The People’s Party National Convention of 1900 BY WAYNE FANEBUST
T
hroughout the last half of the 19th century, politics had a mesmerizing grip on America. The end of the bloody Civil War found the nation deeply divided with partisan and corrupt politics on a rampage, making the era one of anger and hatred. It was a time when politics was like a contact sport with hard fighting that turned old friends into bitter and lasting enemies. The terrible financial Panic of 1896 gave way to the worst depression in American history, with suffering on a scale that exceeded any like event of the past. And yet, for all its pain and chaos, some men believed that politics was the key to ending the crisis and re-uniting the country. It has been said that in the midst of a terrible crisis, people with talent and leadership skills will emerge; they will take charge and lead. The Civil War saw great men like Abraham Lincoln and generals
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HISTORY
U. S. Grant and Edwin Sherman lead the Union army to defeat the Southern Confederacy and put an end to slavery. It took another hundred years to defeat the ideology of slavery, but in the end, the idea was dead and America is better for it. Another momentous change took place during the final decades of the 19th century, resulting in political upheaval on an unprecedented scale. The Republican Party found itself a position of tremendous power following the end of the Civil War. The Democratic Party, having found favor with the Confederacy, was seen as almost traitorous. It was weak and vulnerable when compared to the party of Lincoln that favored creativity, invention, infrastructure and a growing middle-class that included homesteaders and veterans of the war. It was on the move toward the future while the Democratic Party was
shoved to the sidelines. Then in the early 1890s, an intervening force called Populism, or the People’s Party, emerged with a blast and purpose of its own. Its keystone belief was the coinage of silver money to compete with gold-based money that was preferred by Wall Street and big corporations. The People’s Party essentially settled into the shell left by the Democratic Party. Then a group of disillusioned Democrats, Silver Republicans and Populists came together, under a “fusionist” label, to challenge the Republicans who seemed to have forgotten the legacy of Lincoln. The campaign of 1896 pitted William McKinley, the big business Republican against William Jennings Bryan, who had sworn to represent the working people of America. After a whirl-wind campaign when some workers were told not to show
