their widows and orphans be pensioned, and that all pledges made to them by the Government be complied with as fully as in the case of bond-holders.

A nominating convention was called for August 13, and met pursuant to order in Representative Hall. The scorn of the Republican press changed to anger and righteous indignation that treason should be hatched in such a sacred place as the hall in which the people's rights were usually bartered away. An avalanche of abuse and criticism descended from the seats of the high and mighty upon this bunch of moss backed reformers as they were termed. However, a platform which covered the points already repeated in former meetings, was adopted and a State ticket nominated as follows: For Chief Justice, W. F. Rightmire; Governor, John F. Willits; Lieutenant Governor, A. C. Shinn; Secretary of State, R. S. Osborne; Treasurer, W. H. Biddle; Attorney General, J. N. Ives, State Superintendent of Public Instruction, Miss Fannie McCormick; State Auditor, Rev. B. F. Foster (colored). A motion to make Judge William A. Peffer the candidate for United States Senator was lost. The nominees for Congress were, in the order of the districts, as follows: L. C. Clark, A. F. Allen, Benj. H. Clover, J. G. Otis, John Davis, William Baker, and Jerry A. Simpson.

Headquarters for the People's Party were opened in Topeka, in the Crawford Building, at Fifth and Jackson streets. Willits was succeeded as chairman by S. W. Chase. Mr. Randolph, of Lyon, became secretary, and the war was on.

The upheaval that took place in Kansas in the summer and fall of 1890, can hardly be diagnosed as a political campaign. It was a religious revival, a crusade, a pentecost of politics in which a tongue of flame sat upon every man, and each spake as the spirit gave him utterance. For Mary E. Lease, Jerry Simpson, Anna L. Diggs, S. N. Wood, Judge W. A. Peffer, Fred Close, Ralph Beaumont, Cyrus Corning, Prof. Vincent, Judge Rightmire, and a half a hundred others who lectured up and down the land, were not the only people who could talk on the issues of the day. The farmers, the country merchants, the cattle-herders, they of the long chin-whiskers, and they of the broad brimmed hats and heavy boots, had also heard the word and could preach the gospel of Populism. The dragon's teeth were sprouting in every nook and corner of the State. Women with skins tanned to parchment by the hot winds, with bony bands of toil and clad in faded calico, could talk in meeting, and could talk right straight to the point. Six years later William Allen White, in his famous "What's the matter with Kansas?" reviled these people for pretending to know anything, seeing that they didn't wear white collars. But these people were not roughnecks or boors or even escaped lunatics. Many of them were as well educated in their youth as Mr. White; and, anyway, the Emporia sage neglected to state what mysterious power lurks in the bosom of a white shirt that it is able to confer intellect upon its wearer.

MRS. MARY ELIZABETH LEASE

[Copy by Willard of Portrait in Library of Kansas State Historical Society]

The meetings were at first held in school-houses. Here the railroads, the trusts, the questions of finance, mortgages, and usury were discussed till long after midnight. Over and over the people heard these things, but they never heard them enough. The meetings grew bigger and bigger, till no buildings could be found to house the crowds which drove for miles and miles to hear their orators who were fast gaining national fame. All-day picnics were held and people came by the thousands, some of the crowds being reported as ten, twenty, and twenty-five thousand, who had come to hear the tidings of great joy. They came charged with Populism, and the speakers had merely to turn on the current to produce the electric display of enthusiasm. Everybody took part in these gatherings. The speaking was preceded by a parade with banners on which mottoes and legends were inscribed. There were characterizations, playlets, brass bands, songs and cheers. Songs were one of the characteristics of Populism. Everybody that wasn't an orator was a poet, and there was no dearth of musicians to adapt a tune, or of women to sing. Many of the songs were written to well known tunes. These songs were gathered into books of which tens of thousands were sold. Another characteristic of the times was the large number of women who took part. The Alliance received the women to membership, and the Populist party tried to give them suffrage, and many of them felt that it was the only party they could call their own. Mrs. Lease, of course, was the leader, with Mrs. Annie L. Diggs a close second. Mrs. Diggs did not make so much noise, but the work which she did was just as able and effective. Other lecturers were Helen Gauger and Mrs. Farmer Smith.

