Building a Progressive Coalition in Texas:

The Populist-Reform Democrat Rapprochement, 1900-1907

Worth Robert Miller

This article first appeared in the Journal of Southern History, Lll (May 1986), 163-82. 

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

Home    Populism

When Thomas M.. Campbell assumed the governorship of Texas in January 1907, the reform wing of the Lone Star State's Democratic party achieved one of its greatest triumphs. In addition to sending the new progressive governor to Austin, voters also provided him with the most reform-minded legislature in Texas history. The accomplishments of the Thirtieth Texas Legislature (1907) would stand in stark contrast to the legislation passed by its immediate predecessors. Political retrenchment had characterized the administrations of Joseph D. Sayers (1899-1903) and Samuel W. T. Lanham (1903-1907), Texas's last two Confederate veteran governors. Although Reform Democrats had won leadership positions in state government and control of party machinery in the early 1890s, by the turn of the century conservative Democrats had easily subdued those reformers who remained loyal to the party. Defections to the Populist party had left reformers within the Democratic party in a minority position. To stem the rising conservative tide, the patriarch of Texas progressivism, former Governor James Stephen Hogg (1891-1895), found it necessary to return to active campaigning in 1900. Hogg's leadership would be instrumental in rebuilding within the Democratic party the same coalition of small businessmen, young professional politicians, and organized farmers that had placed him in the governor's chair a decade before. It would also elevate his lifelong friend, Thomas M. Campbell, to the governorship of Texas in the twentieth century.

Though seeking no office for himself, Hogg returned to active politics in 1900 ostensibly to bolster the reelection bid of another longtime friend, incumbent United States Senator Horace Chilton. Early in the campaign, however, Hogg introduced a reform program that indicated his intentions went beyond simply offering aid to an old friend. Hogg purposefully designed his 1900 reform campaign to unite once again the various forces that had placed him in the governor's mansion a decade before. The target of his opposition in 1900 was the same as it had been in his 1890 campaign for governor-the railroads. Hogg had employed the issue of establishing a Texas railroad commission to win the governorship in 1890. A decade later he proposed to add three new anti-railroad amendments to the state constitution: one prohibiting insolvent corporations from doing business in Texas, another outlawing the use of corporate funds in state politics, and the third forbidding the distribution of free railroad passes to politicians. Railroad promoter Buckley B. Paddock called the amendments "the most atrocious, as well as the most harmful, suggestion that has emanated from Governor Hogg." The proposals constituted an open invitation for white Populists to return to the party of their fathers and resurrect the coalition that had placed the proto-Populist Farmers' Alliance, along with other pro-Hogg elements, in charge of state affairs a decade before.¹

Although Hogg's 1890 coalition with the Farmers' Alliance had proven to be an effective election vehicle, it also turned out to be a rather brief experiment in reform politics. The split between Reform Democrats and Populists in Texas proved to be an exceedingly bitter affair. Organized farmers protested the decline of agriculture and the seeming indifference of Gilded Age politicians to their plight. While Hogg and the Populists shared a hostility toward northeastern capitalists in national politics, at home in Texas Reform Democrats quickly became a part of the insensitive elite that Populists sought to overthrow. To resurrect the ill-fated coalition of 1890 under such circumstances would require both sides to compromise formerly intransigent positions.

Unlike the third-party effort in many other states, the People's party in Texas experienced a dramatic and sustained expansion of its electoral support through 1896. Texas Populists led the opposition to fusion with the Democrats under William Jennings Bryan at their 1896 national convention. Only after the 1896 campaign left the party organization in shambles in other states did Texas Populists realize that their cause was hopeless. As Populist gubernatorial candidate Jerome C. Kearby stated in December 1896, "The opportunity was lost. I trust it may appear again; I fear not." Demoralized and broken in health after thirty years of exposing the Democratic party's faults, Kearby then faded into political obscurity with the words, "I am done with politics."²

