CHAPTER 



THE LEAVEN OF RADICALISM 



THE People's Party was mortally stricken by the 

 events of 1896. Most of the cohorts which had 

 been led into the camp of Democracy were there- 

 after beyond the control of their leaders; and even 

 the remnant that still called itself Populist was 

 divided into two factions. In 1900 the radical 

 group refused to endorse the Fusionists' nomina- 

 tion of Bryan and ran an independent ticket headed 

 by Wharton Barker of Pennsylvania and that in- 

 veterate rebel, Ignatius Donnelly. This ticket, 

 however, received only 50,000 votes, nearly one-half 

 of which came from Texas. When the Democrats 

 nominated Judge Alton B. Parker of New York in 

 1904, the Populists formally dissolved the alliance 

 with the Democracy and nominated Thomas E. 

 Watson of Georgia for President. By this defec- 

 tion the Democrats may have lost something; but 

 the Populists gained little. Most of the radicals 



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