POPULISM TO INSURGENCY 47 



The leadership of Cummins in Iowa, like the leadership of La Follette 

 in Wisconsin, revealed a widening rift in the Republican party. The 

 opponents of reform were generally called "Standpatters," and they more 

 or less accepted the designation, while the faction which supported Cum- 

 mins assumed the more attractive label of "Progressives." In Iowa, no less 

 than in Wisconsin, the reforms that the Progressives adopted were even- 

 tually accepted by the opposition, at least as necessary evils. Railroad 

 domination of the Republican party was definitely broken, and the direct 

 primary came to stay. If only Cummins' devotion to the cause of intra- 

 state reform had been greater and his ambition for a career in national 

 politics less, it is possible that he might have accomplished more as gover- 

 nor than he did. He was cautious and deliberate at a time when aggressive 

 tactics would have paid good dividends; some of the most important 

 reforms connected with his name were not put through until after his 

 near defeat for a third term. "A La Follette," wrote Herbert Quick in 

 1906, "would have at least had the issues made up in less than five years." 45 

 It is quite possible that the antimonopoly, farmer-minded voters of Iowa 

 were in their thinking well in advance of their leader. 



It would have been strange indeed if so pronounced a movement for 

 reform as was manifest in Wisconsin and Iowa had failed to affect Minne- 

 sota. Conditions in the three states were much alike, but effective leader- 

 ship was essential, as the careers of La Follette and Cummins amply 

 demonstrated, if the power of the vested interests was to be broken. Minne- 

 sota, ever since Populist times, had suffered from a dearth of able leaders. 

 The men who won high office in the state, while ready enough to give 

 devoted lip service to measures of reform, turned out all too frequently 

 to be mere time-serving politicians, more interested in retaining office 

 than in promoting the principles they preached. Not until the election of 

 1904, when John A. Johnson, a Democrat, won the governorship in spite 

 of Minnesota's normal Republicanism, was any very genuine progress 

 registered. 46 



Johnson had had no such struggle for political survival as had motivated 

 both La Follette and Cummins, but he had a life story full of emotional 

 appeal. He was the first native Minnesotan, it transpired, ever to hold 



45. Ibid., p. 383. 



46. Wilcox, "Northwestern Radicalism," pp. 89-91. 