Mrs. Mary Elizabeth Lease, erroneously called Mary Ellen Lease, was born in county Monaghan, in the northern part of Ireland, instead of in Ridgeway, Pennsylvania, where her parents settled when she was a child. She was educated in New York State, and came to Kansas, where she was married at the Osage Mission to Charles L. Lease, January 30, 1873. She lacked from January to September 11, of being twenty years of age at that time. Twelve years later, she was admitted to the bar. In 1888 she made her first public speech in the Union Labor Convention. She went on with the people's work in the Alliances until 1890, when she was given a place in the Populist lecture bureau, and was more in demand than any other speaker. She made 160 speeches during the summer and fall, to immense audiences. As is usual with a woman who takes up an issue, she was bitterly assailed, reviled and ridiculed by the opposition. The Republican press made no attempt to meet her arguments; it confined its efforts to publishing untruths about her personality. Mrs. Lease was at that time a tall, slender, good-looking woman of thirty-seven years, She lived in Wichita with her husband and four children. She was refined and magnetic, and her ready wit took care of her under all circumstances. She had a short cut to most objective points, and her rough-hewed thrusts, while carrying the truth home with force, laid her open to attacks from her enemies. She pointed from the starving thousands of Chicago to the useless corn piled high along the railroad tracks, in the cribs and in stacks on the ground, and being burned for fuel, and wishing to impress the people with the central fact that this condition existed because they allowed it to - because they had been spending their time raising corn and paying no attention to what kind of laws were being made, and what was being done at legislative halls, Mrs. Lease said: "What you farmers need to do is to raise less corn and more HELL."

This was a joyful sound in the ears of the debt-ridden multitudes, who had broken their backs plowing and hoeing only to be corn-poor. It was the rallying cry of revolution. It was repeated over and over again in all its possible variations at the school-house meetings all over Kansas. Of course Mrs. Lease was bitterly attacked for such a statement by the Republicans. William Allen White mentions it in his article on "What's the Matter with Kansas." But even Mr. White will have to admit that, according to all the information we have on the subject, the product recommended by "The Lady Orator of the West" is superior to corn for heating purposes.

In a graphic manner Mrs. Lease would picture accumulated wealth on one hand and the 90,000 working people living out of the garbage cans in Chicago. She flayed Senator Ingalls to the queen's taste as a "dishonest, soulless, shameless charlatan." The following is the substance of one of her speeches:

Mrs. Lease was the woman of the hour, but the man of the hour was Jerry Simpson, candidate for Congress in the Big Seventh. Jerry was Lincolnesque, both in physical appearance and in manner of speech. He was born in England, in 1842, and was a sailor on the Great Lakes, rising to the rank of captain. In his days and nights on board the ship he was a thorough student of economic questions, reading Dickens, Scott, Carlyle, Burns, Hugo, Shelley and Tom Paine, as well as later authors such as Henry George. He enlisted in the Union army, giving as part of his reason: "Hand-cuffs and auction blocks for fellows who work don't heave-to along side of justice."

The Simpsons moved to Kansas in 1878, and after living for a time in Jackson County, Kansas, moved to Barber County, and located near Medicine Lodge, where he remained until called from between plow handles to the Crusade of 1890. In giving his reasons for coming to this State, Jerry said: "The magic of a kernel, the witchcraft in the seed; the desire to put something into the ground and see it grow and reproduce its kind. That's why I came to Kansas."

Jerry Simpson came before the public as the opponent of a very polished and able gentleman, Colonel James R. Hallowell, whom he playfully dubbed Prince Hal. The Republican press treated Jerry the same as it did Mrs. Lease. Not daring to meet his arguments, it spent its energy making fun of him and telling the people what a catastrophe it would be for the State to be represented by a clown, a clod-hopper and an ignoramus, such as they characterized him. In retaliation Jerry derived what fun he could out of Hallowell's silk stockings. Whereupon Victor Murdock, then a "red-headed" young reporter, wrote the famous "sockless" story, which was taken for truth all over the country. He was called "Sockless Jerry," and "Sockless Simpson," and William Allen White later substituted Socrates, and he came to be known throughout the length and breadth of the land as the "Sockless Socrates of Kansas." His characterization of his opponent as Prince Hal struck the responsive chord, and the enthusiasm of his followers was shown in parades miles and miles in length. Finally the Republicans thought to put a stop to Jerry by arranging a series of joint debates with Hallowell. But Prince Hal was so badly snowed under at the first meeting that be never filled the rest of the dates, and Simpson had a clear field.

While the burden of Mrs. Lease's song was finance, that of Jerry Simpson was land. He was a single-taxer. He thought that if the people could own their land unincumbered they could get along. He assailed the railroads with a plentiful array of data, openly accusing the Santa Fe of dominating state policies, and converting to the uses, of its unscrupulous stock-holders the fruits of the honest industry of its patrons and reducing them to penury. He called the attention of the farmers to the fact that they had raised 270,000,000 bushels of corn in 1889, sold it at 13 to 14 cents per bushel, that the grain gamblers of Chicago had secured control of 240,000,000 of it which they sold at 45 cents per bushel, thus cheating the farmer out of $60,000,000, and said: "If the Government had protected the farmer as it protects the gamblers, this could not have happened. If the farmers had got this $60,000,000, they could have devoted $30,000,000 to the payment of mortgages and used the other $30,000,000 for home comforts and farm improvements."

