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Democratic Promise: The Populist Moment in America
Presents a major reinterpretation of the most important American reform movement of the late 19th century.
Introduction
The Tide Rising
The Tide Receding
Afterword
Appendices
A Critical Essays on Authorities
Acknowledgments
Index
Introduction
The Tide Rising
The Tide Receding
Afterword
Appendices
A Critical Essays on Authorities
Acknowledgments
Index
752 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1967
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Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
September 30, 2025
"And every atom I assume you shall assume." Walt Whitman. Imagine an America where the prevailing ethos is the common welfare, not an egotistical competition; where workers and farmers make political decisions in conclave, not hack politicians in Congress; Blacks and whites collaborate to bring on a peaceful revolution of labor, and where women got the vote fifty years before they did in capitalist time. This is not a fantasy or utopia but genuine American history. Lawrence Goodwyn's study of the Populist Party of America, from beginnings after the Civil War until it endorsed William Jennings Bryan for president in 1896 shows us the way we may yet reach the promised land. The Populists did not simply run candidates for office. They created an American counter culture of rural schools, lectures, lending libraries and songs all geared towards a working class audience. Required reading.
February 17, 2018
Despite its age, this remains a fine book for learning about the phenomenon of Populism in the United States. To begin, we should note that historical Populism in the United States is very different from what the American press typically means when it writes of populist politicians or politicians running a populist campaign. The press’s definition typically implies a political campaign appealing to anger or resentment among some segment of the population. While some of the historical Populists probably were angry and resentful of the situation in which they found themselves, their solutions, which included cooperative action and a major reconstruction of the US economic system, would be utterly foreign to any of the supposed populist politicians of the 21st century.
In his work on the history of Populism in America, author Lawrence Goodwyn finds the genesis of this farmers rebellion on the Texas frontier in 1877, specifically at the farm of John Allen of Lampasas County. Unlike some other historians of the era, Goodwyn has a somewhat different interpretation of what happened in the wake of that first meeting in rural Texas. Part of the reason lies in Goodwyn’s core thesis, which sets the stage for his analysis that follows.
At the heart of Goodwyn’s discussion of the Populists is a critique of the assumptions of America’s democratic culture itself. Among these assumptions is that the present is better than the past; society constantly moves toward a higher plane. From this follows a level of intellectual complacency that obscures the true meaning of Populist ideas. Modern observers, unable to envision events of the past from outside the economic paradigm of government-backed global corporate capitalism in which they exist, fail to see the agrarian revolt for what it really was: a new approach to economics that was not fully capitalist or fully socialist, but based on a blend of cooperation and competition. It was also a critique of their society in which government and law served the interests of capital, leading to the debt peonage system in the South, farm closures in the Midwest, and the active suppression of labor whenever and wherever strikes arose. This failure to understand “true” Populism leads to an unfortunate focus on “shadow” Populism and figures such as William Jennings Bryan who, as Goodwyn shows, “were never at any time members of the People’s Party, were opposed to its specific doctrines of reform, and worked with zeal to undermine or deflect its purposes.” (xvi)
The “true” populists described by Goodwyn set forth their basic doctrines for agricultural reform at a series of conventions culminating in the Omaha Platform of 1892. These demands included abolition of national banks and the issue of treasury notes to create a flexible money supply (greenbackism), government ownership of railroads, unlimited coinage of silver at a sixteen to one ratio to gold, equitable taxation, and the subtreasury plan of low-interest government loans and crop withholding programs to raise agricultural prices in order to break the power of the debt peonage system. Most also expressed a desire for a level economic playing field based on the idea that labor creates value, also known as producerism.