In the 1896 campaign Texas Populists bitterly repudiated Bryan's free silver effort, arranged an informal fusion with Republicans, and emphasized the important state issue of a free ballot and a fair count. Hard-pressed Democrats responded with everything from charges of racial treason to bribery, stuffing ballot boxes, and shooting Populist organizers. The result was a 60,000-vote margin for the Democrats that many, then and now, recognize as almost certainly fraudulent. Two years later, when the Hogg-endorsed candidate for governor, Martin M. Crane, appealed for Populists to return to the Democratic party and support him in the primaries, Milton Park, managing editor of the Southern Mercury, the official Populist state paper, angrily informed Crane that "a pure ballot is the basis of all reform . . . ."³

Suspecting that the Populists might enter the primaries in behalf of one of his opponents, Crane quickly secured a party test banning all who had not voted the straight Democratic ticket in 1896 from the 1898 Democratic primaries. Such a crude manipulation of the electoral process helped bring Crane's campaign to a halt more than a month before the Democratic nominating convention.⁴

In the wake of Crane's withdrawal his campaign manager, E. G. Senter, who had authored Crane's appeal to Populists the previous February, published a broadside charging the victor, Joseph D. Sayers, with vote buying, stealing ballots, and influencing voters with liquor. The tone of his allegations suggested that this was the first time fellow Democrats had used such unethical tactics against their own members. Neither Hogg Democrats nor Populists could have missed the fact that Senter's broadside sounded much like the Populist response to his own solicitations earlier that year.⁵

Crane's strict party test of 1898 did little more than aggravate relations between Reform Democrats and Populists. When Crane withdrew from the governor's race, editor Park published an official statement identifying Crane as one of the "most virulent members of the coterie of political dead heads and nondescript statesmen which came to power with J. S. Hogg in 1890." Although Democrats quickly overthrew the strict party test in the wake of Crane's withdrawal, probably no more than 15 percent of the 1896 Populist voters returned to the Democratic party in 1898.⁶

Despite Hogg's newly unveiled anti-railroad amendments, few Populists voted the Democratic ticket in the 1900 general election. This occurred primarily because Texas lacked significant statewide races in 1900. Governor Sayers, as was customary, received renomination for a second term without opposition in the primaries. There was no question that Bryan would receive the warm support of the Texas delegation at the Democratic National Convention. Only Horace Chilton's bid for reelection to the Senate against Congressman Joseph W. Bailey held the promise of a heated conflict. Bailey, however, secured an overwhelming lead in specially called early primaries before Chilton returned home from a late session of Congress. This left the incumbent Senator with no choice but to withdraw from the race.'

The case of Walter B. Wilson, local editor of the Populist-oriented McKinney Democrat, helps explain the dynamics involved in the Populist return to the Democratic party in Texas. After the 1898 general election the Democrat suggested that its readers "bow in humble submission to the will of the people. . ."and spend the next two years "cultivating good feelings among neighbors . . . ." In light of such a statement, Wilson should have been a good prospect for Democratic conversion. On election day 1900, however, he angrily confided to his diary his desire to see Bryan suffer a second defeat for the presidency, and thus he voted the straight Populist ticket. Only when local Democrats adopted a party test in April 1902 reading, "I, the voter of this ticket, declare that I am a Democrat and pledge myself to support the nominee of this party' "did Wilson join the Democratic party. This transformation of the party test from an affirmation of previous party fealty to a promise of future loyalty accompanied the Populist return to the Democratic party throughout Texas. The next issue of the Democrat proclaimed that, "in a broad sense all are now Democrats . . . the former factions in the county are now practically at peace . " Along with many other former Populists, Wilson participated in his first Democratic primary in May 1902.⁸

The change in Populist attitudes between 1900 and 1902 can be directly linked to the anti-railroad amendments Hogg unveiled in 1900. The initial Populist response to the former governor's overtures, however, was not reassuring. The Southern Mercury warned that "no one who knows the elephantine ex-governor will say he is impelled by philanthropy alone . " When the Populist vote dropped from 28 percent of the total votes in 1898 to only 6 percent in 1900, editor Park quickly shelved his intransigence. By the time the Twenty-seventh Texas Legislature met in January 190 1, the Southern Mercury was engaged in an all-out lobbying effort in favor of Hogg's amendments.⁹

Despite its conservative orientation, the 1900 Democratic state convention included the Hogg amendments in its official platform. In part, this was the delegates' means of showing respect for the former governor after Congressman Bailey had treated him shabbily at the convention. With the party's official blessings S. A. "Gus" McMeans, chairman of the Committee on Constitutional Amendments, introduced Hogg's proposed legislation into the House. He was able to shepherd the package through his committee and its first two readings on the floor of the House before the amendments met defeat. Although McMeans's efforts ultimately proved unsuccessful, his role in promoting the anti-railroad amendments was significant. It revealed a reversal in Reform Democrat views. McMeans was the law partner of Thomas M. Campbell, who had authored Crane's strict party test of 1898. Those Reform Democrats associated with the attempt to exclude Populists from the Democratic party in the past had now reversed their strategy."

