AS A POLITICAL FORCE IOI 



anti-railroad) and reform movements. Their platforms con- 

 tained many other planks, but some had reference to local 

 matters only, while others, such as a demand for the reduction 

 of the tariff to a revenue basis, 1 were borrowed from the Demo- 

 crats. On the currency question the platforms were somewhat 

 varied, but the majority took definite stand in favor of a return 

 to specie payment as soon as practicable. In some cases the 

 currency planks appear to have been attempts to straddle the 

 issue, but in only two states Indiana and Illinois is it 

 possible to trace a direct connection between the Independent 

 movement and the Greenback parties which followed it. 



There are a number of reasons which help to explain the 

 shortness of the lives of these Independent parties. While 

 the issue of reform is a good one upon which to arouse temporary 

 enthusiasm, it is hardly a satisfactory basis for the organization 

 of a new party if the reform is accomplished the raison d'etre 

 of the party is gone, and if it is not accomplished the party is a 

 failure. It might seem that the issue of railroad regulation 

 would furnish a basis upon which a more permanent political 

 party might be built up. In this direction, however, the move- 

 ment suffered from the fact that the Granger laws for which 

 it was held responsible did not work well, partly because of 

 their crudeness, partly because of the determination of the 

 railroads to make them appear injurious to everybody, but 

 most of all because of the financial depression which followed 

 the panic of 1873. In many parts of the West, moreover, the 

 people still desired the construction of more railroad lines, and 

 there was a feeling that this would be checked by restrictive 

 legislation. 



Again, it seems to be true, on the whole, that no political 

 party can survive a presidential campaign without a national 

 organization. The appearance of the National Greenback 

 party and its absorption of the Independent Reform organiza- 

 tion in Illinois, where the movement had been most promising, 



1 The objection to the protective tariff seems to have been based upon the 

 feeling that it was class legislation that it taxed the farmer for the benefit of the 

 manufacturer rather than upon the more recent argument that it fosters monop- 

 olies. See above, p. 21. 



