Back in the early ’90s, when the People’s Party was being organized in a number of Western States, there was considerable discussion as to whether it should be regarded as a political organization on the usual lines, or whether it should be a sort of league of independent voters, free to choose and vote for such candidates, on any ticket, as might seem best fitted to represent the interests of the different organizations of farmers and wage-workers out of which the People’s Party finally evolved.
The Omaha National Convention in 1892 settled the question in favor of regular party organization. It is true that there were intended to be points of difference between the People’s Party machinery and that of either old party; but these points were minor rather than fundamental. The delegate convention was retained—which, to my mind, was the one mistake made at Omaha. Until some system of direct nominations is adopted, whereby every elector may have a vote direct—and not by delegate, who may misrepresent him—I fear that as our party grows in strength we shall more and more be called upon to combat the same influences which dominate both the old parties. However, this is digression.
With the advent of the People’s Party a difficulty was found in describing a member of that party. A member of the Republican Party is, of course, a Republican; and a member of the Democratic Party is called a Democrat—but how designate one affiliated with the People’s Party?
The omnipresent and omniscient newspaper reporter, as usual, solved the difficulty. His agnosticism applies to nothing except the word “fail.” And with him circumlocution and criminality are almost synonymous. It would never do to be ringing the changes on “an adherent to the People’s Party,” or “one affiliated with the People’s Party”; hence, it was not long before we began to see the word “Populist” used in verbal descriptions of what the cartoonist invariably depicted as a “one-gallus” man, armed with fork or rake, and blessed with a hirsute adornment truly Samsonian.
Applied as a term of reproach, yet responding to the inexorable law which compels men to follow along the lines of least resistance, the word “Populist” came to stay. It stuck, just as the term “Methodist” did—or “Christian,” for that matter. From “Populist,” descriptive of the man, to “Populism,” designating his political belief, was an easy step—and now, after fifteen years of abuse, ridicule, vituperation and gross misrepresentation, the great middle class is just beginning to get a clearer view and to discover that Populism is the only logical answer to the question, “What shall we do to be saved from economic ruin?”
Populism is neither Socialism nor anarchism. It is neither idealistic nor materialistic. It is neither collectivistic nor individualistic. It is essentially eclectic. It recognizes the good in all the schools of political and economic thought and attempts to eliminate the weak or bad—but refuses to be bound by any.
Populism recognizes the fact that we must work with the world as it is now—and not as some Utopian dreamer conceives it ought to be. It recognizes the fact that private ownership of productive property is not only the rule all over the world—but also that the people like it. It recognizes the Socialists’ “economic determinism”—that man’s economic needs usually dominate when they clash with his ideals—yet is not unmindful of the fact that all progress is the result of ideals forcing a change in the environment. Were it not so, man would still be an arboreal ape, chattering aloft in some palm tree.
Populism recognizes that man is a social animal, yet combats Socialism for subordinating the individual to the collectivity, and combats anarchy for subordinating the collectivity to the individual. It is the golden mean between these extremes.
Although Populism lays no claim to being either a “science” or a “philosophy,” yet it has the only definite program of any party today before the American people. It has a yard-stick by which all things may be measured, whether they be burlap, fustian, woolen, silk or some new weave of spider-web. This yard-stick is—
EQUAL RIGHTS TO ALL, SPECIAL PRIVILEGES TO NONE.