In the 1902 Texas gubernatorial campaign Campbell emerged early in the race as the Hogg candidate. By that time both he and the former governor could boast more favorable coverage from the Populist press. Campbell's major opponent was Samuel W. T. Lanham, a conservative, whose campaign manager, Edward M. House, confided to a friend that Lanham was "an upright man of fluent speech . . . [who] we could commit . . . to any line of policy that we thought best." Because Lanham was too old to rival U. S. Senators Joseph W. Bailey or Charles A. Culberson, they readily endorsed him.¹¹

The political career of Colonel Edward M. House during his Texas years provides an intriguing as well as important backdrop to the Populist return to the Democratic party. House was unsurpassed in this period as a political strategist. In 1894 he slickly maneuvered his favorite, Charles A. Culberson, into the Democratic nomination for governor. House talked Culberson's supporters into allowing a pro-gold plank to the party platform. When this drove Hogg's candidate, John H. Reagan, out of the race, Culberson successfully courted Reagan's followers and defeated Lanham, the favorite of the goldbugs, for the nomination. Acting as Culberson's campaign manager in 1896, House made the arrangements for the questionable Democratic victory in the general elections. In the 1898 gubernatorial race, House's confidant, Joe Bailey, encouraged the candidacy of north Texan Richard M. Wynne to offset Martin M. Crane's regional advantage. House's favorite, south Texan Joseph D. Sayers, then ran up a good lead by calling mid-winter primaries in his home region. By convention time Sayers was the only candidate in the race. Two years later Bailey used the same early primary scheme to perfection in his bid for the United States Senate. Such manipulations eventually drove Hogg Democrats to seek the help of the Populists in regaining control of their party.¹²

As a result of the House and Bailey machinations, and in order to vie for power within the party, Hogg Democrats secured a provision in the 1900 Democratic platform that charged the executive committee with setting a uniform date for party primaries. House's cronies on the executive committee, however, were able to block efforts to set a date for 1902. To make matters worse, in January 1902 Lanham revealed to Campbell that he had the backing of Colonel House. When the Southern Mercury reported that the "demagogues and heelers of the Gorman-Bailey-Lanham single standard type are rushing the primaries . . . ." Hogg forces quickly realized the type of campaign they faced.¹³

At that point Hogg Democrats finally embraced the Populist view that election reform was a necessary prerequisite to resurrecting the political fortunes of reformers. Hogg promptly issued a blast con tending that monopolistic interests were behind the early primary scheme. To emphasize the electoral issue, Campbell angrily charged that he had believed the party platform "would at least be a law unto the Democratic organization . . ."and flamboyantly withdrew from the race for governor. As Hogg forces had hoped, there was an immediate groundswell of popular opinion in favor of electoral reform. By July almost every county in the state had passed a resolution favoring a uniform primary law.¹²

As the latest victims of unethical electoral tactics, Hogg Democrats now moved with dispatch to secure a Populist presence in the Democratic primaries. Restrictive local party tests were overthrown in a flurry of rules changes. Since this placed many of the Populists' old adversaries within reach of their ballots, third-party veterans returned to the Democratic party with a vengeance. The editor of the Hopkins County Echo penned a typical response. Populists, he claimed, "returned . . . with a club, instead of lowly and contrite hearts , " taking their seats at the front of Democratic meetings, "the better to conduct the proceedings." Populists replied to such complaints with a line from a poem by Byron: "For time at last sets all things even . . . ."15

