THE BATTLE OF THE STANDARDS 191 



Minnesota, North Dakota, Iowa, and Oregon. The 

 South continued its Democratic solidity, except 

 that West Virginia and Kentucky went to McKin- 

 ley. All the electoral votes of the region east of 

 the Mississippi and north of Mason's and Dixon's 

 line were Republican. The old Northwest, to- 

 gether with Iowa, Minnesota, and North Dakota, 

 a region which had been the principal theater of the 

 Granger movement a generation before, now joined 

 forces with the conservative and industrial East to 

 defeat a combination of the South with the newer 

 agrarian and mining frontiers of the West. 



The People's Party had staked all on a throw of 

 the dice and had lost. It had given its life as a 

 political organization to further the election of 

 Bryan, and he had not been elected. Its hope for 

 independent existence was now gone; its strength 

 was considerably less in 1896 than it had been in 

 1892 and 1894. * The explanation would seem to 



1 Of the 6,509,000 votes which Bryan received, about 4,669,000 were 

 cast for the fusion electoral tickets. In only seven of the fusion States 

 is it possible to distinguish between Democrat and Populist votes; the 

 totals here are 1,499,000 and 93,000 respectively. The fusion Popu- 

 list vote of 45,000 was essential for the success of the Bryan electors in 

 Kansas; and in California the similar vote of 22,000, added to that of 

 the Democrats, gave Bryan one of the electors. In no other State in 

 this group did the Populist vote have any effect upon the result. The 

 part played by the People's party in the other twenty-two of the fusion 



