1. People's Party (United States)
The People's Party, also known as the "Populists", was a short-lived political party in the
United States established in 1891 during the Populist movement (United States, 19th Century). It
was most important in 1892-96, then rapidly faded away. Based among poor, white cotton
farmers in the South (especially North Carolina, Alabama, and Texas) and hard-pressed wheat
farmers in the plains states (especially Kansas and Nebraska), it represented a radical crusading
form of agrarianism and hostility to banks, railroads, and elites generally. It sometimes formed
coalitions with labor unions, and in 1896 the Democrats endorsed their presidential nominee,
William Jennings Bryan. The terms "populist" and "populism" are commonly used for anti-elitist
appeals in opposition to established interests and mainstream parties.
History
Formation
A People's Party grew out of agrarian unrest in response to low agricultural prices in the South
and the trans-Mississippi West.[1] The Farmers' Alliance, formed in Lampasas, TX in 1876,
promoted collective economic action by farmers and achieved widespread popularity in the
South and Great Plains. The Farmers' Alliance ultimately did not achieve its wider economic
goals of collective economic action against brokers, railroads, and merchants, and many in the
movement agitated for changes in national policy. By the late 1880s, the Alliance had developed
a political agenda that called for regulation and reform in national politics, most notably an
opposition to the gold standard to counter the high deflation in agricultural prices in relation to
other goods such as farm implements.
In December 1888 the National Agricultural Wheel and the Southern Farmer’s Alliance met at
Meridian, Mississippi. In that meeting they decided to consolidate the two parties pending
ratification. This consolidation gave the organization a new name, the Farmers and Laborers’
Union of America, and by 1889 the merger had been ratified, although there were conflicts
between ―conservative‖ Alliance men and ―political‖ Wheelers in Texas and Arkansas, which
delayed the unification in these states until 1890 and 1891 respectively. The merger eventually
united white Southern Alliance and Wheel members, but it would not include African American
members of agricultural organizations.[2]
During their move towards consolidation in 1889, the leaders of both Southern Farmers’ Alliance
and the Agricultural Wheel organizations contacted Terence V. Powderly, leader of the Knights
of Labor. ―This contact between leaders of the farmers’ movement and Powderly helped pave the
way for a series of reform conferences held between December 1889 and July 1892 that resulted
in the formation of the national People’s (or Populist) Party.‖[3]
The drive to create a new political party out of the movement arose from the belief that the two
major parties Democrats and Republicans were controlled by bankers, landowners and elites

2. hostile to the needs of the small farmer. The movement reached its peak in 1892 when the party
held a convention chaired by Frances Willard (leader of the WCTU and a friend of Powderly's)[4]
in Omaha, Nebraska and nominated candidates for the national election.
The party's platform, commonly known as the Omaha Platform, called for the abolition of
national banks, a graduated income tax, direct election of Senators, civil service reform, a
working day of eight hours and Government control of all railroads, telegraphs, and telephones.
In the 1892 Presidential election, James B. Weaver received 1,027,329 votes. Weaver carried
four states (Colorado, Kansas, Idaho, and Nevada) and received electoral votes from Oregon and
North Dakota as well.
The party flourished most among farmers in the Southwest and Great Plains, as well as making
significant gains in the South, where they faced an uphill battle given the firmly entrenched
monopoly of the Democratic Party. Success was often obtained through electoral fusion, with the
Democrats outside the South, but with alliances with the Republicans in Southern states like
Alabama, North Carolina, Tennessee, and Texas.[5] For example, in the elections of 1894, a
coalition of Populists and Republicans led by Populist Marion Butler swept state and local
offices in North Carolina, and the coalition would go on to elect Republican Daniel Lindsay
Russell as Governor in 1896.[6]
Quite separate from the Populists were the Silverites in the western mining states, who
demanded Free silver to solve the Panic of 1893.
