Building a Populist Coalition in Texas, 1892-1896

By Worth Robert Miller and Stacy G. Ulbig

This article first appeared in the Journal of Southern History 74, no. 2 (May 2008): 255-96

 It is reprinted with the express permission of the Managing Editor.

More than a half century has passed since C. Vann Woodward argued that the success of the People's or Populist Party of the 1890s hinged upon construction of three somewhat improbable coalitions of the dispossessed: southerners and westerners, farmers and laborers, and blacks and poor whites in the South.[1]  The supposed rationale for such coalitions was the fact that the South and West both had colonial debtor economies in the 1890s, farmers and laborers shared a common status as producers, and blacks and poor southern whites frequently shared a common economic situation.  But the counter-influences of post Civil War sectionalism, rural-urban jealousies, and racism also were particularly strong in late nineteenth century South.  Despite these impediments, Populists experienced substantial success in bringing Woodward's coalitions to fruition in Texas.

Building a movement of the dispossessed in the Lone Star State in the 1890s was fraught with many difficulties.  Then as now, Texas was an exceptionally large and diverse state.  It is more than 800 miles from Brownsville on the Mexican border to the semi-arid expanses of the Texas Panhandle, and nearly as far from the Piney Woods of East Texas to El Paso.  Of the ten great soil types commonly recognized around the world, seven are found in abundance in Texas.[2]  The state was 85 percent rural in the 1890s.  Yet, cities as different as southern white evangelical dominated Dallas and overwhelmingly ethnic San Antonio experienced significant growth in the late nineteenth century.[3]  A mixture of whites from both the upper and plantation South, as well as a significant black population, gave the state a southern ambience.  But, people of Mexican, German, Czech, and Polish heritage both mingled with the native-born population and formed distinctive cultural areas of their own.[4]

 The People's Party in Texas and elsewhere billed itself as the party of small land holders and other producers in the tradition of American republicanism.  Although the course of Populist Party development differed somewhat from state to state, and certainly complexity characterized Texas and its politics in the 1890s, some generalizations can be made.  The scholarship on Populism over the past quarter century has particularly focused upon the influence of what modern scholars have labeled the republicanism of the American Revolution as refined through the democracy of Jefferson, Jackson, and Lincoln.  Application of this perspective has allowed historians to bring a coherence to the party's program that some earlier scholars labeled as "foggy" or a "subterfuge."[5]

 Republicanism was just as radical an idea in the late nineteenth century as it had been a century before.  Most Americans were still quite conscious of America's role as the vanguard of this movement worldwide.  It had been institutionalized as the quintessence of Americanism long before the 1890s.  Creating a republic in a world dominated by institutionalized privilege clearly committed the nation to maintaining an egalitarian society.  As Robert C. McMath Jr. has noted, An incipient movement culture embracing both communal solidarity and egalitarianism was widespread among small farmers even before the rise of the Farmers' Alliance or People's Party.[6]  Thus, Populists designed the land, transportation, and money planks of the 1892 Omaha Platform to encourage the widest expression of economic independence, particularly through widespread ownership of the land.

 Republicanism mandated an opposition to monopoly.  The success of republicanism depended upon the virtue of an intelligent and uncorrupted electorate.    Concentrated wealth corrupted politics.  Governmental favoritism, which Populists saw as corruption, unfairly established privilege, which in its consolidated form became aristocracy.  Hence, before dealing with the specific shape that reform might take, the Omaha Platform asked citizens to "determine whether we are to have a republic to administer."  It was this orientation that historian James Turner, for instance,  interpreted as "confusion" and "fuzziness" on the specifics of reform.[7]

         Populist appeals to the American republican tradition resonated with Texas voters to the extent that the People's Party developed into the major opposition to Democratic Party hegemony in Texas by the mid-1890s, securing 25 percent of the vote in 1892, 36 percent in 1894, and 44 perecent in 1896.  Growth in voter appeal, however, was not the only story.  Issues emerged and then receded in importance, commitments changed, and coalitions shifted over the years.  To better understand the motivations of those who cast their lot with the fledgling third party, it is necessary to explore who actually voted the Populist ticket of the 1890s in Texas.

 There have been two major empirical studies of who constituted the Texas Populist electorate:  Roscoe C. Martin, The People's Party in Texas (1933), and James Turner, "Understanding the Populists" (1980).[8]   Martin, a political scientist who labored before the advent of computers, provided a surprisingly comprehensive, although by today's standards impressionistic, study of voting patterns in 1890s Texas.  Even though it was a farmer party in an overwhelmingly rural state, he noted that "Populist strongholds were found in sections which were not favorable to farming."  Martin argued that the third party "found its greatest strength among the classes . . . (most affected by) economic diversity."   It "offered a haven to all who had been buffeted and treated unkindly in the game of life, or better said, in the game of politics."[9]

Historian James Turner, using some of the ideas and data provided by Martin, identified "the impact of economic distress on socially isolated farmers" as the primary cause for Populism's rise.[10]  Turner compared fifteen Populist "stronghold" counties with twelve "neighboring" Democratic ones. Turner chose the fifteen counties that returned Populist pluralities in three of the four gubernatorial races between 1892 and 1898 as his sample of Populist counties.[11]   But, in fact, each of the counties he chose went Populist in 1892 and remained Populist in 1894 and 1896.  Including the year 1898 neither added nor subtracted from his list.  The choice of these counties tied Turner's analysis of Populist support to the rather limited following that the People's Party developed in its very first statewide campaign.   The real significance of Texas Populism was that it grew well beyond this rather narrow 1892 following, a growth that Turner does not address.

Part of the difficulty scholars have encountered in examining the social context of Populism in Texas has been the sheer amount of data involved.  To provide an in-depth view of Texas Populist electorate of the 1890s, the present authors have employed both county and precinct-level data.   When using county-level data, the authors included all of the more than 230 Texas counties of the 1890s (including several counties organized during the 1890s and Greer County, which became part of Oklahoma in 1896).  Turner claimed in 1980 that "the loss of many precinct voting record prevents any survey of the state from penetrating below the county level."[12]  The authors, however, located complete or nearly complete precinct-level voting records for 130 of the 165 counties (79 percent) north of Corpus Christi (Nueces County) and east of the 100th meridian (eastern border of the Panhandle).  This includes 22 of the 27 counties (81 percent) that Turner encompassed in his analysis, although the records from three counties (Gonzales, Hood, and Rusk) are missing one election each.[13]  The People's Party was not organized and made no effort to secure votes south of Corpus Christi, and west Texas was lightly populated and had few farmers in the 1890s.

 The Democratic Party imposed a sometimes shaky but ultimately effective control of Texas politics after the overthrow of Reconstruction in 1873.  Conservatives held off challenges to their dominance from Republicans and a series of third parties (usually in coalition with Republicans) in the 1870s and 1880s.  Still, reform forces, both within and outside the dominant party, loomed heavily upon the horizon.  As the fledgling Southern Farmers' Alliance expanded in the mid-1880s, it inched closer to overt political action with its 1886 Cleburne Demands.  As Historian Lawrence Goodwyn has noted, with the Cleburne meeting farmers ceased to petition for redress by preceding each of their proposals with the words: "We Demand."[14]   Specifically, the Farmers' Alliance demanded railroad rate regulation, an end to rebates and pooling arrangements, monetary inflation through the use of both silver and greenbacks, and  measures to open land held for speculation to actual settlers.  The latter was a slap at both railroads and English land syndicates.  The Cleburne Demands also called for an improved mechanics lien law and recognition for trade unions and cooperative stores, indicative of the already close relationship between the Farmers' Alliance and the Knights of Labor.[15]  As Matthew Hild recently has shown, Alliancemen at Cleburne "practically adopted the Knights' Reading Platform."  The People's Party subsequently would do best in the South in states like Texas where farmer-labor coalitions already existed before the 1890s.[16]

The rise of the Southern Farmers' Alliance foreshadowed the splintering of Democratic Party hegemony in the 1890s.  A younger set of Democratic Party politicians, most notably Attorney General James Stephen Hogg, began to chart a middle course between old guard conservatives who dominated state politics in the 1880s and Alliance/third-party radicalism. 

 Generally labeled an early Progressive, Hogg endorsed a constitutional amendment to establish a regulatory railroad commission in 1890.  Attacking an unpopular extra-Texas institution like the railroads proved to be quite popular.  Hogg secured the Democratic nomination for governor with the support of merchants, young professionals, and, most importantly, the 200,000 member strong Farmers' Alliance.[17]   He sailed past his Republican and Prohibition Party opponents on election day, 1890, with 76 percent of the vote.  The railroad commission amendment passed with 71 percent of the votes.  Ecological regression analysis suggests that only 70 percent of the voters who cast their ballots for Hogg in 1890 also voted for the railroad commission amendment (see Table 1).[18]  Thus, nearly one-third of Democratic Party loyalists were not committed to Hogg's reform agenda.  Republicans split evenly between voting against the amendment and not voting on the issue at all.  Hogg and his supporters in the legislature subsequently pushed through enacting legislation that established a three-member, appointive railroad commission.  Despite the crucial support of the Farmers Alliance, Hogg declined to appoint any of its members to the new commission.[19]

Table 1

Voting in the 1890 Gubernatorial and 1890 Railroad Commission Elections

 

Governor

 

 

 

Democrat

Republican

Prohibition

Non-Voters

RR Commission

 

 

 

 

 

For

70%

0%

0%

1%

 

 

 

 

 

Against

9%

52%

6%

5%

 

 

 

 

 

Non-Voters

21%

49%

94%

94%

 

 

 

 

 

 Source:  Mike Kingston, Sam Attlesey and Mary G. Crawford, The Texas Almanac’s Political History of Texas (Austin, 1992), 62-65;Biennial Report of the Secretary of State of the State of Texas, 1890 (Austin 1891), 82-83.

 Note: The above percentages represent the voter makeup within each party or electoral grouping; for example, the “70%” in the table’s upper left-hand corner indicates that 70% of those who voted Democratic in the gubernatorial election voted for the Railroad Commission. Due to rounding, the column totals may sum to slightly more or less than 100%.


              Establishment of the Texas Railroad Commission in 1891 set the stage for one of the most colorful gubernatorial contests in Texas history B the Hogg-Clark race of 1892.  Hogg received the regular Democratic nomination for governor, while railroad attorney George Clark bolted and formed a fusion (coalition) with Republicans.  The more conservative wing of the Democratic Party joined Clark's forces.  The fact that this contest is not commonly known as the Hogg-Clark-Nugent race suggests that the Populist candidate, Thomas L. Nugent, and his party were not considered major contenders in 1892. 

 Compared to their western counterparts, Populists got off to a slow start in the South.  Southerners had resisted western efforts to commit the Farmers' Alliance to third party action at their Ocala Convention of December, 1890.  Southern delegates first wanted to test the possibility of reform within the Democratic Party.  Therefore, while newly formed third parties produced startling victories against Republicans in the Plains states, Alliancemen working within the southern Democratic Party claimed to have elected four governors and majorities in eight state legislatures.[20]  Only when disillusionment with the results of the 1891 legislatures set in would southern Alliancemen begin to commit themselves to third party action. 

In Texas, reformers within the Democratic Party such as Hogg produced some significant reform legislation in 1891, namely the railroad commission and a law restricting alien ownership of land.  But Democrats overplayed their hand by booting advocates of the Alliance's subtreasury plan out of their party in October 1891.  Only then did the People's Party in Texas begin organizing in earnest.[21]  The events of 1891 left Texas Alliancemen in a quandary.  Should they remain loyal to the reform wing of the Democratic Party and help save the appointive railroad commission?  Or should they move on to the fledgling People's Party in support of their subtreasury plan and an elective railroad commission?[22]  The necessity of defending the Texas Railroad Commission split the Alliance and retarded the third party's emergence in the Lone Star State.  Thus, the People's Party had a delayed start in the South, and especially in Texas.

