with the New York
Workingmen's party had taught him that a minority party could not hope
to win by its own votes and that the politicians cared more for offices
than for measures. They would endorse any measure which was supported by
voters who held the balance of power. His plan of action was, therefore,
to ask all candidates to pledge their support to his measures. In
exchange for such a pledge, the candidates would receive the votes of
the workingmen. In case neither candidate would sign the pledge, it
might be necessary to nominate an independent as a warning to future
candidates; but not as an indication of a new party organization.

Evans' ideas quickly won the adherence of the few labor papers then
existing. Horace Greeley's New York Tribune endorsed the homestead
movement as early as 1845. The next five years witnessed a remarkable
spread of the ideas of the free homestead movement in the press of the
country. It was estimated in 1845 that 2000 papers were published in the
United States and that in 1850, 600 of these supported land reform.

Petitions and memorials having proved of little avail, the land
reformers tried Evans' pet plan of bargaining votes for the support of
their principles. Tammany was quick to start the bidding. In May, 1851,
a mass-meeting was held at Tammany Hall "of all those in favor of land
and other industrial reform, to be made elements in the Presidential
contest of 1852." A platform was adopted which proclaimed man's right to
the soil and urged that freedom of the public lands be endorsed by the
Democratic party. Senator Isaac A. Walker of Wisconsin was nominated as
the candidate of the party for President.

For a while the professional politician triumphed over the too trusting
workingman reformer. But the cause found strong allies in the other
classes of the American community. From the poor whites of the upland
region of the South came a similar demand formulated by the Tennessee
tailor, Andrew Johnson, later President of the United States, who
introduced his first homestead bill in 1845. From the Western pioneers
and settlers came the demand for increased population and development of
resources, leading both to homesteads for settlers and land grants for
railways. The opposition came from manufacturers and landowners of the
East and from the Southern slave owners. The West and East finally
combined and the policy of the West prevailed, but not before the South
had seceded from t