THE GREENBACK INTERLUDE 97 



the convention. The platform contained the usual 

 demands of the party with the exception of the res- 

 olution for the "free and unlimited coinage of gold 

 and silver, " which was rejected by a vote of 218 to 

 164. It would appear that the majority of the 

 delegates preferred to rely upon legal-tender paper 

 to furnish the ample supply of money desired. 

 General Butler was at this time acting with the 

 Democrats in Massachusetts, and his first response 

 was noncommittal. Although he subsequently ac- 

 cepted both nominations, he did not make an ac- 

 tive campaign, and his total popular vote was only 

 175,370. Butler's personal popularity and his la- 

 bor affiliations brought increased votes in some of 

 the Eastern States and in Michigan,, but in those 

 Western States where the party had been strong- 

 est in 1880 and where it had been distinctly a farm- 

 ers' movement there was a great falling off in the 

 Greenback vote. 



Though the forces of agrarian discontent at- 

 tained national political organization for the first 

 time in the Greenback party, its leaders were never 

 able to obtain the support of more than a minority 

 of the farmers. The habit of voting the Republi- 

 can or the Democratic ticket, firmly established 

 by the Civil War and by Reconstruction, was too 



