GRANGER MOVEMENT AT FLOOD TIDE 31 



In some cases the farmers hoped, by a show of 

 strength, to achieve the desired results through one 

 or both of the old parties, but they soon decided 

 that they could enter politics effectively only by 

 way of a third party. The professional politicians 

 were not inclined to espouse new and radical issues 

 which might lead to the disruption of party lines. 

 The outcome, therefore, was the establishment of 

 new parties in eleven of the Western States during 

 1873 and 1874. Known variously as Independent, 

 Reform, Anti-Monopoly, or Farmers' parties, these 

 organizations were all parts of the same general 

 movement, and their platforms were quite similar. 

 The paramount demands were: first, the subjection 

 of corporations, and especially of railroad corpora- 

 tions, to the control of the State; and second, re- 

 form and economy in government. After the new 

 parties were well under way, the Democrats in 

 most of the States, being in a hopeless minority, 

 made common cause with them in the hope of thus 

 compassing the defeat of their hereditary rivals, the 

 old-line Republicans. In Missouri, however, where 

 the Democracy had been restored to power by 

 the Liberal-Republican movement, the new party 

 received the support of the Republicans. 



Illinois, where the farmers were first thoroughly 



