12.
Keeping Out of Politics
Source:
Southern Mercury (Dallas, TX), August 20, 1891
Political
affiliation was almost akin to church membership during the late nineteenth
century. Committing farmers to
issues that neither mainstream party would accept was the first step to weaning
them from old party loyalties. Only
when they realized that their old party would not support their interests was it
possible to recruit them into the People's Party.
For Populists the realization came earlier in the Plains States, where
the Republican Party showed insensitivity to their concerns.
At first, southern Democrats attempted to coopt the Alliance movement,
hoping they could mute some of the Alliance's more radical ideas while drawing
western Alliancemen away from the GOP. The
1891 southern legislative sessions, however, were highly disappointing to many
Alliancemen, who then joined their western counterparts in the Populist Party.
For
more on Farmers' Alliance educational efforts, see:
Clevenger,
Homer. "The Teaching Techniques of the Farmers' Alliance: An Experiment in
Adult Education." Journal of Southern History. 11(4): 504‑518.
Mitchell,
Theodore R. Political Education in the Southern Farmers' Alliance, 1887-1900.
242 p. Madison: U of Wisconsin P, 1987.
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