Unfortunately for the Populists, they had difficulty in terms of organization and articulating their demands politically in a way that reinforced their goals, not to mention the hostility of both major political parties to their programs for reform. This failure to find enough allies to fundamentally change the economic culture of the United States doomed the agrarian movement to failure. Goodwyn explains how this inability to poll a majority, or even a plurality, of votes forced the People’s Party into fusion arrangements with other minority political groups. In the process, the fusionist politicians representing the “shadow movement” traded the movement’s soul for the possibility of political office in the next election. The alliance with Republicans in the South and with Democrats in the Midwest, West, and North further confused and demoralized the party, and the perceived need for fusion around the issue of free coinage of silver led inexorably to the abandonment of the Omaha Platform’s demands and the endorsement of William Jennings Bryan for the presidency in 1896. Henry Lloyd explained the Populist’s dilemma when he said, “If we fuse, we are sunk. If we don’t fuse, all the silver men we have will leave us for the more powerful Democrats.”
This was not the sole source of failure, however. Despite the Populist’s creation of their own press syndicate, control of the mainstream press by eastern capital made it difficult for the Populists to reach urban workers or publicize their ideas outside of their core constituency in the South and Midwest. The Republicans often used propaganda in the press to paper over the deficiencies of the gold standard and ridicule greenbackism and the subtreasury, and if that was not sufficient, they could always “wave the bloody shirt” to appeal to uncertain voters. For the Democrats in the South, the race card, mixed with a liberal dose of physical violence, was the weapon of choice in maintaining party loyalty. Both authors describe the impact of racism and appeals to white solidarity in helping the Democracy maintain its grip on southern whites. They also note that on occasion, even this fell short, in which case conservative Democrats simply stole elections from Populists such as Tom Watson through ballot box stuffing and other forms of electoral chicanery.
Goodwyn concludes his book by briefly describing what happened after 1896. The issue of currency reform disappeared from politics in the wake of McKinley’s election. Subsequent legislation served to expand the holdings of large farms at the expense of the family farm, the culmination of an effort to control farm credit by the banking community. The People’s Party straggled on at the state and local level for, at most, a few more years before bowing out at the turn of the century. In hindsight, the chances for the People’s Party were slim due to the power of the institutions arrayed against them.
This is a very readable yet thorough look at what Populism was and how it developed at the end of the nineteenth century. The descriptions of the economic, ideological, and social aspects of the agrarian revolt are superb. The one thing missing is the environmental aspect of the story. Occasionally this receives mention in passing, but it supplements the rest of the story and requires some treatment. Dust storms, hail, and the uncertain rainfall of the Great Plains certainly contributed to the problems of the farmers there, and their brethren in the South required significant quantities of fertilizer to maintain the productivity of their cotton lands. These relationships need further exploration to round out what is otherwise an excellent work on the history of Populism.
In his work on the history of Populism in America, author Lawrence Goodwyn finds the genesis of this farmers rebellion on the Texas frontier in 1877, specifically at the farm of John Allen of Lampasas County. Unlike some other historians of the era, Goodwyn has a somewhat different interpretation of what happened in the wake of that first meeting in rural Texas. Part of the reason lies in Goodwyn’s core thesis, which sets the stage for his analysis that follows.
At the heart of Goodwyn’s discussion of the Populists is a critique of the assumptions of America’s democratic culture itself. Among these assumptions is that the present is better than the past; society constantly moves toward a higher plane. From this follows a level of intellectual complacency that obscures the true meaning of Populist ideas. Modern observers, unable to envision events of the past from outside the economic paradigm of government-backed global corporate capitalism in which they exist, fail to see the agrarian revolt for what it really was: a new approach to economics that was not fully capitalist or fully socialist, but based on a blend of cooperation and competition. It was also a critique of their society in which government and law served the interests of capital, leading to the debt peonage system in the South, farm closures in the Midwest, and the active suppression of labor whenever and wherever strikes arose. This failure to understand “true” Populism leads to an unfortunate focus on “shadow” Populism and figures such as William Jennings Bryan who, as Goodwyn shows, “were never at any time members of the People’s Party, were opposed to its specific doctrines of reform, and worked with zeal to undermine or deflect its purposes.” (xvi)
The “true” populists described by Goodwyn set forth their basic doctrines for agricultural reform at a series of conventions culminating in the Omaha Platform of 1892. These demands included abolition of national banks and the issue of treasury notes to create a flexible money supply (greenbackism), government ownership of railroads, unlimited coinage of silver at a sixteen to one ratio to gold, equitable taxation, and the subtreasury plan of low-interest government loans and crop withholding programs to raise agricultural prices in order to break the power of the debt peonage system. Most also expressed a desire for a level economic playing field based on the idea that labor creates value, also known as producerism.