  Table 2

Voting in the 1890 and 1892 Gubernatorial Elections

 

1890 Governor

 

 

 

Democrat

Republican

Prohibition

Non-Voters

Not Yet Eligible

1892 Governor

 

 

 

 

 

 

Democrat

47%

9%

73%

17%

0%

 

 

 

 

 

 

Republican

14%

52%

0%

25%

28%

 

 

 

 

 

 

Populist

38%

0%

4%

0%

0%

 

 

 

 

 

 

Lily White Republican

0%

0%

0%

0%

0%

 

 

 

 

 

 

Prohibition

0%

0%

10%

0%

0%

 

 

 

 

 

 

Non-Voters

1%

40%

11%

56%

72%

 

 

 

 

 

 

 Source: Mike Kingston, Sam Attlesey and Mary G. Crawford, The Texas Almanac’s Political History of Texas (Austin, 1992), 62-65; Biennial Report of the Secretary of State of the State of Texas, 1892 (Austin 1893, 92-97.

Estimates show the Texas Democratic Party splintered badly in 1892.  Ecological regressions suggest Hogg retained slightly less than half of his 1890 supporters, while Clark got 14 percent, and Nugent received nearly 38 percent (see Table 2).  Despite the third party's slow start in Texas, the magnitude of Nugent's poll was a serious blow to Hogg's leadership of reform forces the Lone Star State.  The GOP fared little better.  Almost 40 percent of the 1890 Republican voters rejected fusion with conservative Democrats and declined to vote for governor in 1892.  Republicans also fused with, or supported the candidates of, the Populist Party in five of the state's thirteen U.S. Congressional districts.[23]   While fusion combined the ballots cast for different parties, vote brokering by GOP leaders frequently did not play well with the party's rank and file.

In the presidential balloting where fusion did not exist, Democrats held on to 62 percent of their 1890 poll, while Populists received 36 percent (see Table 3).[24]   Hence the People's Party in its initial statewide campaign drew heavily from former Democrats.[25]  Clark captured a majority of those eligible voters who declined to vote in 1890.  These probably were traditional Republicans who had not bothered to cast a ballot in a non-competitive, off-year election.  The lure of the 1892 presidential race and competitive statewide races brought them back into the political realm

                                                                 

Table 3

Voting in the 1890 Gubernatorial and 1892 Presidential Election

 

1890 Governor

 

 

 

Democrat

Republican

Prohibition

Non-Voters

Not Yet Eligible

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

1892 PrPresident

Democrat

62%

0%

62%

33%

29%

 

 

 

 

 

 

Republican

0%

57%

0%

8%

7%

 

 

 

 

 

 

Populist

36%

0%

17%

0%

48%

 

 

 

 

 

 

Prohibition

1%

0%

19%

0%

1%

 

 

 

 

 

 

Lily White Republican

0%

1%

0%

1%

5%

 

 

 

 

 

 

Non-Voters

2%

42%

2%

58%

12%

 

 

 

 

 

 

Source: Mike Kingston, Sam Attlesey and Mary G. Crawford, The Texas Almanac’s Political History of Texas (Austin, 1992), 62-65; Biennial Report of the Secretary of State of the State of Texas, 1892 (Austin 1893), 58-87.

In the gubernatorial balloting, Populists picked up 35 percent of those who became eligible to vote with the 1892 election (21 and 22 year olds) compared to the Democratic Party's 27 percent (the estimates in the presidential balloting are 48 percent and 29 percent, respectively).  This suggests the youngest voters found Populist reform issues especially relevant to their interests.  In particular, Populists spoke to the youngest voter's fears about securing freehold tenure of the land.  American tradition held that widespread land ownership was necessary to the survival of individual liberties and the continued vitality of republicanism.  Thomas L. Nugent, universally recognized as the leader of Texas Populism, proclaimed the land to be "nature's divinely given opportunity to work."[26]  His friend, J.G.H. Buck, agreed that the land issue "had no rival."  God had laid upon man "the necessity to labor in order to satisfy his wants" by "graciously furnishing him the material for labor" in the form of the land.  Buck surely spoke for many Texas farmers when he proclaimed that "all men have an equal and inalienable right to the use of the land, and that any tradition, custom, or power that denies or prevents this right is morally wrong." [27] James H. "Cyclone" Davis, the third party's most traveled orator, alluded to the growing gap between rich and poor when he argued that Populists sought to establish "an aristocracy of industry, merit, and honor, instead of an aristocracy of wealth, arrogance, and idleness."[28]

 Quantitative analysis of the 1892 state and national elections in Texas suggests that Populists owed a lot to their origins in the Southern Farmers' Alliance and Knights of Labor.  Counties that claimed an Alliance local in 1890 correlated strongly with the Populist vote.  The Knights-Populist correlation was weaker, but significant.  Conversely, Clark's following showed a strongly negative correlation to sub-Alliances and Knights locals.  Hogg received some Alliance and Knights votes, but not as many as did the People's Party.[29]

 What motivated voters to support the Populist ticket?  James Turner has argued that those who became Populists "seem commonly to have lived on the fringe of the dominant society."[30]  Feelings of social isolation,  made such people particularly likely to join rural social associations like the Farmers' Alliance.  Historian John Dibbern agreed that the loneliness endemic to rural life was a major factor in the ability of the Farmers' Alliance to recruit members.[31]  Samuel Webb, on the other hand, has shown that Alabama Populists were "committed to their land, their farms, their families, and their neighbors."[32]  Robert C. McMath Jr. has convincingly detailed a much more active social life among late-nineteenth century agrarians than Turner or Dibbern recognized, which is consistent with Webb's analysis.[33] 

 Turner's contention about Texas Populists residing on the fringes of mainstream society does have some validity for Texas in 1892.  But his assertion must be qualified.  Using precinct-level data, the Populist vote shows a negative correlation with both urban areas and railroads.  It is important to note, however, that the strongest negative correlation was with the number of rail lines serving a precinct.  Turner has argued that Texas Populists lived outside the orbit of urban areas.  It would be more accurate to say that Texas Populists lived outside areas where the Texas Railroad Commission was an major issue in 1892.[34]   Hogg had a weaker correlation, while Clark voters predictably positively correlated with railroads and urban residence.[35]  This suggests that many urban boosters feared railroad regulation might stunt development, and hence opposed the Populists.  In attempting to circumvent middlemen with their cooperative efforts, the Farmers' Alliance had threatened the livelihood of town elites.[36] 

 To further his argument for social isolation, James Turner argued that his Populist counties had fewer religious denominations, and a smaller proportion of their population were church members, than "neighboring" Democratic counties.[37]   While this is true of his sample, using statewide data, Democratic counties had only a slightly larger (but not statistically significant) percent of church members.  Neither was there a significant difference in the number of denominations.  In fact, statewide Populist counties averaged slightly more denominations than Democratic ones did.[38]   As Robert C. McMath has noted, "the Alliance was founded by rural people who were part of a dense network of churches, schools, lodges, and extended family groups."  His scholarship has revealed a substantially less atomistic social life for the era's farmers than Turner has suggested.[39]

 Although Texas had a substantial ethnic population in the 1890s, Populists did not secure a significant proportion of this vote in 1892, except for black voters in a few isolated localities.  The third party did best among white southern-born farmers, particularly those who originated from plantation states like Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, and Mississippi.[40]  These farmers probably had not been planters, but instead slaveless poor whites from poorer soil regions.[41]  Although Czechs, Germans, and African Americans each made up noticeable portions of the Texas electorate in the 1890s, and Populists made some efforts to convert each, the results were negligible.  Only in a few localities, like Nacogdoches and San Augustine Counties in East Texas did African Americans make up any significant proportion of the Populist electorate in 1892.  The third party's recruiting efforts among Mexican heritage Texans was even more anemic.[42]

 Conservative Democrat George Clark, who fused with the GOP for the gubernatorial race, picked up the lion's share of the ethnic vote in 1892, although James S. Hogg showed surprising support among blacks.  This could be attributed either to his public stance against lynching or to voter fraud.  The dominant Democratic Party was notorious in this era for manipulating both the black and Mexican vote through bribery and/or intimidation.  Clark's deeper pockets, however, may have helped him offset some of the usual Democratic Party advantage in 1892.[43]   In the 1892 presidential balloting, where fusion did not exist, Republicans did well with Germans, many of whom had been Unionists during the Civil War.  Democrats, on the other hand, polled well with Mexicans, who had traditionally supported the dominant party.  There were strong positive correlations between Clark's vote and all urban occupation groups in the gubernatorial balloting.   But in the presidential balloting, Democrats and Republicans split these votes.  This suggests that urban Democrats went over to Clark on the railroad commission issue. This issue had united urban Democrats and Republicans.  But prospects for a lasting coalition that would benefit the GOP were slim as the railroad commission receded in importance.

 Texas Populists appealed for African American support primarily on the basis of shared economic interests.   As one white Texas Populist put it, "They are in a ditch just like we are."[44]  This theme resonated across the entire South.[45]  Georgia Congressman Thomas E. Watson, for instance, explained to black and white southerners that "you are kept apart that you may be separately fleeced of your earnings."[46]   Further, Samuel Webb has argued that "anyone who left the Democratic Party to vote for Populists . . . said in effect, that white unity was less important than other issues."[47]  Populist appeals for African American help, however, did not imply social equality.  Bruce Palmer claimed that white Populists were just as paternalistic toward the black masses as conservatives.[48]  In his biography of Texas black Populist John B. Rayner, Gregg Cantrell made a convincing case for Rayner himself having an ideological predisposition toward this kind of relationship.[49]

 Texas Populists, as elsewhere in the South, preferred to appeal directly to black voters, particularly through the Colored Farmers' Alliance.  Most Populists considered black Republican politicos to be corrupt.[50]   Black Republican leaders, for their part, were hesitant to leave the GOP, for in doing so they would be giving up leadership positions that they were not likely to reacquire in the People's Party.  Eventually, however, white Populists in most southern states found it necessary to deal with GOP leaders.[51]  This was especially true in North Carolina, where southern Republicans were strongest.  In his recent biography of North Carolina Populist Marion Butler, James Hunt argued that the third party leadership actually tried to discourage black recruitment at first for fear of offending potential white recruits.[52]  In contrast, Texas Populist leaders openly solicited African American help from the very inception of the People's Party.  Although the GOP tottered toward insignificance in Texas in the 1890s, Populist recruitment of African Americans did not bring in enough black votes to allow Populist leaders to completely avoid cooperation with Republicans.  Texas Populists and Republicans, for instance, apparently engaged in some form of deal making in five US Congressional races in 1892 and six in 1894.  In 1896 fusion occurred for statewide offices, presidential electors, and four US Congressional races.[53] Texas blacks may have been just as interested in the freehold tenure orientation of the People's Party as were whites.  But many blacks obviously found loyalty to their old party, physical protection, and social discrimination more important.  Where local white Populists, especially sheriffs, protected blacks and openly recognized their communities, such as in Grimes, Nacogdoches, and San Augustine Counties, the third party frequently was successful with black voters.[54]  Otherwise, white Populist leaders seemed more disposed to solicit black help than black voters were willing to give it.

 The Texas Populist vote of 1892 was overwhelmingly rural.  It can be associated with counties that had greater proportions of farmers, particularly farm owners.[55] James Turner's argument that Populist counties tended toward self-sufficient farming, however, needs to be clarified.  Third party supporters lived in counties that had undergone rapid agricultural development. Such counties had higher proportions of non-Texas-born white farmers (who were more likely to have been recently settled on the land) and can be associated with the greatest increase in the percent of improved acres during the 1880s and 1890s.[56]  Sheldon Hackney and Samuel Webb confirm similar patterns for Alabama.[57]  But the correlations between percent improved acres in a county and partisan choice in Texas in 1892 are insignificant.[58]  Thus, counties tending toward Populism in the Lone Star State had caught up in development.  In fact, counties with the greatest proportion of improved acres planted in cotton tended toward the People's Party.  Thus, Populist counties were more fully involved in commercial agriculture than Turner suggests.