The Populists followed the Prohibition Party in actively including women in their affairs. Some
southern Populists, including Thomas E. Watson of Georgia, openly talked of the need for poor
blacks and poor whites to set aside their racial differences in the name of shared economic self-
interest. Regardless of these rhetoric appeals, however, racism did not evade the People's Party.
Prominent Populist Party leaders such as Marion Butler, a United States Senator from North
Carolina, at least partially demonstrated a dedication to the cause of white supremacy, and there
appears to have been some support for this viewpoint among the rank-and-file of the party's
membership.[7] After 1900 Watson himself became an outspoken white supremacist and became
the party's presidential nominee in 1904 and 1908, winning 117,000 and 29,000 votes.
Presidential election of 1896
By 1896, the Democratic Party took up many of the People's Party's causes at the national level,
and the party began to fade from national prominence. In that year's presidential election, the
Democrats nominated William Jennings Bryan, who focused (as Populists rarely did) on the free
silver issue as a solution to the economic depression and the maldistribution of power. One of the
great orators of the day, Bryan generated enormous excitement among Democrats with his
"Cross of Gold" speech, and appeared in the summer of 1896 to have a good chance of winning
the election, if the Populists voted for him.
The Populists had the choice of endorsing Bryan or running their own candidate. After great
infighting at their St. Louis convention they decided to endorse Bryan but with their own vice
presidential nominee, Thomas E. Watson of Georgia. Watson was cautiously open to

3. cooperation, but after the election would recant any hope he had in the possibility of cooperation
as a viable tool.[8] Bryan's strength was based on the traditional Democratic vote (minus the
middle class and the Germans); he swept the old Populist strongholds in the west and South, and
added the silverite states in the west, but did poorly in the industrial heartland. He lost to
Republican William McKinley by a margin of 600,000 votes, and lost again in a rematch in 1900
by a larger margin.[9]
[edit] Fading fortunes
The effects of fusion with the Democrats were disastrous to the Party in the South. The
Populist/Republican alliance which had governed North Carolina fell apart in North Carolina, the
only state in which it had any success. By 1898, the Democrats used a violently racist campaign
to defeat the North Carolina Populists and GOP and in 1900 the Democrats ushered in
disfranchisement.[10]
Populism never recovered from the failure of 1896. For example, Tennessee’s Populist Party was
demoralized by a diminishing membership, and puzzled and split by the dilemma of whether to
fight the state-level enemy (the Democrats) or the national foe (the Republicans and Wall Street).
By 1900 the People’s Party of Tennessee was a shadow of what it once was[11]
In 1900, while many Populist voters supported Bryan again, the weakened party nominated a
separate ticket of Wharton Barker and Ignatius L. Donnelly, and disbanded afterwards. Populist
activists either retired from politics, joined a major party, or followed Eugene Debs into his new
Socialist Party.
[edit] Reorganization
In 1904, the party was re-organized, and Thomas E. Watson was their nominee for president in
1904 and in 1908, after which the party disbanded again.
