THE PEOPLE'S PARTY LAUNCHED 129 



the St. Louis session in December, 1889: "We have 

 reached a period in the history of our Government 

 when confidence in our political leaders and great 

 political organizations is almost destroyed, and es- 

 trangement between them and the people is becom- 

 ing more manifest every day . ' ' Yet the formation of 

 a new party under the auspices of the Alliance was 

 probably not contemplated at this time, except 

 possibly as a last resort, for the Alliance agreed to 

 "support for office only such men as can be de- 

 pended upon to enact these principles into statute 

 laws, uninfluenced by party caucus." Althougn 

 the demands framed at this St. Louis convention 

 read like a party platform and, indeed, became the 

 basis of the platform of the People's Party in 1892, 

 they were little more than a restatement of earli- 

 er programs put forth by the Alliance and the 

 Wheel. They called for the substitution of green- 

 backs for national bank notes, laws to "prevent the 

 dealing in futures of all agricultural and mechanical 

 productions," free and unlimited coinage of silver, 

 prohibition of alien ownership of land, reclamation 

 from the railroads of lands held by them in excess 

 of actual needs, reduction and equalization of taxa- 

 tion, the issue of fractional paper currency for use 

 in the mails, and, finally, government ownership 