 Research on agriculture in other states suggests that Texas was not a anomaly.  In Kansas, Populists were strongest in the central part of the state where farmers had more recently settled on the land.  Peter Argersinger has shown that Kansas Populist farmers were more likely than others to be mortgaged.  Likewise, they had lower per capita assessed valuations.  In Marshall County, South Dakota, John Dibbern found Alliancemen (who presumably later became Populists) were newly propertied men concerned with providing for their families, who were overburdened with debt.[59]

 As in Kansas, Texas Populists showed a small but significant correlation with the percent of acres planted in corn.[60]  The crop, however, was less of a commercial enterprise in Texas than Kansas.  Texas farmers primarily used corn for animal feed and home consumption in the 1890s.  This suggests they were farm owners or mortgagers and lived where relatively more pasture was available B in other words, on poorer farm land.[61]  Tenant farmers in the South usually were required to grow cotton only.  The correlation between the Soil Capability Index employed by county agricultural agents in the twentieth century and the 1892 Populist vote was weak, but significant and positive for poorer land.[62]  Yet as Turner noted, simple poverty does not explain the appeal of Populism.  Texas Populists did best where farms were smaller, and thus were more accurately categorized as family farmers.  But on a per acre basis, Populist farmers appear to have been just as productive as Democrats.[63]  Cotton was a very democratic crop.  In Kansas, Peter Argersinger likewise found a negative correlation between the value of farm products per farm and Populism.[64]  The third party in Texas was strongest in 1892 where rapid economic change, particularly change caused through the appearance of the railroad within the previous decade, caused a transition between self-sufficiency and entry into the marketplace, with the accompanying threat of tenancy for those unable to keep up.   Sheldon Hackney noted a similar trend in Alabama where "rapid economic change threatened the way of life of small independent farmers."[65]  As Samuel Webb also noted for Alabama, Populists "resented subversion of settled forms of life by . . . capitalist interlopers."[66]

Turner's analysis of Texas Populist voters reveals some significant insights for the 1892 campaign.  But it fails to address the diversity within Texas.  Roscoe C. Martin long ago noted that third party strength was not uniform throughout the state.  He argued that counties favoring Populism had smaller farm holdings and were situated on land that was less desirable for farming.  The United States Department of Agriculture has designated fifteen separate Land Resource Areas based upon soil, geology, physiography, vegetation, climate, and land use in Texas (see Map 1).  Martin emphasized the differences in these regions in his analysis of who voted Populist. [67]

  The Blackland Prairie, which stretched in a narrow strip from the Oklahoma border north of Dallas down to San Antonio, contained the state's most desirable farm land.  A smaller, separate strip of Blackland Prairie stretched from about forty miles east of San Antonio to just north of Houston.  The main section of Blackland was settled mostly by southern whites, while the smaller section also contained significant mixes of Germans, Czechs, and African Americans.  The soil was highly productive and able to withstand heavy and continuous cropping in both areas.   Because almost all of this rich land was tillable, farmers tended toward a high degree of specialization in cotton.  They maintained smaller livestock herds and grew fewer feed crops.  Both Martin and Turner argued that Populism found a cool reception in the Blackland Prairie.[68]  But the third party vote in this region in 1892 was only slightly below the statewide average (see Table 4).   Here, in this region of highly fertile soil, Populists appear to be those losing out in the struggle for economic independence.  The third party correlation with tenancy was stronger than with farm ownership.  But, there were no significant correlations between the Populist vote in 1892 and the presence of railroads, which were more numerous here than anywhere else in Texas.[69] 

Table 4

Party Vote for Governor 1892-1896 by Land Resource Area

 

Statewide

Blackland

Post Oak

Bottom-lands

Piney

Cross

Grand

All Other

 

Prairie

Strip

Woods

Timbers

Prairie

Areas

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

1892

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

  Democrat

44%

44%

41%

41%

47%

48%

45%

41%

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

  Republican

31%

32%

32%

37%

24%

19%

25%

39%

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

  Populist

25%

24%

27%

23%

29%

33%

30%

20%

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

1894

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

  Democrat

50%

49%

43%

43%

50%

51%

50%

51%

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

  Republican

13%

13%

19%

21%

13%

3%

5%

17%

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

  Populist

37%

38%

38%

37%

38%

46%

45%

32%

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

1896

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

  Democrat

56%

55%

51%

53%

56%

57%

55%

57%

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

  Populist

44%

45%

49%

48%

44%

43%

45%

44%

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Source: Biennial Report of the Secretary of State of the State of Texas, 1892 (Austin 1893), 58-87; Biennial Report of the Secretary of State of the State of Texas, 1894 (Austin 1895), 249-52; Biennial Report of the Secretary of State of the State of Texas, 1896 (Austin 1897), 65-68; General Soil Map of Texas, 1973 comp. by Curtis L. Godfrey, Gordon S. McKee, and Harvey Oakes Texas Agricultural Experiment Station, Texas A & M University in cooperation with Soil Conservation Service, United States Department of Agriculture.

 Note: The above percentages represent the percentage of the major party vote that each party received.   Lily-White Republican, Prohibition, and National Democratic Party ballots were excluded.


            
The Post Oak Strip paralleled the Blackland Prairie to the east.  Here the soils were sandy and covered with timber.  Most of the farming was done on relatively small, interior prairies that had fairly productive soils.  Farmers grew both corn and cotton in this region.   Essentially the same tools were used with both crops, and corn cultivation did not compete substantially with cotton for labor.  Farms were smaller and farm owners more numerous in the Post Oak Strip.  Here, precincts with higher proportions of farm owners tended toward Populism.
[70]  The third party correlation with tenancy was insignificant.  Urban areas were noticeably smaller in the Post Oak Strip.  Thus, precinct-level balloting showed little of the rural-urban or railroad-hinterland dichotomy described by Turner.

 Rich alluvial Bottomlands of the Brazos, Colorado, and Trinity Rivers cross the Post Oak Strip in a northwest to southeast direction.  This was the pre-Civil War plantation region, and it still contained a large African American agrarian population in the 1890s.  The Bottomlands contained twelve of the state's sixteen black-majority counties.[71]  Here the Populist appeal on the land issue resonated best with southern-born whites, who made up the majority of farm owners in this region.  The large black population conversely proved ambivalent toward the third party in 1892.[72]

 Between the Post Oak Strip and Louisiana border lay the Piney Woods.  Sandy soil, rolling to hilly topography, comparatively heavy rainfall, and the persistence of timber gave the fullest encouragement to small-scale operations.   Small farms, small irregular-shaped fields, small tools, and the use of large amounts of fertilizer characterized this region.  Lack of good pasture discouraged extensive livestock production and, thus, feed crops.  Here, a significant negative correlation appears between voting Populist and the number of railroad lines serving a precinct.  It was weaker, however, than the statewide correlation.  Populations of both African American and whites born in the plantation South were more numerous in this region.  The Populist correlation with farm ownership was weaker in the Piney Woods than in the aforementioned regions.[73]  Populists in the Piney Woods were less well established and thus more vulnerable to the economic dislocations of the day.

 The People's Party did best in the Cross Timbers and Grand Prairie areas to the west of Dallas and Waco.  The Cross Timbers is similar to the Post Oak Strip in that hardwoods are interspersed with prairies.  The region, however, is dryer.  This is where the Southern Farmers' Alliance originated.  Again agriculture was undertaken on the prairies and creek bottoms where farmers clustered in distinct communities that encouraged community-spirited mutuality.[74]   Cotton was the only important source of income before 1915.  Between the eastern and western Cross Timbers lay the Grand Prairie, an almost treeless, rolling prairie with dark, heavy, but stony soils.  Cotton and small grains competed for farmland here.  Although the area was much better for farming than the Cross Timbers, Populism flourished in both areas.  The balance between settlers from the upper South and plantation states was closer in these regions than elsewhere in Texas.  But birthplace played little role in political preference.  Farm ownership can be associated with the third party vote in these regions, and precincts that went Populist showed a strong and consistently negative correlation to the number of railroad lines serving the precinct.[75]  Railroads, which brought the dislocations associated with rapid economic development, first appeared in the area west of Dallas and Waco in the decade before the Populist Revolt.  The closing of the open range at the same time, likewise, raised the issue of landlordism and land monopoly.[76]  Forty percent of Turner's Populist counties lay in this region.  Thus, his analysis relied heavily upon this region's economic and political dynamics.

 While the presence of railroads appeared to be a crucial factor in identifying who voted Populist in the Cross Timbers and Grand Prairie, this does not seem to be the case elsewhere in Texas.  The correlations in the Blackland Prairie, Bottomlands, and Post Oak Strip are insignificant, while Populists only weakly correlated with the presence of railroads in the Piney Woods.  The Populist appeal in 1892 appears to be strongest among farmers whose situation left them most vulnerable to market forces. In less fertile agricultural areas, such as the Piney Woods, Post Oak Strip, Cross Timbers, and Grand Prairie, Populist voters appear to be white farm owners. Their profits margins were smaller, leaving them more susceptible to market fluctuations.  In the more commercially dynamic Blackland Prairie, Populists appeared to be white tenant farmers who had already lost out in the struggle for land ownership.  Although the Bottomlands were comparatively more developed, tenant farmers in this region tended to be African Americans whose commitment to the GOP remained strong.  Here, white farm owners supported the People's Party in 1892.

 James Turner interpreted the 1892 Texas Populist's rurality as a sign of isolation from the mainstream of American life in a time when most of the nation was quickly being integrated into the national culture.  "The central culture was swallowing more and more of the diverse local cultures," he explained.  Isolated, "backward," people like the Populists remained the last outpost of the old America.[77]  Certainly the dominant currents of late nineteenth century American thought, namely social Darwinism, laissez faire capitalism, and business boosterism, designated the republicanism of Populism old fashioned and even retrogressive.  These newer concepts underpinned the thinking of the Gilded Age's economic and political elite.

 Ownership of the land, which made an uncorrupted, independent citizenry the backbone of the nation, was central to the concept of American republicanism.  Several scholars, including Robert McMath and Bruce Palmer, have emphasized the importance of the third party's land plank to Texas Populism.[78]  Throughout Populism's heyday, both state and national third party platforms demanded government reclaim lands held by railroads and other corporations in excess of what they needed to conduct their business, that non-resident aliens be prohibited from owning land, and  that where the conditions of a grant went unfulfilled, the land would be forfeited and opened to homesteading.[79]  It was property holding that established a citizen's economic independence.  The widening gap between rich and poor that manifested itself in growing tenancy, they believed, would destroy the republic by driving freeholders into a dependent subservience reminiscent of European peasantry.   In Texas in 1892, Populists drew most strongly from small farm owners whose status may have seemed timorous, and to a lesser degree from those who had recently fallen into tenancy.  Populist strength among new voters in 1892 probably reflected the concern of youthful Texans about ever owning a farm of their own.  It was proto-Populists in the 1880s who coined the phrases "Robber Baron" and "Cattle Baron."[80]  Their allusions to aristocracy were not just literary license.  They believed the economic trends they witnessed were creating a new aristocracy.