[edit] Historians look at Populism
Since the 1890s historians have vigorously debated the nature of Populism; most scholars have
been liberals who admired the Populists for their attacks on banks and railroads. Some historians
see a close link between the Populists of the 1890s and the progressives of 1900-1912, but most
of the leading progressives (except Bryan himself) fiercely opposed Populism. Thus Theodore
Roosevelt, George W. Norris, Robert LaFollette, William Allen White and Woodrow Wilson
strongly opposed Populism. It is debated whether any Populist ideas made their way into the
Democratic party during the New Deal era. The New Deal farm programs were designed by
experts (like Henry Wallace) who had nothing to do with Populism.[12]
Some historians see the populists as forward-looking liberal reformers. Others view them as
reactionaries trying to recapture an idyllic and utopian past. For some they are radicals out to

4. restructure American life, and for others they are economically hard-pressed agrarians seeking
government relief. Much recent scholarship emphasizes Populism's debt to early American
republicanism.[13] Clanton (1991) stresses that Populism was "the last significant expression of
an old radical tradition that derived from Enlightenment sources that had been filtered through a
political tradition that bore the distinct imprint of Jeffersonian, Jacksonian, and Lincolnian
democracy." This tradition emphasized human rights over the cash nexus of the Gilded Age's
dominant ideology.[14]
Frederick Jackson Turner and a succession of western historians depicted the Populist as
responding to the closure of the frontier. Turner explained:
The Farmers' Alliance and the Populist demand for government ownership of the railroad
is a phase of the same effort of the pioneer farmer, on his latest frontier. The proposals
have taken increasing proportions in each region of Western Advance. Taken as a whole,
Populism is a manifestation of the old pioneer ideals of the native American, with the
added element of increasing readiness to utilize the national government to effect its
ends.[15]
The most influential Turner student of Populism was John D. Hicks, who emphasized economic
pragmatism over ideals, presenting Populism as interest group politics, with have-nots
demanding their fair share of America's wealth which was being leeched off by nonproductive
speculators. Hicks emphasized the drought that ruined so many Kansas farmers, but also pointed
to financial manipulations, deflation in prices caused by the gold standard, high interest rates,
mortgage foreclosures, and high railroad rates. Corruption accounted for such outrages and
Populists presented popular control of government as the solution, a point that later students of
republicanism emphasized.[16]
In the 1930s C. Vann Woodward stressed the southern base, seeing the possibility of a black-
and-white coalition of poor against the overbearing rich. Georgia politician Tom Watson served
as Woodward's hero.[17] In the 1950s, however, scholars such as Richard Hofstadter portrayed
the Populist movement as an irrational response of backward-looking farmers to the challenges
of modernity. He discounted third party links to Progressivism and argued that Populists were
provincial, conspiracy-minded, and had a tendency toward scapegoatism that manifested itself as
nativism, anti-Semitism, anti-intellectualism, and Anglophobia. The antithesis of anti-modern
Populism was modernizing Progressivism according to Hofstadter's model, with such leading
progressives as Theodore Roosevelt, Robert LaFollette, George Norris and Woodrow Wilson
pointed as having been vehement enemies of Populism, though William Jennings Bryan did
cooperate with them and accepted the Populist nomination in 1896.[18]
Michael Kazin's The Populist Persuasion (1995) argued that Populism reflected a rhetorical style
that manifested itself in spokesmen like Father Charles Coughlin in the 1930s and Governor
George Wallace in the 1960s.
Postel (2007) rejects the notion that the Populists were traditionalistic and anti-modern. Quite the
reverse, he argued, the Populists aggressively sought self-consciously progressive goals. They
sought diffusion of scientific and technical knowledge, formed highly centralized organizations,

5. launched large-scale incorporated businesses, and pressed for an array of state-centered reforms.
Hundreds of thousands of women committed to Populism seeking a more modern life, education,
and employment in schools and offices. A large section of the labor movement looked to
Populism for answers, forging a political coalition with farmers that gave impetus to the
regulatory state. Progress, however, was also menacing and inhumane, Postel notes. White
Populists, embraced social-Darwinist notions of racial improvement, Chinese exclusion and
separate-but-equal.[19]
