Populism and politics: William Alfred Peffer and the People's Party

by Peter H. Argersinger

This study focuses attention of the People's party which existed for a short time in the 1890s. Despite its brief existence the party and the movement that brought it into being had a lasting effect on American politics and society. Populism originally developed outside the political system because the system had proved incapable of responding to real needs. As the movement was transformed into the People's party, however, much of its responsive nature was lost. The People's party became subject to the same influences that guided the old parties and it became more concerned with winning office than with promoting genuine reform. In finding this sharp distinction between Populism and the People's party, Mr. Argersinger portrays Populism not as a success but as a tragic failure, betrayed from within by politicians who followed political dictates rather than Populist principles. Mr. Argersinger studies the Populist predicament in organizing a national movement in a time of political sectionalism and discovers neglected phases of Populist activity in the crucial campaign of 1896. He suggests that there may have been some validity to the charge of Populist "conspiracy-mindedness."

337 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1974

Reviews

[David · Rating 4 out of 5]

Something of the historiographical opposite of Clanton; although both see fusion as the historical inevitability of Populism, Argersinger is much more sympathetic to the Mid-Roaders under the leadership of Peffer, Watson, and G. C. Clemens. Peffer's various partisan allegiances are demonstrated not to be an opportunist switching, but instead a result of his reform efforts being forced out of Populism by Democratic fusion, to return to the Republican Party, and a last ditch effort with the Prohibitionists in the long-outdated style of 1880s Reform. The real letdown with these mid-century works on Populism is the constant sense, even repeated somewhat by recent works like Postel, that the Populists were ultimately "victorious," that their reforms were eventually all implemented. This is true, to an extent, but it ignores the often acknowledged transforming desires of Populism and the earlier authors could not account for the rise of neoliberalism and the reversal or disregard for much of the regulation and reform the Populist movement advocated for that its heirs achieved.