Simpson declared that all the property in Kansas would not sell for the debt and unpaid interest, that the majority of the men in Congress were attorneys for some corporation, and that less than ten men held the destinies of the nation in their grasp. "We must own the railroads," said Simpson, "or enough of them to do the necessary carrying. It is idle talk to say that we have not the authority. The government is the people and we are the people. Must the railroads have all the rights?" And again: "Man must have access to the land or he is a slave. The man who owns the earth, owns the people, for they must buy the privilege of living on his earth."

Mrs. Anna L. Diggs was connected with Dr. S. McLallin in the publication of the Advocate, which was the official organ of the Alliance. She went into the campaign of 1890, and like Mrs. Lease won national fame. She had a good speaking voice and was able to handle the Populist arguments and the immense crowds. Mrs. Diggs was a small woman, said to have weighed but 93 pounds. She was born in London, Ontario, in 1853, and was married to A. S. Diggs, in 1873. Their family consisted of two daughters and one son, and they lived at Lawrence. About the year 1877, Mrs. Diggs made her debut into public life in a temperance crusade in Lawrence, called for by the fact that University students were being ruined by liquor. In 188O we bear of her as a silkworm enthusiast. She wrote a book on the subject. In 1881, she addressed the Free Religious Association in Boston on the "Liberalism of the West." In the campaign of 1890 she was chosen by her party to reply to the platform utterances of John J. Ingalls, and in so doing she contributed more than any other one person to his downfall. Mrs. Diggs stayed with the Populist party, and in 1898, 1899 and 1900 was one of the leaders in Kansas politics. Her idea of fusion was that the Democrats should adopt Populist principles.

Colonel Sam N. Wood was one of the Populists who had always been a third party man in principle. Mr. Wood was born near Mount Gilead, Ohio, December 30, 1825, and from the time he was nineteen years old he took an active part in the politics of that state, being a Free-Soiler. He was admitted to the bar in 1854, and came to Kansas in June of that year to help make this a free State. He was prominent in public life until his murder, which occurred in June, 1891. He was heralded as a martyr to the cause of the people, and he undoubtedly was. He was a shrewd politician and it was said that at one time when he wag in the Legislature and an important bill was up in which he was interested, he devised a plan to get the opposition out of the way while a vote was taken. He arranged to have a party enter Representative hall at the critical moment yelling "Dogfight! Dogfight! Dogfight!" The plan worked. A grand rush was made out of the room and down the stairs, the friends of the bill remaining behind. When the opposition returned disappointed at seeing no dog fight, the bill had been passed.

When the vote was counted in November, it was found that the Populists had elected five Congressmen and a majority of the lower branch of the Legislature. As an index to the feeling at that time, an incident is told of a man who had worked so hard for the Populist cause that he took sick on election day and had to go home. Upon hearing the results of the voting he rang a sixty pound dinner bell for one solid hour yelling: "Glory! Glory! Glory!" The next day pasted a picture of John J. Ingalls on each side of a wagon box loaded with hogs and came into town waving his hat and shouting for the People's party.

The defeat of Ingalls was a great satisfaction to all Populists. He had said that anything was fair in politics, and that politics was a game which called for underhanded methods, and for lying and deceit. He was completely snowed under and never came back. Ingalls was an intelligent, clear-seeing politician and outlines the conditions exactly as they were in 1878. He knew what had come, but he had aligned himself with the grafters and either could not break loose or did not care to.

Ex-Governor Crawford bewailed the results of the election and said the one-percenters were in the saddle. But the one-percenters had been in the saddle since 1863, borrowing at one percent and loaning at eight, ten and twelve, and the people had decided to ride awhile.

The only state officer elected was Ives for Attorney-General, who was on both People's and Democratic tickets. John Willits polled 106,943 votes for Governor, against Humphrey's 115,124, showing that the Republicans had had a run for their money. Felt, the Republican candidate for Lieutenant-Governor, polled 120,062 votes, and Shinn, the Populist, polled 115,553. There were 91 Populists in the lower branch of the Legislature, 8 Democrats and 26 Republicans. The Senate, of course, was Republican, the members holding over from the last election. Jerry Simpson went to Washington and surprised the whole country with his ability as a speaker and debater and was a credit to the State, putting to shame the popular idea in the East that "we do not want any more states till we have civilized Kansas."

The Republicans had made every possible effort to defeat the will of the people. The Daily Capital printed 100,000 extra copies during the campaign which were sent free to voters. The paper was filled with falsehood and vilification. The railroads hauled thousands of voters in on free passes, bringing them to Kansas and taking them back home without charge.

TABLE OF CONTENTS
VOLUME 1 & 2
BIOGRAPHIES — VOLUMES 3, 4, & 5
A | B | C | D | E | F | G | H | I | J | K | L | M | N | O | P | Q | R | S | T | U | V | W | Y | Z

---

Background and KSGenWeb logo were designed and are copyrighted by Tom & Carolyn Ward for the limited use of the KSGenWeb Project. Permission is granted for use only on an official KSGenWeb page.

---

©1997-2014 by Tom & Carolyn Ward