Elected officials
Governors
Colorado: Davis Hanson Waite, 1893–1895
Idaho: Frank Steunenberg, 1897–1901 (Fusion of Democrats and Populists)
Kansas: Lorenzo D. Lewelling, 1893–1895
Kansas: John W. Leedy, 1897–1899
Nebraska: Silas A. Holcomb, 1895–1899 (Fusion of Democrats and Populists)
Nebraska: William A. Poynter, 1899–1901 (Fusion of Democrats and Populists)
North Carolina: Daniel Lindsay Russell, 1897–1901 (Coalition of Republicans and
Populists)
Oregon: Sylvester Pennoyer, 1887–1895 (Fusion of Democrats and Populists)
South Dakota: Andrew E. Lee, 1897–1901
Tennessee: John P. Buchanan, 1891–1893
Washington: John Rogers, 1897–1901 (Fusion of Democrats and Populists)
United States Congress
Approximately forty-five members of the party served in the U.S. Congress between 1891 and
1902. These included six United States Senators:
William A. Peffer and William A. Harris from Kansas
Marion Butler of North Carolina
James H. Kyle from South Dakota
Henry Heitfeld of Idaho
William V. Allen from Nebraska
The following were Populist members of the U.S. House of Representatives:
52nd United States Congress
Thomas E. Watson, Georgia's 10th congressional district
Benjamin Hutchinson Clover, Kansas's 3rd congressional district
John Grant Otis, Kansas's 4th congressional district
John Davis, Kansas's 5th congressional district
William Baker, Kansas's 6th congressional district
Jerry Simpson, Kansas's 7th congressional district

6. Kittel Halvorson, Minnesota's 6th congressional district
William A. McKeighan, Nebraska's 2nd congressional district
Omer Madison Kem, Nebraska's 3rd congressional district
53rd United States Congress
Haldor Boen, Minnesota's 7th congressional district
Marion Cannon, California's 6th congressional district
Lafayette Pence, Colorado's 1st congressional district
John Calhoun Bell, Colorado's 2nd congressional district
Thomas Jefferson Hudson, Kansas's 3rd congressional district
John Davis, Kansas' 5th congressional district
William Baker, Kansas' 6th congressional district
Jerry Simpson, Kansas' 7th congressional district
William A. Harris, Kansas Member-at-large
William A. McKeighan, Nebraska's 5th congressional district
Omer Madison Kem, Nebraska's 6th congressional district
Alonzo C. Shuford, North Carolina's 7th congressional district
54th United States Congress
Albert Taylor Goodwyn, Alabama's 5th congressional district
Milford W. Howard, Alabama's 7th congressional district
William Baker, Kansas' 6th congressional district
Omer Madison Kem, Nebraska's 6th congressional district
Harry Skinner, North Carolina's 1st congressional district
William F. Strowd, North Carolina's 4th congressional district
Charles H. Martin (1848–1931), North Carolina's 6th congressional district
Alonzo C. Shuford, North Carolina's 7th congressional district
55th United States Congress
Albert Taylor Goodwyn, Alabama's 5th congressional district
Charles A. Barlow, California's 6th congressional district
Curtis H. Castle, California's 7th congressional district
James Gunn, Idaho's 1st congressional district
Mason Summers Peters, Kansas's 2nd congressional district
Edwin Reed Ridgely, Kansas's 3rd congressional district
William Davis Vincent, Kansas's 5th congressional district
Nelson B. McCormick, Kansas's 6th congressional district
Jerry Simpson, Kansas's 7th congressional district
Jeremiah Dunham Botkin, Kansas Member-at-large
Samuel Maxwell, Nebraska's 3rd congressional district
William Ledyard Stark, Nebraska's 4th congressional district
Roderick Dhu Sutherland, Nebraska's 5th congressional district
William Laury Greene, Nebraska's 6th congressional district

7. Harry Skinner, North Carolina's 1st congressional district
John E. Fowler, North Carolina's 3rd congressional district
William F. Strowd, North Carolina's 4th congressional district
Charles H. Martin, North Carolina's 5th congressional district
Alonzo C. Shuford, North Carolina's 7th congressional district
John Edward Kelley, South Dakota's 1st congressional district
Freeman T. Knowles, South Dakota's 2nd congressional district
56th United States Congress
William Ledyard Stark, Nebraska's 4th congressional district
Roderick Dhu Sutherland, Nebraska's 5th congressional district
William Laury Greene, Nebraska's 6th congressional district
John W. Atwater, North Carolina's 4th congressional district
57th United States Congress
Thomas L. Glenn, Idaho's 1st congressional district
Caldwell Edwards, Montana's 1st congressional district
William Ledyard Stark, Nebraska's 4th congressional district
William Neville, Nebraska's 6th congressional district
James B. Weaver
James Baird Weaver (June 12, 1833 – February 6, 1912) was a United States politician and
member of the United States House of Representatives, representing Iowa as a member of the
Greenback Party. He ran for President two times on third party tickets in the late 19th century.
