Tautas Partija (TP)

The People's (Populist) party was organized in St. Louis in February 1892 to speak for small producers, especially farmers, against the entrenched interests of railroads, bankers, corporations, and the politicians they influenced. Many Populists were veterans of earlier reform movements, but the party's most significant forerunner was the Farmers' Alliance, which had led the agrarian revolt of the 1880s. The alliance had first tried to influence the two major parties, but by 1892 those in favor of establishing a third party had prevailed.

In Omaha on July 4, 1892, the Populists nominated James B. Weaver, a former Union general, for president and James Field, an ex-Confederate from Virginia, for vice president. The Omaha Platform, written by Ignatius Donnelly and adapted from the earlier alliance program, called for government ownership of communication and transportation, the free coinage of silver, a progressive income tax, paper currency, the direct election of senators, the eight-hour day, and a new "Subtreasury" scheme for creating agricultural credit. Weaver received a million votes, carrying five western states, but the Populists made little headway among nonfarm workers. Nor did they attract much support in the South, where sectional loyalties, white solidarity, widespread electoral irregularities, and some violence kept the Democratic party solidly in control.

By 1894, a split had developed between those Populists still committed to the Omaha Platform and those (including the national chairman, Herman E. Taubeneck) who advocated dropping the platform and building a new coalition with the Democratic party on the issue of the free coinage of silver. The latter view prevailed, and in 1896 the Populists accepted the Democratic nominee for president, William Jennings Bryan, as their candidate. An effort to maintain their independence by nominating a different vice presidential candidate, Tom Watson of Georgia, brought only bitterness and confusion.

When Bryan lost, the Populists were left with neither their former third-party significance nor a winning coalition. Rising farm prices in the late 1890s completed the party's dissolution. Nevertheless, their proposals were remembered, and many were instituted in the years that followed.

See also Elections: 1892 , 1896; Farmers' Alliance; Populism; Third Parties.