 Late-nineteenth-century railroads were the purveyors of more than just commercial goods.  They also brought the newer, more exploitative culture that threatened the very promise of the older America.  As Dorothy Ross has noted, there was a dualistic intellectual nature to American culture during the late nineteenth century.  Progressive historians of the early twentieth century clearly understood this and took the side of the Populists.   Critics of the Progressive historians frequently have adopted the derisive attitude of Populism's contemporary foes, perhaps without recognizing the underlying premises of such criticism.[81]

 Thomas L. Nugent, the Populist candidate for governor of Texas in 1892, recognized that the railroad commission would be the primary issue of the campaign and, thus, considered the Populist's first statewide effort to be educational.[82]   The conservative Dallas Morning News, however, warned that the Populists' "earnestness, bordering upon religious fanaticism, has a touch of the kind of metal (sic) that made Cromwell's round heads (sic) so terrible a force in the revolution that ended with bringing the head of Charles I to the block.  It would be supreme folly to despise and belittle a movement that is leavened with such moral stuff as this."[83]  With the railroad commission issue settled, Alliancemen who had remained loyal to the Democratic Party in 1892 might abandon the dominant party afterward.  Populist recruitment, thus, proceeded unabated.  One gauge of Populist growth was the significant expansion of newspapers devoted to furthering the third-party effort.  Editors almost always played a significant role in the local leadership of the third party.  Populists could claim the loyalty of only seventeen newspapers in Texas in 1892.  It would grow to seventy five by 1895.[84]

 A major factor in the rapid growth of the People's Party after 1892 was general discontent with the national economy.  The Panic of 1893 clearly was the worst of America's early industrial period.  At its low-water mark, economic activity declined about 25 percent.  By the end of 1893, fifteen thousand businesses had closed, and the prices for most farm products (including cotton) had dropped below the cost of production.[85]  Northeastern fiscal conservatives attributed the panic to uncertainty about the currency resulting from the Sherman Silver Purchase Act of 1890, which mandated that the federal government purchase certain quantities of silver with notes that could then be tuned in for either silver or gold.  Between 1890 and 1893, the redemption of treasury certificates caused federal gold reserves to decline by nearly $132 million.  As reserves neared $100 million, entrepreneurs questioned the soundness of the currency and became timid in their investments.  In 1893 President Grover Cleveland called a special session of Congress, and after an acrimonious debate, secured repeal of the law. [86] 

  Men of all parties in the South and West denounced Cleveland's repeal of the Sherman Act.  Since the Civil War, the nation's volume of business had tripled, while money in circulation had increased less than 50 percent.  The resulting deflation had devastating effects upon the prices that farmers received for their products.  Reducing the volume of money further would only aggravate an already desperate situation.  Repeal of the Sherman Silver Purchase Act provided Populists with a dramatic issue to promote.  Because easterners dominated both mainstream parties, only the People's Party had endorsed free silver in its national and state platforms in 1892.  Thus, Populists labeled the repeal a Wall Street plot to make bankers rich and set out to reap the rewards that their pro-silver stance should receive in a state like Texas.[87]

             The onset of depression and the popularity of the silver issue in Texas raised serious concerns among Democratic Party leaders about the rapid growth of the People's Party.  In January 1894 Governor Hogg offered an olive branch to Clark supporters.  The resulting Democratic Harmony Meeting of March 1894 resolved all outstanding differences between the Hogg and Clark Democrats.  The move proved prophetic for the Democratic leadership as the Populist vote increased by 40 percent in 1894.   The increase was not uniform, but it was statewide.[88]

 The People's Party became the major opposition party in Texas in 1894, polling almost three times as many votes as the GOP.  Despite Clark's return, Charles Culberson, the Democratic gubernatorial candidate, gained only 16,681 over Hogg's 1892 ballot.[89]   He picked up 69 percent of Hogg's and 40 percent of Clark's 1892 vote (see Table 5).   Thomas L. Nugent again headed the Populist ticket.  He retained 87 percent of his 1892 voters, gained 13 percent of Hogg's 1892 ballots, and 20 percent of new voters.  Populists also picked up 10 percent of those who voted for Clark and the 1892 Republican national ticket, probably African Americans.  The GOP in Texas was near collapse.  W. K. Makemson, the 1894 Republican candidate, retained only 45 percent of Clarks 1892 votes.[90]  More ominously for the recently reunited Democrats, Culberson won the 1894 election with only a plurality of the votes cast.  Continued Populist recruitment, or fusion with Republicans, could very easily give the third party the crucial election of 1896.[91]

Table 5

Voting in the 1892 and 1894 Gubernatorial Elections

 

1892 Governor

 

 

 

Democrat

Republican

Populist

Lily White Republican

Prohibition

Non-Voters

Not Yet Eligible

1894 Governor

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Democrat

69%

40%

13%

0%

0%

10%

13%

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Republican

0%

45%

0%

0%

0%

7%

16%

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Populist

13%

10%

87%

0%

11%

7%

20%

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Lily White Republican

0%

5%

0%

17%

20%

0%

0%

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Prohibition

0%

0%

0%

13%

7%

0%

0%

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Non-Voters

17%

0%

0%

70%

62%

76%

51%

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

                             

Source: Biennial Report of the Secretary of State of the State of Texas, 1892 (Austin 1893, 92-97; Biennial Report of the Secretary of State of the State of Texas, 1894 (Austin 1895), 249-52

 The People's Party in Texas broadened its base of support substantially with the statewide elections of 1894.   New recruits included former Alliancemen who had remained loyal to the dominant party on the railroad commission issue in 1892, former Democratic Party silverites, and urban laborers.  This was a sharp contrast to Alabama, where Sheldon Hackney found little change in the pattern of voting for the third party between 1892 and 1894.[92]  In Texas, Populist gained significantly more support in railhead towns and their environs.  This is where unionized laborers resided.[93]  The third party also gained strength among voters in areas where urban residence had not been important in 1892, particularly the Bottomlands, Blackland Prairie, and Post Oak Strip.[94]  These probably were Alliancemen who had remained loyal to Hogg on the railroad commission issue in 1892.  But with that issue settled, they chose to abandon the dominant party for Populism in 1894.  Populist Harry Tracy contended in 1915 that Hogg and the railroad commission issue held as many as 50,000 Alliancemen loyal to the Democratic Party in 1892.[95] 

 There is evidence of an even greater migration of non-Alliancemen to the third party in 1894.  The state Democratic platform of 1894 endorsed President Cleveland's pro-gold standard policies.[96]  This would drive more prosperous farmers hurt by the depression of the mid-1890 into the Populist fold.  It appears that more highly commercialized farmers on better land were migrating to the third party.    Populists retained the support of farm owners and sharecroppers, and increased their appeal among the more prosperous cash tenants.  But, the third party's correlation with poorer soils decreased into insignificance as more prosperous farmers joined.[97]

 George Clark's base of support in 1892 had been urban and ethnic.  His return to the Democratic Party in 1894 helped the dominant party with these elements.  The GOP became more rural and less ethnic (except for African Americans), particularly losing Mexican-born Texans to the Democratic Party.  Culberson also lost many of the African American voters that Hogg had attracted in 1892.  Populists gained a bit among non-Texas-born southerners, their strongest voting base.  But most African Americans remained loyal to the GOP.[98]

 The People's Party also gained among all urban occupation groups in 1894.  This was particularly true of railroad workers.[99]  The Pullman Strike of mid-1894 involved some Texas workers.  Counties with a Knights of labor local likewise correlated better with the Populist vote in 1894 than before.  Even more damaging was the state platform's endorsement of President Cleveland's use of federal troops to break the strike.  Populist spokesmen nationwide provided substantial verbal support for labor's efforts in 1894.  As Matthew Hild has recently noted that long before 1894 there was an incipient alliance between farmers and industrial workers that insured no serious obstacles to farmer-laborer unity would develop in Texas.[100]

Invigorated by their gains in 1894, Texas Populists looked forward to the crucial presidential election year of 1896 with great confidence.  One sure sign the People's Party was on the rise was the defection of several prominent Democrats to the third party.  Former Attorney General W. M. "Buck" Walton joined the Populists in late 1895.  Ex-Lieutenant Governor Barnett Gibbs followed him in early 1896, even though he pointedly remained skeptical about the party's subtreasury plan.[101]  In response, Democrats and Republicans throughout the South and West scrambled to get their parties committed to free silver.  The Congressional elections of 1894 had been especially disastrous for incumbent Democrats in the northern and western sections of the nation.  They had gained their first majorities in Congress since before the Civil War in 1892, only to have them swept away two years later.[102]

 Sensing the rising tide for their party, the Populist National Executive Committee set the date for the third party's national convention after that of the Democrats and Republicans.  The GOP was strongest in the region from Maine to Iowa, which favored gold, and Democrats had a two-thirds rule for national nominations that virtually ensured President Cleveland could force a compromise on the presidential nomination.  Populists hoped to gain the support of both Democratic and Republican silverites when the old parties nominated men who opposed or waffled on the silver issue.[103]

Another sign that Populism in Texas was on the rise came in April 1896 with a special election to replace a deceased United States congressman in south Texas.  The twenty-eight county Eleventh District was not very fertile ground for Populism.  It stretched from just south of San Antonio to the Mexican border and had a heavily ethnic population, mostly of Mexican descent.  Geographically, the district included most of the Rio Grande Plain and a portion of the Gulf Coastal Plain.  Populists had run behind statewide averages in both regions in 1892 and 1894.  In addition, a torrential downpour on election day probably discouraged many farmers from trekking to the polls.  Voter turnout was 30 percent lower than in November 1894.  Democrats won the election with 54 percent of the vote.  Still the Populist candidate gained over the party's 1894 showing, carrying 10 of the district's twenty eight counties.  Both Democrats and Republicans received more than half of their vote from the seven southernmost counties in the region.  Populists had never attempted to organize in these counties, and the old parties had mercilessly manipulated the vote in this region for decades.  Charges of fraud had been particularly substantial in 1894.[104]  When these counties are excluded from consideration, the Populists moved from 32 percent of the three-way vote in 1894 to 39 percent in April, 1896.  Democrats, on the other hand, won only 42 percent of the vote.  In Wilson County, where the third party had recognized the Mexican-American community by placing one of their number on their local ticket in 1892 and 1894, Populists won with 62 percent of the vote.  In bordering Karnes County, Populists carried the hinterland Polish communities of Panna Maria and Czestohowa with nearly 80 percent of the vote. They lost, however, in the railhead town of Falls City, which also had a significant Polish population.[105]  Still, by 1896 Catholic Polish-American farmers were voting in very much the same fashion as Protestant Anglo farmers.  These advances with traditionally Democratic-leaning ethnic voters suggest the third party had broadened its appeal significantly since 1894.  The third party clearly was still on the rise south of San Antonio, and almost certainly statewide, as late as April, 1896.

 The Republican National Convention met in St. Louis in June 1896 and nominated William McKinley of Ohio for president.  As expected, the GOP also endorsed the gold standard.   When Democrats met a month later, however, Cleveland operatives quickly lost control of their convention to reform forces, who nominated William Jennings Bryan and endorsed free silver.  The third-party's leaders had overestimated Cleveland's control of the Democratic Party.  Populists, thus, were left  with the Hobson's choice of running their own separate presidential ticket, dividing the silver forces and throwing the election to the GOP, or committing party suicide by endorsing the Democratic national ticket.  Because Texas Populism was still on the rise, the Lone Star delegation strongly promoted the idea of a separate third party ticket.  After much acrimony, however, the Populist National Convention also nominated Bryan for president, but rejecting the conservative Democratic vice presidential nominee, Arthur M. Sewall, they saddled Bryan with Populist Thomas E. Watson of Georgia as his running mate on the Populist ticket.  Although this created a distinct third party ticket, fusion arrangements would be worked out at the state level everywhere they mattered. 

 Most recent accounts of the demise of Populism lay at least some of the blame on the 1896 presidential nomination.  Western Populists had formed fusions with Democrats in the past and were anxious to do so again.  Southern Democrat's embrace of Bryan and free silver, however, threatened to lure recent Populist converts back to their old allegiances in Dixie.   Democrats were the entrenched elite that Populists sought to overthrow in the South, thus party survival in the South demanded that the third party reaffirm its separate identity.  Texans formed the core of Populist opposition to Bryan's nomination.  As Populist Henry Demarest Lloyd noted after the convention, Amore than silver, more than anti-monopoly, the issue with (Texas Populists) is the elementary right to political manhood. The issue in many parts of the South is even more elementary -- the right to life itself, so bitter is the feeling of the Old Democracy against these upstarts from the despised masses of the whites."[106]

Neither were Texas Populists willing to prune their appeal to just the silver issue at a time when the third party in their state was still on the rise.   Determined to continue the struggle against Democrats, the Texas third party leadership formed an informal, but obvious, fusion with Republicans that promised to give Populist votes for president to William McKinley in return for GOP endorsement of the Populist's state ticket.   The problem with executing this fusion, however, was that precinct captains, not the statewide leaders, had responsibility for printing the ballots, except in cities of more than 10,000.  The Population of these cities combined, however, made up only 10 percent of the state's population in 1890.[107]

 Texas Populists split into warring factions over the issue of fusing with Republicans for state offices in 1896.  The third party had long sought black votes, both through genuine conversion to Populism and fusion with Republicans in local and Congressional races, without causing significant white defections from their ranks.  Black orator John B. Rayner had crisscrossed the state in 1894 drumming up black support for the third party cause, and he probably had even greater success in the period afterward.[108]      But giving Populist votes to McKinley, and the gold standard that he represented, was too much for many Texas Populists to swallow.  In October, W. M. (Buck) Walton, the Populist nominee for attorney general, made the break formal when he flamboyantly withdrew from the race, citing an "unholy and damnable fusion coalition" with Republicans that could "fraudulently turn (Texas) over to McKinley."[109]  While 67 percent of the 1894 Republicans voted the Populist's state ticket in 1896, 26 percent of 1894 Populists defected to the Democratic Party (see Table 6).  Even worse, 18 percent of those who voted the Populist state ticket in 1896 also cast their ballots for the Democratic presidential electors (see Table 7).  Some local Populist functionaries apparently printed tickets that combined the names of Democratic presidential electors and the Populist state ticket.[110]  Elsewhere, Populist voters had to determine whether state or federal elections were most important.  The Republican national ticket got only 13 percent of 1894 Populist ballots (see Table 8).  So, fusion was a miserable failure for the GOP.  Because Populist recruitment among the state's black population had continued in the interim, it is difficult to determine whether all of these 1894 Republicans had remained loyal to the GOP in 1896, or if they had already converted to the third party cause.  Populist-Republican fusion occurred in both the first and third US congressional districts, which contained large numbers of black voters in 1896.[111]

Table 6

Voting in 1894 and 1896 Gubernatorial Elections

 

1894 Governor

 

 

 

Democrat

Republican

Populist

Lily White Republican

Prohibition

Non-Voters

Not Yet Eligible

1896 Governor

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Democrat

88%

23%

26%

24%

62%

14%

25%

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Populist

12%

67%

74%

50%

32%

15%

37%

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Prohibition

0%

0%

0%

0%

7%

1%

0%

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Non-Voters

0%

11%

0%

26%

0%

70

38%

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 Source: Biennial Report of the Secretary of State of the State of Texas, 1894 (Austin 1895), 249-52 Biennial Report of the Secretary of State of the State of Texas, 1896 (Austin 1897), 65-68.