Official sources did not record the results of primary elections in this period, therefore evidence of the magnitude of the Populist return to the Democratic party in 1902 is fragmentary. Results from the Third United States Congressional District, located in northeast Texas, however, suggest that it was substantial. In a hotly contested congressional race Hogg Democrat Gordon James Russell defeated Reese C. DeGraffenreid, a close ally of the House ring. Figures from the early primaries show that DeGraffenreid established a 650-vote plurality in Gregg, Henderson, Kaufman, Upshur, and Wood counties, but in the Populist stronghold of Van Zandt County Russell swamped his opponent with a 2,350-vote majority.¹⁶

Table 1, which presents the Democratic votes cast in the Third Congressional District between 1896 and 1902, reveals a substantial increase in Democratic voters in 1902. The votes cast in the 1902 primaries show an increase of 42.4 percent over the Democrats' peak general election returns of this period, 1896, and an increase of 51 percent over the 1900 general election returns. Political contention moved at this time from the general elections into the Democratic primaries. The magnitude of each county's Democratic increase hinged upon local party tests and the size of its black population, which was excluded from voting in the Democratic primaries, except in Van Zandt County. As shown in Table 2, Gregg and Rusk counties had the smallest increases. Both had large black populations and strict party tests. With fewer blacks, yet with relatively strict party tests, Henderson and Wood counties experienced significantly greater increases. Kaufman and Van Zandt counties had the smallest black populations and the most liberal party tests in the region. In these two counties, the increase in voters was most dramatic.¹⁷

TABLE 1

DEMOCRATIC VOTE IN THE THIRD UNITED STATES 

CONGRESSIONAL DISTRICT OF TEXAS, 1896-1902

SOURCES: Biennial Report of the Secretary of State of the State of Texas, 1896 (Austin, 1897), 65-68; Biennial Report of the Secretary of State of the State of Texas, 1900 (Austin, 1901), 89-92; Dallas Morning News, June 22, 1902.

*R. C. DeGraffenreid withdrew from the race before the primary election in Smith County took place.

**The 1896 vote in Gregg County is probably inflated through fraud. Democrats never again came close to this vote in this period.

TABLE 2

PERCENTAGE OF BLACKS BY COUNTY AND DEMOCRATIC VOTE INCREASE

IN THE THIRD UNITED STATES CONGRESSIONAL DISTRICT OF TEXAS,

1900-1902

SOURCES: U. S. Bureau of the Census, Negro Population, 1790-1915 (Washington, 1918), 790-92; Biennial Report of the Secretary of State of the State of Texas, 1900 (Austin, 190 1), 89-92; Dallas Morning News, June 22, 1902.

Table 3 reveals a striking correlation between the white Populist vote of 1896 and the combined Populist and new Democratic ballot of 1902. White Populists returning to the Democratic party account for a substantial portion of the increase in the Democratic ballots for 1902. The Populist return was significant and largely benefited Gordon J. Russell, a candidate who was prominently identified with James Stephen Hogg.

TABLE 3

REDISTRIBUTION OF POPULIST VOTE IN THE THIRD 

CONGRESSIONAL DISTRICT OF TEXAS, 1896-1902

SOURCES: Biennial Report of the Secretary of State of the State of Texas, 1896 (Austin, 1897), 65-66; Biennial Report of the Secretary of State of the State of Texas, 1902 (Austin, 1903), 23-26; Dallas Morning News, June 22, 1902.

*Smith County figures are unavailable for 1902.

**The white Populist vote was estimated in the following manner. The number of eligible white voters for each county was taken from the U. S. censuses of 1890 and 1900 and prorated to 1896. This figure was then multiplied by .341. J. Morgan Kousser has estimated that Texas Populists received 34. 1 percent of the white vote in the 1896 gubernatorial election. U. S. Census Office, Report on Population of the United States . . . the Eleventh Census: 1890. Vol. I (Washington, 1895), 782-85; U. S. Census Office, The Twelfth Census of the United States . . . 1900. Vol. II: Population (Washington, 1902), 203-206; J. Morgan Kousser, The Shaping of Southern Politics: Suffrage Restriction and the Establishment of the One Party South, 1880-1910 (New Haven, Conn., and London, 1974), 199.