Unfortunately for the Populists, they had difficulty in terms of organization and articulating their demands politically in a way that reinforced their goals, not to mention the hostility of both major political parties to their programs for reform. This failure to find enough allies to fundamentally change the economic culture of the United States doomed the agrarian movement to failure. Goodwyn explains how this inability to poll a majority, or even a plurality, of votes forced the People’s Party into fusion arrangements with other minority political groups. In the process, the fusionist politicians representing the “shadow movement” traded the movement’s soul for the possibility of political office in the next election. The alliance with Republicans in the South and with Democrats in the Midwest, West, and North further confused and demoralized the party, and the perceived need for fusion around the issue of free coinage of silver led inexorably to the abandonment of the Omaha Platform’s demands and the endorsement of William Jennings Bryan for the presidency in 1896. Henry Lloyd explained the Populist’s dilemma when he said, “If we fuse, we are sunk. If we don’t fuse, all the silver men we have will leave us for the more powerful Democrats.”
This was not the sole source of failure, however. Despite the Populist’s creation of their own press syndicate, control of the mainstream press by eastern capital made it difficult for the Populists to reach urban workers or publicize their ideas outside of their core constituency in the South and Midwest. The Republicans often used propaganda in the press to paper over the deficiencies of the gold standard and ridicule greenbackism and the subtreasury, and if that was not sufficient, they could always “wave the bloody shirt” to appeal to uncertain voters. For the Democrats in the South, the race card, mixed with a liberal dose of physical violence, was the weapon of choice in maintaining party loyalty. Both authors describe the impact of racism and appeals to white solidarity in helping the Democracy maintain its grip on southern whites. They also note that on occasion, even this fell short, in which case conservative Democrats simply stole elections from Populists such as Tom Watson through ballot box stuffing and other forms of electoral chicanery.
Goodwyn concludes his book by briefly describing what happened after 1896. The issue of currency reform disappeared from politics in the wake of McKinley’s election. Subsequent legislation served to expand the holdings of large farms at the expense of the family farm, the culmination of an effort to control farm credit by the banking community. The People’s Party straggled on at the state and local level for, at most, a few more years before bowing out at the turn of the century. In hindsight, the chances for the People’s Party were slim due to the power of the institutions arrayed against them.
This is a very readable yet thorough look at what Populism was and how it developed at the end of the nineteenth century. The descriptions of the economic, ideological, and social aspects of the agrarian revolt are superb. The one thing missing is the environmental aspect of the story. Occasionally this receives mention in passing, but it supplements the rest of the story and requires some treatment. Dust storms, hail, and the uncertain rainfall of the Great Plains certainly contributed to the problems of the farmers there, and their brethren in the South required significant quantities of fertilizer to maintain the productivity of their cotton lands. These relationships need further exploration to round out what is otherwise an excellent work on the history of Populism.
April 17, 2022
Fantastic outline of one of the most important yet criminally ignored periods of American history.
December 23, 2022
This is a must read for understanding the late post Civil War 1880s to 1890s and the fight against the Gilded Age Robber Barrons. Interracial organizing of black and white southern share croppers, rural cooperatives in the Dakotas, Texas and Kansas farm organizers who proposed a modern monetary system for stable prices to break the power of Wall Street. The period 1865 to 1900 saw massive deflation that saw the largest number of bankruptcy of farmers in history and made the fortune of of Wall Street Bankers like JP Morgan and screwed farmers.
Interesting lessons for our current return to the new Gilded Age.
Interesting lessons for our current return to the new Gilded Age.
to-keep-reference
October 18, 2016Discutido en La razón populista Pág.250-258
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews