tions
became component parts of the new party, although in Illinois, at least,
quite a number of the former leaders returned to the old parties. In the
other Western States, however, the third parties of the Granger period
had gone to pieces or had been absorbed by means of fusion, and new
organizations had to be created. In Indiana the Independent party
developed sufficient strength to scare the Republican leaders and to
cause one of them to write to Hayes: "A bloody-shirt campaign, with
money, and Indiana is safe; a financial campaign and no money and we are
beaten."

The Independents do not appear to have made a very vigorous campaign
in 1876. The coffers of the party were as empty as the pockets of the
farmers who were soon to swell its ranks; and this made a campaign
of the usual sort impossible. One big meeting was held in Chicago in
August, with Samuel F. Cary, the nominee for Vice-President, as the
principal attraction; and this was followed by a torchlight procession.
A number of papers published by men who were active in the movement,
such as Buchanan's Indianapolis Star, Noonan's Industrial Age of
Chicago, and Donnelly's Anti-Monopolist of St. Paul, labored not without
avail to spread the gospel among their readers. The most effective means
of propaganda, however, was probably the Greenback Club. At a conference
in Detroit in August, 1875, "the organization of Greenback Clubs in
every State in the Union" was recommended, and the work was carried
on under the leadership of Marcus M. Pomeroy. "Brick" Pomeroy was a
journalist, whose sobriquet resulted from a series of Brickdust Sketches
of prominent Wisconsin men which he published in one of his papers. As
the editor of Brick Pomeroy's Democrat, a sensational paper published
in New York, he had gained considerable notoriety. In 1875, after the
failure of this enterprise he undertook to retrieve his broken fortunes
by editing a Greenback paper in Chicago and by organizing Greenback
clubs for which this paper served as an organ. Pomeroy also wrote and
circulated a series of tracts with such alluring titles as Hot Drops
and Meat for Men. Several thousand clubs were organized in the Northwest
during the next few years, principally in the rural regions, and the
secrecy of their proceedings aroused the fear that they were advocating
communism. The members of the clubs and their leaders constituted, as
a matter of fact, the more radical of the Greenbackers. They usuall