Election reform was essential in order to bring Populists back into the Democratic fold and thus revive the political fortunes of Hogg Democrats. In Texas, election reform took two forms: the poll tax and the uniform direct primary. Although historians generally consider the poll tax regressive and the direct primary progressive, both measures emerged from the same mandate in the Lone Star State. Voters who ratified the poll tax amendment in November 1902 also elected the legislature that passed the Terrell Election Law of 1903. For this reason, the two measures form separate parts of a whole.¹⁸

Poll tax legislation has a long history in Texas. At the Constitutional Convention of 1875 John H. Reagan led the first attempt to adopt the poll tax as a suffrage requirement. Although his intended victims were blacks, fretful Grangers united with Republicans to defeat the measure. Thereafter, Alexander Watkins Terrell emerged as the most prominent advocate of disfranchisement via the poll tax in Texas. Between 1879 and 1899 there were six unsuccessful attempts to pass poll tax legislation. The three bids of 1879, 1881, and 1891 were directly attributable to Terrell.¹⁹

According to J. Morgan Kousser, the poll tax in Texas was not "part of a general 'reform' program," but was "the quiet climax of a long drive by a few men, a drive which succeeded when the opposition became dormant . " The People's party, which had mounted the greatest opposition to the poll tax in the 1890s, was clearly dead after 1898. Yet the 1899 attempt to secure poll tax legislation failed just as before. Fifty representatives and eleven senators voted against the poll tax in 1899; only fifteen and six, respectively, expressed opposition on the final vote in 1901. The 1899 and 1901 legislatures differed little in political orientation, and the same Hogg Democrats, Pat M. Neff and Asbury B. Davidson, sponsored the measure both times. It was the markedly increased prospects for a Populist return to the Democratic party after Hogg unveiled his anti-railroad amendments in 1900 that changed the legislators' minds.²⁰

The poll tax finally passed the Texas Legislature in 1901 and was intended as a means of securely fastening Populists to the reform wing of the Democratic party. White Populists had never constituted a majority of the state's electorate, and in the 1890s they had only two prospective allies, Hogg Democrats and blacks. Throughout the Populist era the third party had made strong appeals for black votes. Black disfranchisement, it was hoped, would force Populists to deal exclusively with Reform Democrats or have no influence at all. Significantly, it was the legislature in session when the Southern Mercury began lobbying for the Hogg amendments that passed the poll tax amendment. The poll tax only made statewide, and therefore more difficult to change, a policy that Democrats already practiced at the local level. While Populism threatened, Democrats had appealed for both black and white recruits. But as the People's party disintegrated, the white primary separated black and white Populists, eliminating blacks from a meaningful role in Texas politics. The Populists' favorable response to the Hogg amendments signaled to the Democrats that they were ready to jettison the black man and return to the dominant party.²¹

To Populists, the poll tax was a Reform Democrat offer of fair play. Third-party association with blacks had justified overt suppression in the minds of many otherwise honest and respectable white Texans in the 1890s. Although Populists realized the black man was a victim, by 1902 many had lost their enthusiasm for his continued participation in the political system. Hogg Democrats, Alexander Watkins Terrell among them, astutely presented the poll tax to Populists as a purification of the ballot .²²

The primary purpose of disfranchisement in Texas was to eliminate blacks, not white Populists. While many conservative Democrats went along with disfranchisement, they did not lead or control the process. Prominent Hogg Democrats introduced the discriminatory legislation. But because they knew that they would need white Populist support in the future, they also led the fight against more stringent disfranchisement measures. Pat M. Neff, the bill's sponsor, successfully quashed a conservative attempt to include in the bill an ad valorem tax as a suffrage requirement. Hogg supporter E. A. Calvin, a future president of the neo-Populist Farmers' Union, provided similar resistance when conservatives proposed that all taxes had to be paid to qualify for suffrage. Seventy-three percent of those voting or paired against the poll tax in the House of Representatives also voted against the Hogg amendments in the same session. Conservatives, not liberals, constituted the bulk of the legislative opposition to the Davidson-Neff poll tax amendment.²³