An opponent of the gold standard and national banks, he is most famous as the presidential
nominee of the People's Party (commonly known as the "Populists") in the 1892 election.
.
[edit] Political career
After the war he became active in Iowa politics as a member of the Republican Party. In 1866 he
was elected district attorney of the Second Iowa Judicial District. On March 25, 1867, he was
appointed a federal assessor of internal revenue by President Andrew Johnson.
Weaver became increasingly disenchanted with the Republican Party and the presidential
administration of Ulysses S. Grant, viewing it as under the control of big business at the expense
of farmers and small businessmen. He joined the Greenback Party, which advocated an expanded
and flexible national currency based on the use of silver alongside gold, as well as an eight-hour
work day, the taxation of interest from government bonds, and a graduated income tax. He was
elected to the United States House of Representatives in 1878 on the Greenback ticket and

8. served in the Forty-sixth Congress from 1879 to 1881, but in 1880 was nominated for the
presidency instead of re-election to Congress.
Weaver ran again for Congress in 1882, but lost to Republican Marsena E. Cutts. He successfully
ran again in 1884 and was re-elected in 1886, serving from 1885 to 1889. During that period, he
served as chairman of the Committee on Expenditures in the Department of the Interior from
1885 to 1887 and of the Committee on Patents from 1887 to 1889. When seeking re-election in
1888, Weaver was defeated in the general election by Republican John F. Lacey.
] Presidential candidacies
James B. Weaver was twice a candidate for President of the United States.
1880
Weaver was a candidate for renomination in 1880, but he was instead nominated as the
presidential candidate of the Greenback Party at its convention in Chicago where he outpolled
Pennsylvania congressman Hendrick Bradley Wright. In the 1880 presidential election, he
received 308,578 votes, compared to 4,454,416 for Republican James Garfield and 4,444,952 for
Democrat Winfield Hancock. Much of Weaver's support came from the Great Plains and rural
West, areas where the Farmers' Alliance was strong.
The Greenback Party eventually merged with the Democratic Party in most states, a move that
Weaver opposed.
Results showing the percentage of votes cast for Weaver in each county in the election of 1892.

9. People’s Party (populist party)
In 1891, the farmers' alliances met with delegates from labor and reform groups in Cincinnati,
Ohio, and discussed forming a new political party. They formed the People's Party, commonly
known as the "Populists," a year later in St. Louis, Missouri.
At the first Populist national convention in Omaha, Nebraska in July 1892, James B. Weaver of
Iowa was nominated for president on the first ballot. James G. Field of Virginia was nominated
for vice-president. The Populist platform called for nationalization of the telegraph, telephone,
and railroads, free coinage of silver, a graduated income tax, and creation of postal savings
banks.
In 1891 Weaver helped found the People's Party, a group commonly known as the "Populists." In
1892 he was the presidential nominee of the Peoples Party at its convention in Omaha and chose
a strategy of forming alliances with African Americans in the South. His policy was not well
received by Whites in the South and led to violence and intimidation against black voters.
Weaver received such strong support in the West that he become the only third-party nominee
between 1860 and 1912 to carry a single state. In one of the better showings by a third-party
candidate in U.S. history, Weaver received over a million popular votes, and won four states
(Colorado, Kansas, Idaho, and Nevada) and 22 electoral votes. Weaver also performed well in
the South as he won counties in Alabama, Georgia, Mississippi, North Carolina, and Texas.
Populists did best in Alabama, where electoral chicanery probably carried the day for
Democrats.[1]
Weaver's running mate was James G. Field, a former Confederate general from Virginia whom
he selected in an effort to move beyond the era's prevailing bloody shirt politics.