 

Table 7

Voting in the 1896 Gubernatorial and Presidential Elections

 

1896 Governor

 

 

 

Democrat

Populist

Prohibition

Non-Voters

1896 President

 

 

 

 

 

Democrat

80%

18%

71%

0%

 

 

 

 

 

Republican

6%

50%

0%

25%

 

 

 

 

 

Populist

7%

32%

11%

0%

 

 

 

 

 

Prohibition

0%

0%

9%

0%

 

 

 

 

 

Gold Democrat

0%

1%

9%

0%

 

 

 

 

 

Non-Voters

7%

0%

0%

75%

 

 

 

 

 

Source: Biennial Report of the Secretary of State of the State of Texas, 1896 (Austin 1897), 65-68, 85-94.

 

Table 8

Voting in the 1894 Gubernatorial and 1896 Presidential Elections

 

1894 Governor

 

 

 

Democrat

Republican

Populist

Prohibition

Lily White Republican

Non-Voters

Not Yet Eligible

1896 President

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Democrat

73%

0%

38%

23%

76

23%

29%

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Republican

19%

100%

13%

67%

0%

15%

0%

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Populist

1%

0%

48%

1%

15%

0%

23%

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Prohibition

0%

0%

0%

0%

5%

0%

0%

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Gold Democrat

1%

0%

1%

5%

4%

1%

0%

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Non-Voters

6%

0%

0%

4%

0%

61%

48%

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Source: Biennial Report of the Secretary of State for the State of Texas, 1894 (Austin 1895), 249-52 Biennial Report of the Secretary of State for the State of Texas, 1896 (Austin 1897), 84-95.

 

In order to facilitate fusion, Jerome Kearby, the 1896 Populist nominee for governor, emphasized an issue both Republicans and Populists could appreciate, a "free ballot and a fair count."[112]  Both parties had been victims of corrupt election tactics in the past.  This was a common theme elsewhere in the South where Populists and Republicans had fused.[113]  In comparison to the 1892 presidential balloting, the Populist state ticket got 60 percent of the Republican ballots, while Democrats received 40 percent (see Table 9).  Several factors account for the large Democratic Party gains among Republicans.  Black politico William "Gooseneck Bill" McDonald bolted the Populist-Republican fusion agreement and actively campaigned for the Democratic state ticket.  He was a banker, and thus opposed Populist financial demands.  Even more important was the Democrat's manipulation of the African American vote.  In September, a panicky Governor Charles Culberson wrote Col. Edward M. House, who was vacationing in Connecticut, a desperate letter begging him to return to Texas and take over the state campaign.  Col. House rushed back to the Lone Star State to make the usual arrangements.  Under his direction, Democratic leaders committed themselves to winning at any cost.  Contemporary accounts emphasize an increase in fraud and bribery for 1896.   Three days before the election, for instance, one of House's lieutenants reported that "the Waco Negro Melton cost us nearly $40." [114]   Melton was a "'fluence man," or vote broker.  Populists might have won an uncorrupted 1896 state election.  The official tally, however, gave Democrat Charles A. Culberson 298,643 votes to Populist Jerome Kearby's 238,325 votes. [115] 

Table 9

Voting in the 1892 Presidential and 1896 Gubernatorial Elections

 

1892 President

 

 

 

Democrat

Republican

Populist

Prohibition

Lily White Republican

Non-Voters

Not Yet Eligible

1896 Governor

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Democrat

66%

40%

27%

78%

0%

26%

44%

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Populist

24%

60%

73%

3%

61%

18%

36%

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Prohibition

0%

0%

0%

19%

1%

0%

0%

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Non-Voters

10%

0%

0%

0%

38%

56%

20%

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Source: Biennial Report of the Secretary of State for the State of Texas, 1892 (Austin 1893), 58-87; Biennial Report of the Secretary of State for the State of Texas, 1896 (Austin 1897), 65-68.

 

 Populists gained 85,061 votes over their 1894 poll in the 1896 gubernatorial balloting.   Fusion with Republicans, however, can explain only about 40 percent of this increase.  The rest came from other sources, primarily those who had not voted in 1894.[116]   Figure 1 indicates that James Turner was correct in identifying a county seat-hinterland dichotomy to the third party's following in 1892.  But the People's Party made substantial progress in the state's largest urban areas in 1894 and 1896.[117]  Populists gained among all urban occupation groups.  This was more than could be accounted for by fusion as evidenced by the decline of Culberson's correlations with all urban occupation groups.  Populists particularly gained strength among both skilled and unskilled urban laborers because of the third party's stance on the Pullman Strike.[118]  In fact, Eugene V. Debs made a two city speaking tour of the state just before the election.[119]  In one of these cities, Dallas, Populists carried eleven of the city's twelve wards on election day.[120]

Figure 1

Populist Vote by Urban Size and Rail Lines, 1892-1896


Source: Census Reports: Volume 1, Twelfth Census of the United States taken in the Year 1900; Population, pt. 1 (Washington, 1901), 376-90; Record of Election Returns (see note 10 for details and list of counties); “Railroad and County Map of Texas, 1901," Map, Railroad Commission of Texas, Texas State Library.

 The Populist state ticket gained significantly among ethnic voters in the 1896 gubernatorial election, a marked improvement over previous years.  They particularly gained among German voters.[121]  But Populists lost significantly among white voters in the Bottomlands. This may have been a reaction to blacks swelling Populist ranks with fusion in this region.  Democrats made significant gains where farm tenancy and farm laborers were numerous.  These were the elements most vulnerable to having their votes fraudulently manipulated.  The third party retained its positive correlation with the number of improved acres in cotton, and its correlation with improved acres in corn returned to its 1892 level.  This suggests former Democrats who returned to the dominant party in 1896 were the more prosperous, commercialized voters drawn to Populism in 1894 by the silver issue   Their commitment to the third party may well have been sincere in 1894, but the Democratic Party's adoption of free silver in 1896 undermined their loyalty to the third party.[122]  Likewise, the Populist correlations with counties having Farmers' Alliance or Knights of Labor locals dropped below their 1894 levels with fusion in 1896.[123]

The fusion deal of 1896 clearly was a desperation move by the Texas Populist leadership.  Expediency characterized fusion with Republicans in Arkansas, Alabama, Georgia, North Carolina, Tennessee, and Virginia as well in the 1890s.[124]  Texas Republicans had two good reasons to agree to the deal.  If they made a better than normal showing in the presidential race, they could expect more patronage from Washington.  Also, fusion disguised just how many African Americans might have migrated to the People's Party by 1896. 

 Barton and Cantrell argue that racism was the primary reason for white Populist defections in 1896.  Certainly whites in the Bottomlands overwhelmingly abandoned the third partyWhere African Americans made up a substantially smaller portion of the electorate, however, trading the national ticket for statewide offices probably also played a role in Populist defections.  Populist leaders had championed free silver for years only to abandon the issue when statewide offices came within reach.  This had to be far too opportunistic for many rank and file Populists.  Although free silver was a national issue, it definitely affected the Texas gubernatorial race in 1896. 

 More prosperous farmers who had joined Populist ranks in 1894 on the silver issue also left the People's Party in 1896.  Split ticket voting was exceptionally difficult in Texas in the 1890s because party functionaries provided the ballots (except in cities of more than 10,000 population).  Thus, to insure their vote went to Bryan for president, most voters had to use a ballot provided by the Democratic Party.  Trying to scratch off the names of the Democratic state ticket and write in their Populist counterparts meant correctly spelling names like Jerome C. Kearby (pronounced Kirby), E.O. Meitzen, S.O. Daws, and A.B. Francisco, a nearly impossible task for many voters.[125]  Because Democrats had won with only a plurality vote in 1894, Populists and Republicans had hoped that combining their forces in 1896 would carry they day.  Defections from both parties, however, destroyed the original promise this fusion held.

 The Populist tripartite coalition building suggested by C. Vann Woodward long ago came quite close to fruition in the Lone Star State. The Populist's Omaha Convention of 1892 created the southern and western farmer coalition that Woodward argued was so crucial to the success of the Populist Party.  The party's St. Louis Convention of 1896, however, probably destroyed it.  The years 1894 through 1896 saw the People's Party in Texas make significant strides toward creating Woodward's farmer-laborer coalition.  The Pullman Strike brought Eugene V. Debs and what was left of the American Railway Union into the party.  John McBride, president of the United Mine Workers and an avowed Populist, also became president of the American Federation of Labor In December 1894.  By 1896, labor support for the Populists was so strong in Texas that every ward in the city of Dallas, save one, went Populist.  The third party also ran close races in Austin, Galveston, and Houston.  The coal mining town of Thurber, in Erath County, cast more than 86 percent of its votes for the People's Party in 1896.[126]  Thus, Woodward's farmer-labor coalition had become a reality in Texas by 1896.   Continued recruitment of African Americans, particularly the role of John B. Rayner, plus fusion with Republicans, finally brought substantial numbers of black votes to the Populist cause in spite of sizeable fraud and intimidation on the part of Democrats.  Most black voters dropped out of the Populist ranks after 1896.  Where black-Populist coalitions still existed by 1900, the third party effort frequently succumbed to Democratic Party violence.[127]

 Coalition-building was necessary in such a diverse state as Texas.  The process, however, was not easy.  The fact that white southern farmers proved to be the party's most loyal following, too, is not surprising.  Populist ideology, as expressed by innumerable speakers and newspapers, exalted the role of landowners in the republic and spoke directly to their concerns. As Cyclone Davis stated, "a home and some portion of the earth from which to produce comforts . . . is so essential to human happiness that the decay of liberty, the downfall of society, and the wreck of happiness in every age and every country have been measured by the homeless numbers within her borders."[128]   Widespread property holding established individual economic independence, a primary goal of Jeffersonian democracy.  This appeal resonated best with native-born, white farm owners.   They had been indoctrinated in the ideas of the Founding Fathers for generations.  Eventually it also appealed to African Americans, who also desired freehold tenure but frequently could not achieve it in this era.  The Texas Populist appeal finally also overcame the concerns of ethnic groups like German and Polish Americans that traditionally suspected the motives of white evangelical Protestant reform groups because of the liquor issue.

 If the Populist electorate in Texas had not grown beyond its 1892 roots, it would justifiably have received far less interest among scholars than it has.  The real significance of Texas Populism was that the People's Party in this state did grow beyond the rather narrow 1892 clientele to become a major threat to Democratic Party by the mid-1890s.  Expanding its electoral appeal beyond the counties that James Turner identified as characterized by isolation brought the party to the brink of electoral success.  This probably played a major role in the Texas Populist's opposition to their party's nomination of Democrat William Jennings Bryan for president in 1896.   While Populism appeared to stagnate elsewhere, especially in the West, in Texas the third party was still vibrant and growing on the eve of its 1896 national convention.