When Texans voted on the poll tax amendment in November 1902, they approved it by a two-to-one margin. The largest opposition to disfranchisement centered in north Texas, where Populism had flourished, and along the Rio Grande, where those of Mexican heritage predominated. Eighty-one percent of those voting the Populist ticket in 1902 opposed the poll tax. The third-party vote of 1902, however, was only 5 percent of its 1896 poll. H. S. P. "Stump" Ashby and James H. "Cyclone" Davis, the two most prominent Populist leaders still active in politics, both endorsed the measure. Before the election, Milton Park even published a pro-poll-tax appeal to Populists from E. G. Senter. Since the number of ballots cast statewide in the general election was more than 30 percent below the 1900 level, it is safe to assume that most white Texans, regardless of their political affiliation, at least acquiesced in disfranchisement.²⁴

When the Twenty-eighth Legislature met in 1903 Hogg forces supported Pat M. Neff, the sponsor of the poll tax amendment, for Speaker of the House. Senator Bailey supported an opponent of the Hogg amendments for the post. As many legislators were not committed to reform beyond the uniform primary issue, the contest was close. Neff eventually won the speaker's chair, but only after sixty-two ballots.²⁵

To no one's surprise, Neff appointed Alexander Watkins Terrell chairman of the Committee on Privileges, Suffrages, and Elections. During the 1902 campaign Terrell had emerged as the state's leading spokesman for uniform primaries, and his campaign had received statewide press coverage. Terrell entered the contest for state representative a week after Campbell withdrew from the gubernatorial race. Throughout the campaign Terrell displayed a petition with the signatures of "every white democrat, republican, and populist, who saw it . . . " asking him to run. Although he restated much of the anti-corporation rhetoric he had used in the past, Terrell ran largely on the poll-tax and uniform-primary issues. On election day he ran a close race in the city of Austin and carried every rural box in his district.²⁶

The bill Terrell introduced in 1903 provided for uniform primaries, both as to procedure and time; guaranteed official secret ballots; placed the payment of poll taxes between October and February; and spelled out in detail the abolition of various frauds characteristic of the 1890s. To end the mid-winter primaries characteristic of an Edward M. House-managed campaign, Terrell set the primaries for late July. Traditionally, farmers planted cotton in March and April, summer wheat in June, and harvested corn by July fourth. Terrell's date allowed farmers several weeks for political activity before the primaries. The Terrell election law marked the end of an era in which manipulators such as Colonel House dominated Texas politics.²⁷

The poll tax amendment and Terrell election law set the stage for further reforms, but the Twenty-eighth Legislature (1903) disappointed former Populists by offering little more. S. J. Isaacks, the only former Populist to sit in the Twenty-eighth Legislature, reintroduced the Hogg amendments, and as in 1901, they were sent to the Committee on Constitutional Amendments. This time, however, the amendments fell into unfriendly hands, and despite Hogg's and Isaacks's efforts to retrieve them, they never emerged from committee.²⁷

Although former Populists had supplemented Hogg forces with their return to the Democratic party, the reform coalition could boast of only marginal results from the Twenty-eighth Legislature. Populists had broken from Hogg's leadership in the 1890s in an anti-elitist effort to promote their own views. In returning a decade later they acknowledged the failure of third-party confrontation, but ex-Populists were hesitant to yield completely their role in defining the issues. To do so would make them little more than pawns of the Reform-Democratic leadership. What ex-Populists needed to gain clout was a vehicle to articulate farmer interests; former Populists recalled that this had been the original purpose of the Farmers' Alliance. In the 1880s the Alliance had swept the state and then the nation, educating the farmer as to his condition and introducing him to both economic and political cooperation. By 1902 many former Populists would claim that the Alliance movement had self-destructed by adopting independent political action. In September 1902 Populist editor Newt Gresham, who had stumped much of the South as an Alliance organizer in the 1880s, set out to resurrect such an organization.