The Populist (or People's) Party platform in 1892 incorporated a host of
popular reform ideas, including the following:
Australian (or Secret) Ballot. Voting was still conducted publicly in many areas,
potentially subjecting voters to pressure or recrimination by employers and landlords.
(This proposal was adopted almost everywhere in the United States in the early 20th
century.)
Popular Election of U.S. Senators. As provided in the Constitution (Article I, Section
3), senators were selected by the state legislatures, not by popular vote. It was believed
that business lobbies exerted inordinate influence over the selection of these officials.
(This plank would become part of the Constitution in 1913 when Amendment XVII was
ratified.)
Direct Democracy. The Populists urged the adoption of the initiative, referendum and
recall as means to give the people a more direct voice in government. (Some or all of
these procedures became part of the constitutions of many states during the early 20th
century.)

10. Banking Reform. The Populists believed that much of their economic hardship had been
caused by bankers' unfair practices. They proposed to end the national banking system, a
point of view not widely held. (The Populists failed with this proposal and a Federal
Reserve System was established by law in 1913.)
Government Ownership of the Railroads. Anger against the railroads for alleged price
discrimination was so intense that the Populists advocated for federal appropriation.
(Opponents charged the Populists with socialism and little public support existed for this
plank. However, during the Theodore Roosevelt administration, steps were taken toward
reform of the railroads.)
Graduated Income Tax. The Populists viewed the graduated income tax as a means to
pry loose a portion of the tremendous wealth of the nation's most prosperous citizens. A
"graduated" tax meant that the rate of taxation would increase as one's income increased.
(A step was made in this direction in the Wilson-Gorman Tariff of 1894 when a uniform
tax was imposed, but that portion of the law was declared unconstitutional by the
Supreme Court the following year. Authority to impose such taxation was granted to
Congress under Amendment XVI in 1913.)
Free and Unlimited Coinage of Silver. The Populists in 1892 raised the silver issue, but
not with the same fervor that would emerge four years later. (The free silver crusade
would die a natural death in the years following 1896, as prosperity returned and the
world's gold supply increased.)
[edit] Work with the 1896 election
In the 1896 election, he threw his support behind Democrat William Jennings Bryan, who
supported many of the Populist causes and who subsequently captured the Democratic Party
nomination. Weaver had believed that he had struck a deal with Bryan that Tom Watson, who
had helped found the Populist Party with Weaver, would be Bryan's running mate. Instead Bryan
chose Arthur Sewall, a conservative opponent of trade unions from Maine. As a consequence,
many in the Populist Party turned against Bryan and refused to support him in the general
election. Bryan was defeated by Republican nominee William McKinley.
The People's Party went into decline after 1896 and soon disappeared; however, many of its core
ideas, such as the direct election of United States Senators, a graduated income tax, and the
relaxation of the gold standard, were implemented in later decades, the first two by means of the
necessary constitutional amendments.
Thomas E. Watson
Thomas Edward "Tom" Watson (1856–1922) was an American politician, newspaper
editor, and writer from Georgia. He was of entirely English descent.[1] In the 1890s
Watson championed poor farmers as a leader of the Populist Party, articulating an
agrarian political viewpoint while attacking business, bankers, railroads, Democratic
President Grover Cleveland, and the Democratic Party. He was the nominee for vice
president with William Jennings Bryan in 1896 on the Populist ticket (but there was a
different vice presidential nominee on Bryan's Democratic ticket). Politically he was a

11. leader on the left in the 1890s, calling on poor whites (and poor blacks) to unite against
the elites. However after 1900 he moved far to the right and was best known for intense
attacks on blacks, Jews and Catholics. Two years prior to his death, he was elected to the
United States Senate.
Biography
Early career
Thomas E. Watson was born September 5, 1856 in Thomson, the county seat of McDuffie
County, Georgia. After attending Mercer University (he did not graduate; family finances forced
withdrawal after two years), he became a school teacher. At Mercer University, Watson was part
of the Georgia Psi chapter of Sigma Alpha Epsilon fraternity. Watson later studied law and was
admitted to the Georgia bar in 1875. He joined the Democratic Party, and in 1882 was elected to
the Georgia Legislature.