 If Grover Cleveland had controlled more than one third of the delegates to the Democratic National Convention in 1896, he could have deprived Bryan of the nomination and probably forced a compromise.  on the monetary issue. Without Bryan and free silver defining their agenda, the Democratic Party could easily have declined to third party status.  It already was the party blamed for the depression of the 1890s and free silver, which Populists had promoted for years, was incredibly popular throughout the South and West.  Thus the People's Party was poised to step into the void and become the major opposition to the GOP nationally.  In Texas, prominent Democrats like W. M. "Buck" Walton and Barnett Gibbs had already jumped parties.  Texas Populism experienced a continued expansion of its following through mid-1896.  Fusion with Republicans probably would not have been necessary, nor seriously considered, for victory in 1896.  The Populist message had resonated with a growing portion of the electorate, and particularly with the components that could make it a major force in state and national politics.  Bryan's nomination and the Democratic Party's endorsement of free silver, however, dealt an ultimately fatal blow to the People's Party in Texas.

                        Roscoe C. Martin provided an economic interpretation of Texas Populism that emphasized the economic marginality of third party supporters.  [129]  Our analysis confirms this for 1892.  But, the People's Party in Texas gained substantial support from more prosperous farmers in 1894 and, to some degree, in 1896.  The third party vote ran above the statewide averages in the Blackland Prairie and Bottomlands, the most fertile agricultural sections of the state, in both of these years. 

James Turner's analysis, likewise, hinged upon the rather unique circumstances of the 1892 election.  He identified Texas Populist as socially isolated farmers who experienced economic hardship. While his analysis holds some relevance for 1892, particularly in the Cross Timbers and Grand Prairie regions of Texas, his methodology limits the applicability of his findings.  Populist voters were not nearly so isolated in other regions, and particularly in later years.  Hard times also brought more prosperous Texas farmers into the third party fold.  The People's Party in Texas grew well beyond Turner's parameters to become a real threat to Democratic Party hegemony by the mid-1890s.

 Lawrence Goodwyn has emphasized the importance of the Southern Farmers' Alliance's subtreasury plan to Texas Populism.  He defined true Populism as commitment to the Farmers' Alliance's proposal and argued that a "shadow movement" of free silverites subverted the promising radical thrust of Populism.  The connection between the presence of a Farmer's Alliance local in 1890 and voting Populist was significant throughout the Populist era in Texas, but weakened substantially by the mid-1890s.  By 1896, the party included among its leaders men like Barnett Gibbs whose commitment to the subtreasury plan was weak if not non-existent.  The third party had grown well beyond its Farmer's Alliance origins to include more prosperous farmers, probably silverites, and urban workers.

 The People's Party witnessed sustained growth through mid-1896 in Texas.  This was quite different from the situation of western Populists who believed support for their party had already peaked.  The Texas experience promised to bring to fruition the coalitions necessary for third party success identified by C. Vann Woodward.  The Populist appeal centered upon a commitment to American republicanism.  This message resonated well with those experiencing economic dislocations, particularly younger voters concerned with their ability to ever attain economic independence. Republicanism mandated an opposition to monopoly and the corruption that established privilege through favoritism.  Property holding was essential to individual liberty.  Populists feared that the widening the gap between rich and poor would drive many into a dependent subservience reminiscent of European peasantry.  Texas Populism encompassed those most concerned with this widening gap, namely poor to moderate white farmers, urban laborers, and eventually African Americans.  Thus, Texas Populism was far more complex and nuanced than suggested by earlier scholarship.

 

Notes

[1]. C. Vann Woodward, Origins of the New South, 1877-1913 (Baton Rouge, 1951), 252.  The authors would like to thank Robert C. McMath, Jr., Gregg Cantrell, and Scott Barton, who read earlier edition of this manuscript, for their valuable suggestions.  We would also like to thank Kristine M. Wirts for her help in data entry and proof reading the quantification.

[2]. Terry G. Jordan, et. al., Texas: A Geography (Boulder and London, 1984), 37.

[3]. Texas Almanac and State Industrial Guide, 1974-75 (Dallas, 1973), 177.

[4]. Terry G. Jordan, AA Century and a Half of Ethnic Change in Texas, 1836-1986," Southwestern Historical Quarterly 89 (April 1986), 385.

[5]. Worth Robert Miller, "A Centennial Historiography of American Populism," Kansas History: A Journal of the Central Plains 16, no. 1 (Spring 1993), 54-69; James Turner, "Understanding the Populists," Journal of American History 67 (September 1980), 357 (first quote); Karel D. Bicha, Western Populism: Studies in an Ambivalent Conservatism (Lawrence, KS, 1976), 15 (second quote).  

[6]. Robert C. McMath, Jr., "Sandy Land and Hogs in the Timber: (Agri)cultural Origins of the Farmers' Alliance in Texas," in Steven Hahn and Jonathan Prude, eds., The Countryside in the Age of Capitalist Transformation: Essays in the Social History of Rural America (Chapel Hill, 1985), 207.

[7]. Turner, "Understanding the Populists," 369 (first quote), 368 (second quotation).  The entire Omaha Platform can be found as Appendix F in John D. Hicks, The Populist Revolt: A History of the Farmers' Alliance and People's Party (Minneapolis, 1931), 439-44 (first quotation on p. 442);

[8]. Texas Almanac and State Inidustrial Guide, 531. 

[9]. Roscoe C. Martin, The People's Party in Texas (Austin, 1933); Turner, "Understanding the Populists," 354-373. 

[10]. Martin, People's Party in Texas, 62 (first quotation), 58 (second and third quotations).

[11]. Turner, "Understanding the Populists," 360, 362 (fourth quotation), 363 (third quotation), 367 (first and second quotations).  Turner compared each Populist county with a "neighboring" Democratic county.  But, in his analysis, Turner used Brown County twice and Coryell County three times.  Thus, he examined only 12 different Democratic counties.  Turner's selection of Populist counties contains some unusual bias.  The typical Texas Republican voter of the 1890s was African American.  Thus, where blacks were numerous there were three-way races.  Where there were few black citizens, essentially two-way races existed.  Populists could win a county with as little as 34 percent of the vote in east Texas and lose with as much as 49 percent in west Texas.  An electoral plurality is important in electing officials, but not in identifying where the party had its greatest support among the overall statewide electorate.

[12]. Ibid., 363.  

[13]. The authors found returns from the selected region for at least two of the three elections between 1892 and 1896 in 130 Texas counties.  We also obtained precinct-level returns from 12 counties west of the 100th meridian where Populists polled significant numbers.  The authors conducted a 5 percent sample of the 1900 census manuscripts (which is organized by justice of the peace precincts) for the precinct-level examination.  Local voting data then was collapsed into justice precincts for use with the census sample.  The 1890 census manuscripts were destroyed by fire in the 1920s.  Precinct-level election returns for 1892, 1894, and 1896 were taken from the "Record of Election Returns" located in the County Clerk's office of each of the following counties (unless otherwise noted):  Angelina, Atascosa, Austin, Bandera, Bastrop (Bastrop Advertiser, 11-26-92, 11-17-94, 11-7-96, 11-19-98), Bee (Beeville Bee, 11-11-92, 11-16-94, 11-6-96), Bexar ("Record of Election Returns" located at County Archives, County Courthouse Basement), Blanco, Borden, Brazoria, Brazos, Briscoe, Brown, Burleson, Burnet, Callahan, Camp (Pittsburg Gazette, 11-11-92, 11-9-94, 11-6-96), Cass, Cherokee (Jacksonville Banner, 11-19-92, 11-18-94, Rusk Standard Herald, 11-13-96), Clay, Coke, Collin, Collingsworth ("Record of Election Returns" located at Plains-Panhandle Museum, West Texas A & M University), Colorado, Comal, Concho, Cooke, Coryell, Dallas ("Record of Election Returns" located on Second Floor, Texas Schoolbook Depository), Denton, De Witt, Dimmit, Eastland, Ellis (Waxahache Enterprise, 11-18-92,  11-9-94, 11-12-96), Erath ("Record of Election Returns" located at Tarleton State University), Fannin, Fayette (La Grange Journal, 11-24-92, 11-15-94, 11-12-96, p. 3), Foard, Fort Bend (Commissioner's Court Minutes), Franklin, Freestone, Galveston (mislabeled Election Register), Gillespie, Glasscock, Goliad, Gonzales (Gonzales Inquirer, 11-24-92, 11-15-94), Gregg, Grimes, Guadalupe, Hardeman, Harris ("Record of Election Returns" located at Clerk of Commissioners Court Office), Haskell (Haskell Free Press, 11-10-94, 11-7-96), Hays,  Hill, Hood (Granbury Hood County News, 11-10-92, 11-8-94), Hopkins, Houston, Howard, Hunt, Jack, Jasper (1894, Jasper Newsboy, 11-26-92, 11-4-96), Jefferson, Johnson, Jones, Karnes, Kaufman (Terrell Times-Star, 11-25-92, p. 1, 11-16-94, p. 8, 11-13-96, p. 8),  Kendall, Kerr, Knox, Lamar ("Record of Election Returns" located at Paris Junior College), Lampasas ("Record of Election Returns" located at Baylor University), Lavaca, Lee ("Record of Election Returns" located at Texas A & M University), Liberty ("Record of Election Returns" located at Sam Houston Regional Library, Liberty),  Leon, Limestone, Live Oak, Llano, Madison, Mason, McCulloch, McMullen, Medina, Milam, Mills, Montague, Montgomery ("Record of Election Returns" located at Election Administration Office in Conroe), Morris, Nacogdoches, Navarro (mislabeled "Election Minutes"), Nolan, Orange, Palo Pinto, Panola, Parker, Polk ("Record of Election Returns" located at Sam Houston Regional Library, Liberty), Potter, Rains, Refugio, Runnels, Rusk, San Augustine, San Jacinto ("Record of Election Returns" located at Sam Houston Regional Library, Liberty), San Patricio, San Saba, Scurry, Smith, Somervell (1894 and 1896 only), Stephens, Sterling, Stonewall, Taylor (Abilene Taylor County News, 11-18-92, 11-16-94, Abilene Reporter, 11-5-96), Throckmorton, Tom Green (San Angelo Standard, 11-12-92, 11-10-94, 11-7-96), Travis, Tyler, Upshur, Uvalde, Van Zandt ("Record of Election Returns" located at Van Zandt County Library), Victoria (Victoria Weekly Advocate, 11-12-92, 11-10-94, 11-7-96), Walker, Waller, Washington, Wharton, Wichita, Williamson, Wilson, Wood, Young, and Zavala.  The census and railroad materials for the county-level data is complete, and drawn from: U.S. Department of Interior, Census Office, Report on the Production of Agriculture as Returned at the Tenth Census: 1880, pt. I (Washington 1883), 133-36;  Report on the Statistics of Agriculture as Returned at the Eleventh Census: 1890, pt. I (Washington, 1895), 182-89, 228-31; Report of Statistics of Churches in the United States at the Eleventh Census: 1890, pt. 1 (Washington 1894), 81-83, 117-812; Report on Population of the United States at the Eleventh Census: 1890, pt. 1 (Washington 1895), 517-19, 657-63, 782-85; Census Reports: Volume 5, Twelfth Census of the United States taken in the Year 1900: Agriculture, pt. 1 (Washington 1902), 125-30,294-302,385-87, 396-97; Census Reports: Volume 1, Twelfth Census of the United States taken in the Year 1900; Population, pt. 1 (Washington 1901), 40-42, 203-06, 376-90, 782-89; ARailroad and County Map of Texas, 1901," Map,  Railroad Commission of Texas, Texas State Library.  County-level election returns were taken from Biennial Report of the Secretary of State for the State of Texas, 1890 (Austin 1891), 82-85, 88-92, Biennial Report of the Secretary of State for the State of Texas, 1892 (Austin 1893), 58-87, 92-97,  Biennial Report of the Secretary of State for the State of Texas, 1894 (Austin 1895), 243, 249-52,  Biennial Report of the Secretary of State for the State of Texas, 1896 (Austin 1897), 65-68. 84-95.  The list of Farmers' Alliance locals can be found in Texas Gazetteer and Business Directory, 1890-91 (Detroit, Chicago, and St. Louis, 1890), 94-95.  The authors took the list of Knights of Labor locals from Jonathan Garlock, A Guide to the Local Assemblies of the Knights of Labor (Westport, Conn., 1982), 491-513.