To allay the fears of prospective critics, Gresham chose his charter members carefully: five Democrats, three Populists, one Socialist, and an Independent.29 They met on September 2, 1902, in the small hamlet of Point, Texas, to found the Farmers' Educational and Cooperative Union of America, more popularly known today as the Farmers' Union. The organizers did not, however, attempt to disguise the new order's antecedents. The preamble to the Union's original constitution contains a direct reference to the Farmers' Alliance. With such impeccable Populist credentials, the Farmers' Union had no trouble enlisting former third-party lecturers to spread its message. As before, the organizers stressed economic and political cooperation. This time, however, they promised to be nonpartisan, a euphemism for working within the Democratic party. The union's choice of James Stephen Hogg as its lobbyist before the Railroad Commission in 1904 left little doubt that Reform Democrats would be the political beneficiaries of the new farmers' organization.³⁰

Farmers' Union leaders accurately perceived the necessity of rejecting the confrontation politics of third-party action to regain the support of the former Alliancemen who had remained loyal to the Democratic party in the 1890s. Because prominent Populists were clearly associated with the union and a startling number of third-party papers opened their columns to the new order, the Farmers' Union spread like wildfire. By August 1905 the union's leadership claimed a Texas membership of more than 100,000.³¹

In light of its dramatic organizing success, the Farmers' Union sent its own lobbyist, general organizer J. D. Montgomery, to the Twenty-ninth Legislature to look after the organized farmers' interests. The Lanham administration's deficit spending had led to a general demand for tax reform. Since the state's tax burden rested most heavily upon farmers, Montgomery threw the union's weight behind three progressive tax reform measures: a gross receipts tax on railroads, a franchise tax on corporate stocks and profits, and an intangible assets tax on corporations. When reluctant senators balked at the railroad measure, Montgomery organized a Farmers' Union write-in campaign to carry the day. In addition to promoting the passage of all three tax bills, the union also secured a pure food and correct labeling act for commercial feed. This gave Texas cattle a two-year lead over humans in the consumption of unadulterated foodstuffs. The union's lobbying effort was not completely successful, however. Anti-free pass and anti-nepotism legislation from previous Democratic platforms was once more sidetracked, and a railroad consolidation bill publicly opposed by the Farmers' Union ran the gauntlet of its protests and became law. Still, reform forces had broken the barrier to economic legislation.³²

A number of organizations, including the State Federation of Labor, the Federation of Commercial Clubs, the Texas Local Option Association, and the Texas Federation of Women's Clubs, as well as the Farmers' Union, provided a catalyst for the onset of the Progressive Era in Texas. To a certain degree, however, the size of each group's clout at the polls is a fair gauge of its political influence in this period. By 1906 membership in the Farmers' Union exceeded that of all the other organizations combined.³³

Rather than slipping its foot past the door to reform as it had done in 1905, the Farmers' Union prepared to bash the door to splinters in 1906. Recognizing the union's clout, each of the major candidates for governor came out early in the 1906 race in opposition to trusts, corporate control of government, graft, nepotism, free passes, and lobbies, while favoring anti-corporation tax reform and specifically endorsing the Farmers' Union-backed tax measures of 1905. Clearly the revolution that would sweep Lanham and the House ring out of power had already occurred.³⁴

With such broad agreement on economic issues, the campaign of 1906 threatened to focus upon prohibition and regionalism. State Attorney General Charles K. Bell appeared to be the front runner early in the campaign. Not only could he expect strong support from his former west central Texas congressional district, but the contacts he had developed while in Austin promised to take his candidacy beyond regional considerations. James B. Wells, Jr., for instance, would deliver the Rio Grande Valley to him on election day. On the liquor question Bell claimed to be an "anti" in his home town of Fort Worth and a "pro" in his former residence of Hamilton. His stance was not destined to win him strong advocates of either position.³⁵

East Texan Thomas M. Campbell also entered the race. While known to be a prohibitionist, Campbell proclaimed that it was not an issue and emphasized economic policy instead. At one point, however, J. H. "Cyclone" Davis jeopardized this strategy with a well-publicized attempt to drag the entire Prohibition party into the east Texan's camp. The endorsement of Monta J. Moore, a prominent "anti" and one-time fifth candidate in the race, however, served to offset this undesirable connection.³⁶

Two north Texans, Oscar B. Colquitt and Micajah M. Brooks, rounded out the field. As a longtime associate of the former governor, Colquitt's candidacy served to dilute Campbell's claim to the Hogg mantle. Hogg procrastinated over the choice for weeks but, shortly before he died, he endorsed Thomas M. Campbell. On the prohibition question Colquitt was the only unabashed "anti" in the race. While this made Colquitt a favorite son to south and central Texans., it threw his north Texas home region to Brooks, a strident opponent of liquor.³⁷