As a state legislator, Watson struggled unsuccessfully to curb the abuses of the powerful railroad
corporations. A bill subjecting railroads to county property taxes was voted down after U.S.
Senator Joseph E. Brown offered to provide the legislators with round-trip train fares to the
Louisville Exposition of 1883. In disgust, Watson resigned his seat and returned to the practice
of law before his term expired. He was a presidential elector for the Democratic ticket of Grover
Cleveland and Allen G. Thurman in the 1888 election.
] Congressman
Watson began to support the Farmers' Alliance platform, and was elected to the United States
House of Representatives as an Alliance Democrat in 1890. In Congress, he was the only
Southern Alliance Democrat to abandon the Democratic caucus, instead attending the first
People's Party congressional caucus. At that meeting, he was nominated for Speaker of the
House by the eight Western Populist Congressmen. Watson was instrumental in the founding of
the Georgia Populist Party in early 1892.
The People's Party advocated the public ownership of the railroads, steamship lines and
telephone and telegraph systems. It also supported the free and unlimited coinage of silver, the
abolition of national banks, a system of graduated income tax and the direct election of United
States Senators. As a Populist, Watson tried to unite the agrarians across class lines, overcoming
racial divides. He also supported the right of African American men to vote. Unfortunately, the
failures of the Populists' attempt to make political progress through fusion tickets with the
Democrats in 1896 and 1898 deeply affected Watson.
Watson served in the House of Representatives from 1891 until March 1893. After being
defeated he returned to work as a lawyer in Thomson, Georgia. He also served as editor and
business manager of the People's Party Paper, published in Atlanta.[2]

12. The masthead of Watson's newspaper in 1894 declared that it "is now and will ever be a fearless
advocate of the Jeffersonian Theory of Popular Government, and will oppose to the bitter end the
Hamiltonian Doctrines of Class Rule, Moneyed Aristocracy, National Banks, High Tariffs,
Standing Armies and formidable Navies — all of which go together as a system of oppressing
the people."[3]
[edit] Vice Presidential candidacy
In the 1896 presidential election the leaders of the Populist Party entered into talks with William
Jennings Bryan, the proposed Democratic Party candidate. They were led to believe that Watson
would become Bryan's running mate. After giving their support to Bryan, the latter announced
that Arthur Sewall, a more conservative banker from Maine would be his vice presidential choice
on the Democratic ticket.
This created a split in the Populist Party. Some refused to support Bryan, whereas others, such as
Mary Lease, reluctantly campaigned for him. Watson's name remained on the ballot as Bryan's
vice presidential nominee on the Populist Party ticket, while Sewall was listed as Bryan's
Democratic Party vice presidential nominee. Watson received 217,000 votes for Vice President,
less than a quarter of the number of votes received by the 1892 Populist ticket. However, Watson
received more votes than any national Populist candidate from this time on.
Bryan's defeat damaged the Populist Party. While Populists held some offices in western states
for several years, the party ceased to be a factor in Georgia politics.
[edit] Presidential candidacies
As his own personal wealth grew, Watson denounced socialism, which had drawn many converts
from the ashes of Populism. He became a vigorous antisemite and anti-Catholic crusader, and
advocated reorganizing the Ku Klux Klan.[4]
Watson was nominated as the Populist Party's candidate in 1904 and received 117,183 votes.
This was double the Populist's showing in 1900, but less than one-eighth of the party's support
from just 12 years earlier.
The Populist Party's fortunes declined in the 1908 presidential campaign, and Watson as the
party's standard bearer attracted just 29,100 votes. While Watson never received more than 1%
of the nationwide vote, he had respectable showings in selected Western and Southern states. In
the 1904 and 1908 campaigns, Watson received 18% and 12% respectively in his home state of
Georgia.