42 AGRICULTURAL DISCONTENT 



campaign of 1899, however, was described by the Iowa State Register as 

 a "marvel," for he was opposed by "a railroad with millions backing the 

 biggest 'boss' the state ever knew, and a half-dozen allied railroads with 

 the shrewdest men in Iowa political life in their employ, half or more of 

 the congressmen, the entire organization of the great Republican party 

 of Iowa, most of the office holders and aspirants, an army of paid agents, 

 hundreds of influential newspapers whose editors are repaying obligations 

 incurred by accepting postmasterships, and scores of federal office holders 

 whose salaries the nation had paid while they have spent three years in 

 steady, continuous work for their benefactor." 32 



Finally in 1901 Cummins became a candidate for the Republican 

 nomination for governor. His great object, he told one of his opponents, 

 was "to bring the individual voter into more prominence, and to diminish 

 the influence of permanent organization in the ranks of the party." Un- 

 doubtedly he had his eye on the United States Senate, but the road to that 

 goal, he decided, lay through the governorship. In a vigorous campaign 

 he denounced the undue influence that the railroads were exerting in the 

 political life of the state and advocated, quite after the pattern set by 

 La Follette in Wisconsin, that a program of primary elections be insti- 

 tuted in order to drive from power the corporations that ruled the state. 

 To make his position doubly clear, he mentioned by name the railway 

 representatives who had long dictated the policies of the Republican party 

 in Iowa, and announced that his candidacy was definitely not by their 

 request. In return for this impertinence they promised to "pound him 

 into the earth," but by this time the people were ready for a change. As 

 a result Cummins entered the nominating convention with a clear ma- 

 jority of the delegates, was nominated on the first ballot, and was later 

 elected at the polls by a plurality of over 83,000 votes. 33 



The first concern of the reform governor, once he had taken office, was 

 to bring the railroads of the state to book. Back in the days of the Farmers' 

 Alliance, with Governor Larrabee in power, a railroad commission had 

 been created, and notable advances had been scored in the establishment 



32. Quoted in Fred E. Haynes, Third Party Movements Since the Civil War, with 

 Special Reference to Iowa (Iowa City, 1916), pp. 442, 450. 



33. Ibid., pp. 451, 454; Harrington, in Iowa Journal of History and Politics, 

 XXXIX (October, 1941), p. 347; lonathan P. Dolliver, "The Forward Movement in 

 the Republican Party," Outlool^, XCVI (September 24, 1910), p. 167. 



