eight and passenger rates
by law. At the same time, some leaders in the movement, no doubt
emboldened by this success, launched in 1876 a new political party,
popularly known as the Greenbackers, favoring a continued re-issue of
the legal tenders. The beginnings were disappointing; but two years
later, in the congressional elections, the Greenbackers swept whole
sections of the country. Their candidates polled more than a million
votes and fourteen of them were returned to the House of
Representatives. To all outward signs a new and formidable party had
entered the lists.

The sanguine hopes of the leaders proved to be illusory. The quiet
operations of the resumption act the following year, a revival of
industry from a severe panic which had set in during 1873, the Silver
Purchase Act, and the re-issue of Greenbacks cut away some of the
grounds of agitation. There was also a diversion of forces to the silver
faction which had a substantial support in the silver mine owners of the
West. At all events the Greenback vote fell to about 300,000 in the
election of 1880. A still greater drop came four years later and the
party gave up the ghost, its sponsors returning to their former
allegiance or sulking in their tents.

=The Rise of the Populist Party.=--Those leaders of the old parties who
now looked for a happy future unvexed by new factions were doomed to
disappointment. The funeral of the Greenback party was hardly over
before there arose two other political specters in the agrarian
sections: the National Farmers' Alliance and Industrial Union,
particularly strong in the South and West; and the Farmers' Alliance,
operating in the North. By 1890 the two orders claimed over three
million members. As in the case of the Grangers many years before, the
leaders among them found an easy way into politics. In 1892 they held a
convention, nominated a candidate for President, and adopted the name of
"People's Party," from which they were known as Populists. Their
platform, in every line, breathed a spirit of radicalism. They declared
that "the newspapers are largely subsidized or muzzled; public opinion
silenced; business prostrate; our homes covered with mortgages; and the
land concentrating in the hands of capitalists.... The fruits of the
toil of millions are boldly stolen to build up colossal fortunes for a
few." Having delivered this sweeping indictment, the Populists put
forward their remedies: the free coinage of silver,