92 THE AGRARIAN CRUSADE 



1865. Although an ardent advocate of prohibition 

 and of state regulation of railroads, Weaver re- 

 mained loyal to the Republican party during the 

 Granger period and in 1875 was a formidable 

 candidate for the gubernatorial nomination. It is 

 said that a majority of the delegates to the conven- 

 tion had been instructed in his favor, but the rail- 

 road and liquor interests succeeded in stampeding 

 the convention to Samuel J. Kirkwood, the popu- 

 lar war governor. In the following year Weaver 

 took part in the organization of the Independent or 

 Greenback party in Iowa and accepted a position 

 on its state committee. Though resentment at the 

 treatment which he had received from the Repub- 

 licans may have influenced him to break the old 

 ties, he was doubtless sincerely convinced that the 

 Republican party was beyond redemption and 

 that the only hope for reform lay in the new party 

 movement. 



Weaver was gifted with remarkable talent as an 

 orator. His fine face and soldierly bearing, his rich 

 sympathetic voice and vivid imagination, made 

 him a favorite speaker at soldiers' reunions and in 

 political campaigns. Lacking the eccentricities of 

 so many of his third party associates and never 

 inclined to go to extremes in his radicalism, he was 



