y
opposed fusion with the Democrats and often refused to follow the
regular leaders of the party.

In the election the Greenback ticket polled only about eighty thousand
votes, or less than one per cent of the total. In spite of the
activity of former members of the Labor Reform party in the movement,
Pennsylvania was the only Eastern State in which the new party made any
considerable showing. In the West over 6000 votes were cast in each
of the five States--Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, Iowa, and Kansas.
The agrarian aspect of the movement was now uppermost, but the vote of
17,000 polled in Illinois, though the largest of the group, was less
than a quarter of the votes cast by the state Independent Reform party
in 1874 when railroad regulation had been the dominant issue. Clearly
many farmers were not yet convinced of the necessity of a Greenback
party. The only tangible achievement of the party in 1876 was the
election of a few members of the Illinois Legislature who held the
balance between the old parties and were instrumental in sending David
Davis to the United States Senate. This vote, it is interesting to note,
kept Davis from serving on the electoral commission and thus probably
prevented Tilden from becoming President.

But the Greenback movement was to find fresh impetus in 1877, a year of
exceptional unrest and discontent throughout the Union. The agricultural
depression was even greater than in preceding years, while the great
railroad strikes were evidence of the distress of the workingmen. This
situation was reflected in politics by the rapid growth of the Greenback
party and the reappearance of labor parties with Greenback planks.*

* In state elections from Massachusetts to Kansas the
Greenback and labor candidates polled from 5 to 15 per cent
of the total vote, and in most cases the Greenback vote
would probably have been much greater had not one or the
other, and in some cases both, of the old parties
incorporated part of the Greenback demands in their
platforms. In Wisconsin, for example, there was little
difference between Democrats and Greenbackers on the
currency question, and even the Republicans in their
platform leaned toward inflation, although the candidates
declared against it. No general elections were held in 1877
in some of the States where the Greenback sentiment was most
pronounced.

In the following year the new part