CHAPTER X 



THE POPULIST BOMBSHELL OF 1892 



THE advent of the Populists as a full-fledged party 

 in the domain of national politics took place at 

 Omaha in July, 1892. Nearly thirteen hundred 

 delegates from all parts of the Union flocked to 

 the convention to take part in the selection of 

 candidates for President and Vice-President and 

 to adopt a platform for the new party. The "De- 

 mands" of the Alliances supplied the material 

 from which was constructed a platform character- 

 ized by one unsympathetic observer as "that fu- 

 rious and hysterical arraignment of the present 

 times, that incoherent intermingling of Jeremiah 

 and Bellamy. " The document opened with a gen- 

 eral condemnation of national conditions and a bit- 

 ter denunciation of the old parties for permitting 

 " the existing dreadful conditions to develop with- 

 out serious effort to prevent or restrain them." 

 Then followed three declarations: "that the union 



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