The Tolerant Populists: Kansas Populism and Nativism

by Walter T.K. Nugent

A political movement rallies against underregulated banks, widening gaps in wealth, and gridlocked governments. Sound familiar? More than a century before Occupy Wall Street, the People’s Party of the 1890s was organizing for change. They were the original source of the term “populism,” and a catalyst for the later Progressive Era and New Deal.

Historians wrote approvingly of the Populists up into the 1950s. But with time and new voices, led by historian Richard Hofstadter, the Populists were denigrated, depicted as demagogic, conspiratorial, and even anti-Semitic.

In a landmark study, Walter Nugent set out to uncover the truth of populism, focusing on the most prominent Populist state, Kansas. He focused on primary sources, looking at the small towns and farmers that were the foundation of the movement. The result, The Tolerant Populists , was the first book-length, source-based analysis of the Populists. Nugent’s work sparked a movement to undo the historical revisionism and ultimately found itself at the center of a controversy that has been called “one of the bloodiest episodes in American historiography.”

This timely re-release of The Tolerant Populists comes as the term finds new currency—and new scorn—in modern politics. A definitive work on populism, it serves as a vivid example of the potential that political movements and popular opinion can have to change history and affect our future.

Genres: Politics

251 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1963

Reviews

[Paul A]

In the historiography of Populism one of the more contentious themes has been the accusations of racism and nativism amongst the rural adherents of the People’s Party. Walter Nugent’s debut work, The Tolerant Populists: Kansas Populism and Nativism was first published in 1963 and a second edition celebrated the 50th anniversary of the book. Nugent’s work with Populism served as a direct counter to Richard Hofstadter’s book, The Age of Reform: From Bryan to FDR (1955) which won a Pulitzer Prize. Hofstadter sought to prove that the Populists were political compromisers who practiced chauvinism, nativism, and racism with the specific charge of anti-Semitism. Nugent’s approach is extremely narrow. He examines Kansas Populism in the brief window of about 1888 to 1900. His stated thesis is that the charges of, “nativism, anti-Semitism, protofascism … need considerable revision and restatement.”1
Nugent ably constructs the historiography from the end of the People’s party to his first edition. He also includes in his second addition a follow-up of Populist treatments. Using John D. Hicks’s book, The Populist Revolt (1931), Nugent shows that Populism had safely resided in the school of Frederick Jackson Turner and his frontier thesis. With modernization and the closing of the frontier, Populism was a natural response to economic challenges and social change. With Hofstadter’s pre-eminent revision, and other works by Max Lerner and Oscar Handlin, the Populists were recast as villain. In an era of demagogues and McCarthyism, Populists were analyzed using “certain behavioral science concepts” and found to be “neurotic, anxious, ethnocentric, anti-Semitic, and fear-ridden.”2 In short, according to the revisionists of the 1950s the Populists were the forebears of fascism in the United States.
Nugent carefully sets up the revisionism of Hofstadter as his target in the first part of his book. He then follows a chronological approach to Populism beginning in the 1880s and proceeds to completely dismantle Hofstadter’s thesis. Throughout, he adds arguments relating to American democracy in general, and the relationship between those in power and those without. His notes and bibliography demonstrate painstaking research and comprise over a quarter of his book. He is careful to cite the revisionists clearly, and their primary charge of nativism and anti-Semitism is manifest. He balances both sides of the debate and includes the note of William C. Pratt who in 2009 still maintained that a level of anti-Semitism existed amongst Populists while granting that Hofstadter was guilty of exaggeration. Nugent also is careful to note his focus on Kansas and issues the caveat that

Since this story assumes fundamentally that state and local variations and contexts are important for the history of Populism, as well as for practically any American political or social problem, it would be worse than absurd to extend its conclusions even to other western farming states touched by Populism, not to mention the silver states or the South. There are too many variables involved.3

His claim of “too many variables” seems well substantiated with a further look at his evidence. Nugent relies heavily on primary statistics, but does not bog down the reader with heavy analysis. Census reports and voting patterns combine with thesis papers and interviews to make Nugent’s mortar. His bricks are periodicals. Page after page of notes show a heavy reliance on Kansas newspapers that support his thesis that the Populists of Kansas were not only innocent of the charge of nativism, but that they were inclusive. He cites W. Scott Morgan and his History of the Wheel and Alliance (1891) to demonstrate the diversity of Populist leaders. He brings Hicks’s coverage of the Populist principles as stated in both St. Louis (1889) and Omaha (1892) that revolved around bimetallism, national ownership of rail, and the abolition of absentee land ownership.4
Charles Postel writes in The Populist Vision (2009) that, “[t]he claims made by Richard Hofstadter and other scholars that the Populists were an ominous source of anti-Semitism and intolerance have lost currency.”5 His notes show a nod to Nugent’s early work in this regard. Nugent’s book fares poorly when dealing with African-Americans and women. However, within the scope of his thesis that Kansas was a state filled with tolerant Populists, he has built a strong work. Even when taking into account the general nativism found in the United States during the Gilded Age we find the Populists of Kansas were “more receptive to foreign persons.”6
When students of history look to Populism, Nugent’s book is required reading. While there is room to argue the relative levels of anti-Semitism in Populism, it is undeniable that the revisionist treatment of the 1950s travelled too far. Students in sociological history would also do well to analyze this work as it relates to broader themes of race relations in the United States historically and their relevance to politics and community formation

[William Kirk · Rating 4 out of 5]

I went into this expecting to disagree with most of it, but I actually found Nugent very convincing and have gained a lot of understanding for my dissertation.

He was very grounded in primary source material, which meant he rarely speculated or over-reached, which was one of his main criticisms of Hofstadter’s revisionism. This is definitely a useful approach, but I think it slightly overlooks the human aspect of history- you can’t quantify an entire movement through what they wrote down. You can’t empathise with their fears and daily struggles by simply looking at the numbers. It also made it VERY boring and repetitive to read at times… hence why it took me so long to finish.

I also think that he, like most of the counter-revisionists, misunderstood Hofstadter, in that he essentially expands on Hof’s argument while claiming he is disagreeing with him! Hof claimed that antisemitism and racism were present within the Populist movement, but didn’t label the movement itself as antisemitic or racist. Nugent’s argument was that Hofstadter was wrong, and then explains how racism and antisemitism existed only on the fringes of the movement. It’s just hoity-toity intellectuals wanting to contribute something new, going in circles and not actually getting anywhere!!