54 AGRICULTURAL DISCONTENT 



Taft administration was even more obviously of agrarian origin. It was, 

 indeed, mainly the work of senators and representatives from the Middle 

 West men who, according to William Allen White, "caught the Pop- 

 ulists in swimming and stole all of their clothing except the frayed under- 

 drawers of free silver." 63 The fight on Cannonism in the national House 

 of Representatives was carried to a successful conclusion through the 

 leadership of such middle western progressives as Norris of Nebraska, 

 Nelson of Wisconsin, Murdock and Madison of Kansas, and Lindbergh 

 of Minnesota. Aid came from some outside supporters, notably Poindexter 

 of Washington and Fowler of New Jersey, but the credit for victory be- 

 longed primarily to the middle western agrarians. 64 The assault of the 

 Senate insurgents upon the Payne-Aldrich tariff bill was almost wholly 

 a contribution of the western Middle West. La Follette of Wisconsin, 

 Clapp of Minnesota, Cummins and Dolliver of Iowa, and Bristow of 

 Kansas were the outstanding leaders; only Beveridge of Indiana deserves 

 comparable credit for the work the insurgents did in revealing the monop- 

 olistic intent of the Aldrich schedules. 65 In both houses of Congress the 

 insurgents also fought for a graduated income tax, for conservation, for 

 postal savings, for more vigorous railroad regulation, and against a type 

 of reciprocity with Canada designed to benefit the industrial East at the 

 expense of the agricultural Middle West. 66 The overwhelming approval 

 of middle western farm constituencies of the program of the insurgents 

 was repeatedly demonstrated at election time; not only were the radical 

 leaders consistently returned to Congress, but old-guard conservatives 

 were retired with great good will. 67 Eventually most of the reforms for 

 which the insurgents stood found expression in the platform of the 

 Progressive party of 1912, but the candidacy of Theodore Roosevelt blurred 

 the issue and divided their forces. They could not very truly believe in 



63. Kenneth W. Hechler, Insurgency (New York, 1940), pp. 21-22. 



64. Ibid., pp. 33-43. 



65. Ibid., pp. 83-91, 145. 



66. Ibid., pp. 146-219. Reciprocity with Canada, as proposed by the Taft admin- 

 istration, was, according to one middle westerner, a "jug-handled affair," wholly 

 unsatisfactory to the friends of genuine reciprocity. It "assumes that the farmer owes 

 the manufacturer a living." Wallaces' Farmer, XXXVI (March 10, 1911), p. 438. 



67. Wilcox, "Northwestern Radicalism," pp. 106-8. 



