Chapter II 

 FROM POPULISM TO INSURGENCY 



IN SPITE of the prosperity of middle western agriculture during the 

 years that preceded the first World War, the farmer's voice of protest 

 was by no means stilled. During the late nineteenth century western 

 agrarians had built up a philosophy of radicalism sufficient even to endure 

 the acid test of good times. Their experiences with railroads, banks, middle- 

 men, and manufacturers had made them convinced antimonopolists. They 

 were by no means the first to hold antimonopoly views, for the ideas they 

 expressed had often been cogently stated by eastern, or even European, 

 theorists. 1 But the long struggle with frontier poverty, culminating in the 

 Populist revolt, had instilled in many farmers' minds a deep-seated belief 

 that the various combines through which big business operated must 

 somehow be restrained. This attitude was due not to ignorance, but to 

 experience. The farmers knew whereof they spoke. Nor did they have 

 any doubt concerning the role the government must play in providing 

 this restraint. Middle western agrarians were not socialists; on the con- 

 trary, they were, or at least they aspired to be, small capitalists. But their 

 property-mindedness did not blind them to the fact that only the power 

 of government could insure them against the unfair advantages of monop- 

 oly. They favored government regulation and control, or in extreme cases 



i. This chapter follows in the main an article by John D. Hicks, "The Legacy of 

 Populism in the Western Middle West," Agricultural History, XXIII (October, 

 1949), pp. 225-36. For a somewhat different point of view, see Chester McArthur 

 Destler, "Western Radicalism, 1865-1901: Concepts and Origins," Mississippi Valley 

 Historical Review, XXXI (December, 1944), pp. 335~68. 