[14]. Lawrence Goodwyn, The Populist Moment: A Short History of the Agrarian Revolt in America (New York, 1978), 46.

[15]. Ibid., 46-49; Donna A. Barnes, Farmers in Rebellion: The Rise and Fall of the Southern Farmers Alliance and People's Party in Texas (Austin, 1984), 72-77.

[16]. Matthew Hild, Greenbackers, Knights of Labor, and Populists: Farmer-Labor Insurgency in Late-Nineteenth-Century South (Athens, Ga. and London, 2007), 86 (quotation), 124.

[17]. Martin, People's Party in Texas, 142; Alwyn Barr, Reconstruction to Reform: Texas

Politics, 1876-1906 (Austin 1971), 120; Texas Almanac and State Industrial Guide, 531.

[18]. The percentages in Tables 1-3 and 5-9 are derived through the use of ecological regression as outlined by J. Morgan Kousser, "Ecological Regression and the Analysis of Past Politics," Journal of Interdisciplinary History, 4 (Autumn 1973), 237-62. This procedure involves utilizing Ordinary Least Squares (OLS) regression to first regress each party's vote share in the present election to its share in the past election. Then regression results for all parties are entered into a matrix, allowing for estimation of the aggregate vote shifts over time. To adjust for varying county populations, regression equations were weighted by the number of eligible voters (adult males) in each county. The number of eligible voters was estimated using the adult male populations of each county's population based on a formula assuming a linear pattern of change in population. In calculating voter transition probabilities, logically but not statistically impossible estimates falling outside the 0-100 percent range were arbitrarily set at the respective minimum and maximum limits, and the values of the remaining estimates were adjusted according to the restraints of the contingency tables. For an illustration of the techniques employed here, see Dale Baum and Worth Robert Miller, "Ethnic Conflict and Machine Politics in San Antonio, 1892-1899," Journal of Urban History 19 (August 1993), 82n14 and Lawrence N. Powell, "Correcting for Fraud: A Quantitative Reassessment of the Mississippi Ratification Election of 1868," Journal of Southern History 55 (November 1989), 638-641.

[19] Alwyn Barr, Reconstruction to Reform: Texas Politics, 1976-1906 (Austin, 1971), 120-21.

 

[20]. Hicks, Populist Revolt, 78.

[21]. Alwyn Barr, Reconstruction to Reform: Texas Politics, 1976-1906 (Austin, 1971), 120, 128, 129.

[22]. Robert A. Calvert, "The Era of Agrarian Protest" in Donald W. Whistenhunt, ed., Texas: A Sesquicentennial Celebration (Austin, 1984), 150

[23]. Biennial Report of the Secretary of State, 1892, 55-57.

 

[24]. Because Clark split the Democratic vote for governor in 1892, the presidential balloting is a better gauge of the relative strengths of the major parties in 1892.  Democratic presidential electors received 57 percent of the vote, while Republicans got 19 percent and Populists won 24 percent.

[25]. Although the People's Party ran straight third party tickets in both the state and federal elections, some Populists declined to vote for the party's presidential nominee, James B. Weaver of Iowa.  These voters probably could not stomach a ticket led by a former Yankee general.  They did not, however, vote for the Democratic or Republican electors.  Ticket splitting was difficult in Texas in the nineteenth century.  Official ballots containing the names of all candidates for office existed only in cities with a population of more than 10,000.  Otherwise, parties provided their voters with ballots containing the names of only their own party's candidates for office.  The easiest way to dissent from a party's choice was to scratch the name of the offending candidate off the ballot.  Every Populist candidate for governor of Texas was an ex-Confederate soldier.

[26]. Speech of Thomas L. Nugent at Grandview, Texas (1894) in Norman Pollack, ed., The Populist Mind (Indianapolis, 1965), 310.

[27]. Catherine Nugent, ed., The Life's Work of Thomas L. Nugent (Stephenville, Tex., 1896), 111 (first quotation), 113 (second, third, and fourth quotations)..

[28]. James H. (Cyclone) Davis, A Political Revelation (Dallas, 1894), 92.

[29]. The 1892 Populist correlation with counties containing Farmers' Alliance locals in 1890 was 0.440**.  Clark's correlation was -0.303** and Hogg's was -0.080ns.The correlations between counties with Knights of labor locals and Populist voters was 0.136*.  Clark's correlation was -0.141* and Hogg's was 0.030ns.    The correlation between Populist voters and the number of Knights locals made up primarily of farmers was 0.161*.  All bivariate correlations reported are Pearson product-moment correlation coefficients. These estimates range between -1 and +1, with absolute values near 1 reflecting a strong association and absolute values near 0 indicating a weak association between the variables. Positive correlations indicate that the two variables exhibit a direct relationship (high scores on one variable are associated with high scores on the other and low scores on one variable are associated with low scores on the other), while negative correlations indicate an inverse relationship (high scores on one variable are associated with low scores on the other).  In addition, we have reported statistical significance levels, which indicate the degree of certainty one may have in the association between the two variables. Correlation coefficients marked with two asterisks (**) indicate associations that can be accepted with 99 percent certainty (p<0.01), correlation coefficients marked with one asterisk can be accepted with 95 percent certainty (0.01<p<0.05), and correlation coefficients marked "ns" are not statistically significant (p>0.05) and hence the two variables can not be said to be associated with one another with an acceptable degree of certainty.

[30]. Turner, "Understanding the Populists," 359.

[31]. John Dibbern, "Who were the Populists?: A study of Grass-Roots Alliancemen in Dakota," Agricultural History 56 (October 1982): 681.

[32]. Samuel Webb, Two-Party Politics in the One Party South: Alabama's Hill Country, 1874-1930 (Tuscaloosa and London, 1997), 119.  See also Turner, "Understanding the Populists," 370.

[33]. Robert C. McMath, Jr., American Populism: A Social History (New York, 1993), 28-29.

[34]. The Populist correlation with urban residence was -0.170ns. The correlation with railroads was -0.267**, and with the number of railroad lines it was -0.319**.

[35]. Hogg's correlation with the number of railroad lines was 0.015ns.  Clark's correlation with the number of railroad lines serving a precinct was 0.263** and urban residence 0.257**.

[36]. Stanley B. Parsons, "Who Were the Nebraska Populists?" Nebraska History 44 (June 1963): 88-90.

[37]. Turner, "Understanding the Populists," 364.

[38].  Populist counties averaged 8.19 denominations per county while Democratic counties averaged only 7.18.   Strongly Democratic counties averaged 6.01 denominations, while weak Democratic counties averaged 8.82.  For this study, the authors defined Populist counties as those where the People's Party received more votes than the Democratic Party in the gubernatorial races of 1892, 1894, and 1896, combined.  Conversely, Democratic counties polled more Democratic votes than the People's Party in these elections.  Strongly Democratic counties are defined as counties where the Democratic vote was more than twice the Populist vote.  The remaining Democratic counties were defined as weak.  We did not find any statistically significant differences between Turner's Democratic and Populist counties with regard to percent improved acres in 1890, number of railroad lines, or total foreign born population.  Using statewide data, we found no significant differences on these items either.

[39]. McMath, Jr., "Sandy Land and Hogs in the Timber," 223.

[40]. The correlation between the Populist vote for governor and whites born in the plantation states in 1892 was 0.335.  It was 0.311 for Populists and farm owners.

[41]. Jordan, Texas: A Geography, 69-70, 77.

[42]. Martin, People's Party in Texas, 98 and 99n.

[43]. Barr, Reconstruction to Reform, 138; Worth Robert Miller, AHarrison County Methods: Election Fraud in Late Nineteenth-Century Texas." Locus: Regional and Local History of the Americas, 7 (Spring 1995), 111-28.

[44]. Dallas Morning News, August 18, 1892 as quoted in C. Vann Woodward, Origins of the New South, 257.

[45]. Bruce Palmer, "Man Over Money": The Southern Populist Critique of American Populism (Chapel Hill, 1980), 150-51.

[46]. Thomas E. Watson, "The Negro Question in the South," Arena 6 (October 1892), 540-550.

[47]. Webb, Two-Party Politics, 129.

[48]. Palmer, Man Over Money, 59.

[49]. Gregg Cantrell, Kenneth and John B. Rayner and the Limits of Southern Dissent (Urbana and Chicago, 1993), 2.

[50]. Kousser, Shaping of Southern Politics, 35-36.

[51]. Woodward, Origins of the New South, 276.

[52]. James L. Hunt, Marion Butler and American Populism (Chapel Hill and London, 2003), 53.

[53]. Biennial Report of the Secretary of State, 1892, 57-59;  Biennial Report of the Secretary of State, 1894, 245-48;  Biennial Report of the Secretary of State, 1896, 61-64.

[54]. Martin, People's Party in Texas, 98-99; Lawrence Goodwyn, "Populist Dreams and Negro Rights: East Texas as a Case Study." American Historical Review 76 (December 1971), 1435-1456.

[55]. Precinct-level correlations between the Populist vote and farm owners was 0.311**. It was 0.140** for farm mortgagers, and 0.173** for farm renters. County-level data separated share tenants and the more prosperous cash tenants. Their correlations with the 1892 Populist vote were 0.248** and -0.250** respectively. Counties where cash tenancy expanded favored Populism (0.236**), but counties where share tenancy grew in the 1890s did not (-0.226**). Democratic, Republican, and Populist correlations with farm laborers were insignificant.

[56]. The non-Texas-born white correlation with the Populist Party was 0.318**.  The Populist correlation with increase in the percent of improved acres during the 1880s and 1890s was 0.272**. 

[57]. Sheldon Hackney, Populism to Progressivism in Alabama (Princeton, 1969), 25-26; Webb, Two-Party Politics, 120.

[58]. The correlation between the percent of improved acres in 1890 and counties tending toward the Democratic or Populist parties in 1892 is negligible.   But, the correlations with 1900 census figures are 0.288** for People's Party and 0.412** for the Democratic Party.

[59]. Argersinger, Populism and Politics, 62; Dibbern, "Who were the Populists?" 684.

[60]. The correlation between the Populist vote and percent improved acres in cotton was 0.267**.  The Populist correlation with percent improved acres in corn was 0.173*.  In the presidential balloting, where fusion did not exist, Populists correlated with improved acres in corn at 0.220**, while the Democratic correlation as -0.424**, and the GOP correlation was 0.213**.  The Populist correlation with cotton was 0.302**.  The Democratic correlation was -0.548**.  The Republican correlation was 0.290**.

[61]. C. A. Bonnen and F. F. Elliott, Type of Farming Areas in Texas (College Station, 1931), 15, 52-55.

[62]. The correlation between the Soil Capability Index and the Populist vote in 1892 was 0.164**.  The Soil Capability Index was calculated from the United States Department of Agriculture Soil Advisory Reports, 217 Soil and Crop Sciences Building, Texas A & M University.

[63]. The Populist correlation with the value of farm products per improved acre in 1892 was -0.034ns.  The correlation with Democrats was -0.040ns.

[64]. Peter H. Argersinger, Populism and Politics: William Alfred Peffer and the People's Party (Lexington, 1974), 70

[65]. Hackney, Populism to Progressivism, 80.

[66]. Webb, Two-Party Politics, 120.

[67]. Martin, People's Party in Texas, 61-65; Turner, “Understanding the Populists,” 354-73.  The authors took information from the following sources in constructing this map: Frances E. Potts, John W. Lewis, and W.L. Dorries, Texas in Maps: An Atlas for School and Home (Commerce, TX, 1966), 31; John W. Morris, Charles R. Goins, and Edwin C. McReynolds, Historical Atlas of Oklahoma 2nd ed., rev. and enl. (Norman, 1976), 33; Curtis L. Godfrey, Gordon S. McKee, and Harvey Oakes, General Soil Map of Texas, 1973 (College Station, Tex., 1973). 

[68]. Martin, People's Party in Texas, 61; Turner, "Understanding the Populists," 359; Type of Farming Areas in Texas, 50-51.

[69]. The correlation between Populist votes and farm ownership was 0.182* The correlation with tenant farmers was 0.228**.  The Populist correlation with white southerners was 0.373**.

[70]. The correlation between the Populist vote and the percent of farm owners was 0.286**.