Bell's west central Texas home region had been a Populist stronghold in the 1890s. As Campbell increasingly appeared more liberal than Bell, prominent former Populists from this region began drifting into the east Texan's camp. James S. Daley, former Populist editor of the Dublin Progress, for instance, acknowledged it proper to support the home man when possible. On the eve of the election, however, he cited Bell's corporate support and Hogg's endorsement of Campbell, and switched his allegiance to the east Texan. Even more telling, the Cleburne Watchman also endorsed Campbell in its last edition before the election. Edited by the current chairman of the People's party, the Watchman was the last official Populist newspaper in Texas.⁴⁰

By 1906 the People's party posed an electoral threat to Democrats in only one Texas locality. This was Comanche County, located in the center of Bell's home region. As election day neared, the local representative of the Campbell forces approached Populist leaders and talked them into withdrawing their names from the ticket. This allowed Populist supporters to enter the Democratic primary in support of Campbell. The move brought the east Texan to within twenty four votes of Bell on election day.⁴¹

Except for Bell's poor showing, the results of the primary were not completely unexpected. Brooks swept the northernmost part of the state. Campbell carried most of east Texas and a few counties in the central part of the state that had shown Populist strength in the 1890s.⁴² Colquitt dominated the heavily ethnic area from Houston and the Gulf Coast to west of Austin. James B. Wells, Jr., faithfully secured the Rio Grande Valley for Bell. In west central Texas, where Bell had placed much hope as a favorite son, however, Campbell ran a surprisingly close race. The final results gave Campbell 90,345; Brooks 70,064; Colquitt 68,529; and Bell 65,168 votes. Since no candidate received a majority, the Democratic convention chose the party's nominee. Delegates to the convention were apportioned according to the primary results and remained loyal to their pledges on the first ballot. Fearing a plot reminiscent of the 1890s, however, both Brooks's and Colquitt's supporters went over to Campbell en masse on the second ballot.⁴³

Campbell's victory climaxed the first gubernatorial race in more than a decade that lacked the personal touch of Edward M. House. In the wake of the convention, Bell offered the Colonel the inside story on the campaign. He wrote, "Mr. Campbell received the vote of the Populists who returned to the party, and his friends, and no others." In overstating the limitations of Campbell's following, Bell put his finger on the key to the revival of Reform Democracy. Populists and Hogg Democrats had resurrected the coalition of 1890.⁴⁴

In addition to placing Thomas M. Campbell in the governor's chair in 1906, the electorate also sent to Austin the most reform minded legislature in Texas history. The Thirtieth Legislature, responding to the organized farmers' demands, outlawed speculation in agricultural futures and shifted part of the state's tax burden from the farmers' shoulders to banks, telephone and telegraph companies, and railroads, with a full-rendition-of-taxes law. The Farmers' Alliance had included both measures in its Cleburne Demands of 1886. The Campbell administration also secured passage of the long-postponed Hogg amendments. In addition the legislature created a separate Department of Agriculture.⁴⁵

Hogg Democrats and Populists used the coalition of 1890 as a model to resurrect their respective political fortunes, but the intervening split was more than just a factional dispute. The partners of 1890 stood together only in opposition to a common adversary -the railroads. They disagreed sharply over the potential beneficiaries of the reform impulse. It was the Populist rejection of Hogg's leadership that transformed the Farmers' Alliance into the People's party. Once the Populist revolt had run its course and conservatives had eclipsed reformers within the Democratic party, however, the 1890 coalition did provide a blueprint for rebuilding the reformers' collective political influence. Pragmatic political considerations set the tone and defined the agenda for progressivism in Texas.

In the twentieth century Texas farmers confronted essentially the same economic problems as before. Although cotton prices rose after 1898, so did tenancy. The prosperity of the Progressive Era only served to slow the farmers' downward economic plunge. With the demise of the People's party, organized farmers realized that a rapprochement with Reform Democrats was necessary for them to have any influence upon twentieth-century Texas politics. Prosperity was less a factor in changing the tone of Texas Populism than was the fact that farmers learned from their past and adjusted to contemporary realities. They appeared less belligerent because confrontation had failed. The change in organized farmers' attitudes was essential in securing a significant Populist influence upon twentieth-century Texas progressivism.