[71]. The other four black majority counties lay in far northeast Texas.

[72].Correlation between Populists and percent white population was 0.457**.  The Populist correlation with black voters was -0.208ns.  For farm owners it was 0.296*

[73]. The Populist correlation with number of railroad serving a precinct was -0.262**.  The statewide correlation was -0.319**.  The Populist correlation with Texas-born whites in the Piney Woods was 0.206**.  The correlation with farm owners was 0.167*.

[74]. McMath, "Sandy Land and Hogs in the Timber," 210-12.

[75]. The Populist correlation with farm ownership in the Cross Timbers was 0.282* and the Grand Prairie was 0.407**.  The correlation with the number of railroad lines was -0.549 in the Cross Timbers and -.443 in the Grand Prairie.

[76]. McMath, "Sandy Land and Hogs in the Timber," 218.

[77]. Turner, "Understanding the Populists," 371 (both quotations).

[78]. Palmer, Man Over Money, 111.

[79]. Ernest William Winkler, Platforms of Political Parties in Texas (Austin, 1916), 295-96, 315, 333, 381; Hicks, Populist Revolt, 439-44; William Ellis Scull (ed.), Great Leaders and National Issues of 1896 (n.p., 1896), 628-31.

[80]. The term Robber Baron probably goes back to the twelfth century.  The authors are referring to its modern application to the Captains of Industry.  See Sean Dennis Cashman, America in the Gilded Age: From the Death of Lincoln to the Rise of Theodore Roosevelt (New York and London, 1993), 30 and Worth Robert Miller, Oklahoma Populism: A History of the People's Party in the Oklahoma Territory (Norman and London, 1987), 14, 220n24.

[81]. Dorothy Ross, "The Liberal Tradition Revisited and the Republican Tradition Addressed," in  John Higham and Paul K. Conkin, eds., New Directions in American Intellectual History (Baltimore, 1977), 116-31.

[82]. Nugent, Life Work, 42.

[83]. Dallas Morning News, June 25, 1892 as quoted in Barr, Reconstruction to Reform, 148.

[84]. Martin, People's Party in Texas, 193.  Newspapers probably did not help much in the recruitment of blacks because of their illiteracy and poverty according to Gregg Cantrell and D. Scott Barton, "Texas Populists and the Failure of Biracial Politics," Journal of Southern History 55 (November 1989), 664.

[85]. John Spalding, Great Depressions: 1837‑1844, 1893‑1897, 1929‑1939 (Glenview, Ill., 1966), 58‑59.

[86]. Statistical Abstract of the United States, 1893 . . . (Washington, D.C., 1894), 40; Walter T. K. Nugent, "Money, Politics, and Society: The Currency Question," in H. Wayne Morgan (ed.), The Gilded Age (Syracuse, 1970), 125-26.

[87]. Susan B. Carter, et. Al., eds., Historical Statistics of the United States to the Present (millennial ed., 5 vols.: New York, 2006), III, 615; Nugent, "Money, Politics, and Society,” 125-26.

 

[88]. Barr, Reconstruction to Reform, 135.

[89]. Texas Almanac and State Guide, 531.

 

[90]. It is estimated that 26 percent of those who voted for the Republican national ticket in 1892, cast their ballots for Culberson, the Democratic Party gubernatorial candidate in 1894.  Makemson got the vote of 64 percent of the 1892 Republican presidential ballots

[91]. Culberson received 207,167 of 422,726 votes cast, or 49 percent of the vote.  Texas Almanac, 1974-75, 531.

[92]. Hackney, Populism to Progressivism, 62.

[93]. The Populist correlation with counties having a Knights of Labor local jumped from 0.138* in 1892 to 0.208** in 1894.

[94]. Using precinct-level data, the Populist correlations with urban areas, the presence of a railroad depot, and the number of lines serving a precinct in 1892 were -0.170ns, -0.267**, and -0.319**, respectively.  For 1894, the correlations were -0.134**, -0. 223**, and -0.267**, respectively.  The Populist correlations with railroad depots in 1892 in the Blackland Prairie improved from -0.166ns to -0.356**, and with rail lines from -0.175ns to -0.237**.  The Populist correlations with railroad depots in 1892 in the Post Oak Strip improved from -0.109ns to -0.307**, and with rail lines from -0.122ns to -0.305**.  The Populist correlations with railroad depots in 1892 in the Bottomlands improved from -0.208ns to -0.389**, and with rail lines from -0.235ns to -0.385**. 

[95]. “Colonel Harry Tracy active in Politics,” Dallas Morning News, March 31, 1915, p, 15.

[96]. Winkler, Platforms of Political Parties in Texas, 430.

[97]. The Populist statewide correlation with percent farm owners was 0.244**.  For the Grand Prairie it was 0.407** in 1892 and 0.482** in 1894.  The correlation with farm renters in the Bottomlands in 1892 was 0.250ns and in 1894 it was 0.295*.  The correlations in the Blackland Prairie was 0.228** in 1892 and 0.364** in 1894.  Statewide the Populist correlation with improved acres in cotton in 1894 was 0.260**.  It was 0.101ns in percent improved acres in corn.  This correlation suggests that farmers who used less of their land for pasturage (more highly commercialized farmers) were migrating to the third party.  The Populist correlation with percent share tenants in 1894 was 0.238**, and with cash tenants it was -0.183**.  The correlation with the increase in the percent improved acres was 0.233*.  The 1894 Populist correlation with counties having a Farmers' Alliance local in 1890 was 0.417**.

[98]. The GOP correlation with percent urban population was insignificant (-0.007ns).  The GOP correlation with foreign-born Texans was 0.268**, and with Mexican-born Texans was 0.035ns.  The correlation with the Democratic vote was 0.104**.  The Democratic correlation with black voters in 1894 was -0.232**.  The Populist correlation with non-Texas-born southerners was 0.347**.  The Republican Party correlation with African American voters was 0.546** in 1894.

[99]. The Populist correlation with percent urban population was -0.134**.  The correlation with the presence of a railroad depot was -.0.223**, and with the number of rail line serving precinct was -0.267**.  The Populist correlation with railroad workers in 1892 was -0.243** and in 1894 -0.133**.

[100]. Hild, Greenbackers, Knights of Labor, and Populists, 69-70.

[101]. W.M. Walton to John H. Reagan, February 35, 1896, John H. Reagan Papers, University of Texas, in Pollack, Populist Mind, 55-56; Dallas Morning News, March 15, 1896.

[102]. H. Wayne Morgan, From Hayes to McKinley: National Party Politics, 1877-1896 (Syracuse, 1969), 478.

[103]. Goodwyn, Populist Moment, 248; Edward W. Chester, A Guide to Political Platforms (Hamden, Conn., 1977), 48.

[104]. Miller, "Harrison County Methods," 111-28; Cantrell and Barton, "Texas Populists and the Failure of Biracial Politics," 670-72.

[105]. San Antonio Daily Express, April 10, 1896, p. 2; "Record of Election Returns" (Karnes and Wilson Counties).  In Karnes County, Polish settlers primarily were farmers, while Anglos mostly were ranchers according to Maria Starczewska, "The Historical Geography of the Oldest Polish Settlement in the United States" Polish Review 12 (Spring 1967), 26-27.

[106]. Henry Demarest Lloyd, "The Populists at St. Louis," Review of Reviews 14 (September, 1896), 278-83.

[107]. U.S. Department of the Interior, Census Office, Report on Population of the United States at the Eleventh Census: 1890, pt. 1 (Washington 1895), 40, 476-77.

[108]. Barton and Cantrell, "Texas Populists and the Failure of Biracial Politics," 668.

Six of the state's fifteen congressional races witnessed fusion of one sort or another between Populists and Republicans in 1894.

[109]. “Walton Has Enough,” Dallas Morning News, October 6, 1896, p. 1.

[110]. It occurred to the authors that this split-ticket phenomenon might have come from the state's largest urban areas, which used official ballots containing the names of all candidates for each office.  Although there were not enough cases (nine counties) to produce a reliable percentage for the counties containing urban areas of 10,000 or more residents, the estimated percent of voters splitting their ticket between the Democratic electors and the Populist state ticket statewide was almost exactly the same in the non-urban counties (19 percent) as for the state as a whole (18 percent).

[111]. Biennial Report of the Secretary of State, 1896, 61-64.

[112]. Winkler, Platforms of Political Parties in Texas, 382.

[113]. Hackney, Populism to Progressivism, 87.

[114]. Barton and Cantrell, "Texas Populists and the Failure of Biracial Politics," 684-85 (first quotation on p. 684); Gregg Cantrell and Kristopher B. Paschal, "Texas Populism at High Tide: Jerome C. Kearby and the Case of the Sixth Congressional District, 1894," Southwestern Historical Quarterly, 109 (July 2005), 69; Miller, "Harrison County Methods," 111-128; Rupert Norval Richardson, Colonel Edward M. House: The Texas Years, 1858-1912 (Abilene, Tex., 1964), 112B13, 116 (second and third quotations).

[115]. Barton and Cantrell, "Texas Populists and the Failure of Biracial Politics," 687; Miller, "Harrison County Methods," 120; Lawrence Goodwyn, Populist Moment, 285.

[116]. Texas Almanac and State Industrial Guide, 531.  It is estimated that Populists picked up 15 percent of 1894 non-voters and 37 percent of those not yet eligible to vote in 1894.

[117]. The Populist correlations with railroad lines was -0.319** in 1892, -0.267** in 1894, and -0.054ns in 1896.   The Populist correlations with urban residence was -0.170** in 1892, -0.134** in 1894, and 0.068ns in 1896.

[118]. The correlations between Nugent's vote in 1894 and businessmen, capitalists (investors), professionals, clerks, skilled workers, unskilled workers, and railroad workers were all significant (**) and negative. They were all positive and significant (**) for these categories for Culberson's votes in 1894.  All of the correlations for both Democratic and Populist candidates for governor in 1896 were so weak as to not be significant (ns).  Thus, Culberson lost ground among all urban occupations and Kearby gained ground with these voters over Nugent's 1894 vote.

[119]. Barr, Reconstruction to Reform, 170.

[120]. "Record of Election Returns" (Dallas County).

[121]. An exception is San Antonio, where the unbelievably inept local Populist leadership attempted to disfranchise co-anti-prohibitionist Mexican-American voters.  See Baum and Miller, "Ethnic Conflict and Machine Politics in San Antonio," 78.

[122]. The Populist correlation with foreign-born voters went from -0.342** in 1894 to

-0.119** in 1896.  The correlation with German-born voters was -0.334** in 1894 and

-0.030ns in 1896.  Populists correlations with whites in the Bottomlands in 1894 at 0.539** and in 1896 at -0.093ns.  The correlations between Populist votes and blacks in the Bottomlands in 1894 was -0.389** and 0.239ns.  The statewide Democratic Party correlation with farm tenancy in 1894 was -0.207**, and in 1896 was -0.043ns.  The correlations with farm laborers in 1894 was -0.116**, and in 1896 it was 0.002ns.  The Populist correlation with percent acres in cotton in 1896 was 0.252**, and with percent acres in corn it was 0.166*.  The Democratic correlation with farm owners in 1894 was

-0.146**, and in 1896 was -0.063ns.  The Democratic correlation with farm mortgagers in 1894 was -0.100**, and in 1896 was -0.036ns.

[123]. The 1894 Populist correlation with counties that had Farmers' Alliance or Knights of Labor locals were 0.417** and 0.208**, respectively.  The correlations for 1896 were 0.290** and 0.173**, respectively.

[124]. Woodward, Origins of the New South, 276.

[125]Such ballots contained the names of presidential electors only, not the names of the actual candidates for president and vice president.

[126]. Woodward, Origins of the New South, 252; Michael C. Pierce, "The Populist President of the American Federation of Labor: The Career of John McBride, 1880-1895," Labor History 41 (February 2000), 5-24; "Record of Election Returns" (Erath County).

[127]. Joe F. Combs, Gunsmoke in the Redlands (San Antonio, 1968); Henry C. Fuller, A Texas Sheriff (Nacogdoches, 1931); Goodwyn, "Populist Dreams and Negro Rights." 1435-1456.

[128]. Davis, A Political Revelation, 100.

[129]. Martin, People's Party in Texas, 62.