When the first national convention of the People's party met in Omaha on July 2, 1892, the outlook was bright.General Weaver was nominated for President and James G.Field of Virginia for Vice-President.The platform rehabilitated Greenbackism in cogent phrases, demanded government control of railroads and telegraph and telephone systems, the reclamation of land held by corporations, an income tax, the free coinage of silver and gold "at the present legal ratio of sixteen to one," and postal savings banks.In a series of resolutions which were not a part of the platform but were nevertheless "expressive of the sentiment of this convention," the party declared itself in sympathy "with the efforts of organized workingmen to shorten the hours of labor"; it condemned "the fallacy of protecting American labor under the present system, which opens our ports to the pauper and criminal classes of the world and crowds out our wage-earners"; and it opposed the Pinkerton system of capitalistic espionage as "a menace to our liberties." The party formally declared itself to be a "union of the labor forces of the United States," for "the interests of rural and city labor are the same; their enemies identical."These national movements prior to 1896 are not, however, an adequate index of the political strength of labor in partisan endeavor.Organized labor was more of a power in local and state elections, perhaps because in these cases its pressure was more direct, perhaps because it was unable to cope with the great national organization of the older parties.During these years of effort to gain a footing in the Federal Government, there are numerous examples of the success of the labor party in state elections.As early as 1872 the labor reformers nominated state tickets in Pennsylvania and Connecticut.In 1875 they nominated Wendell Phillips for Governor of Massachusetts.In 1878, in coalition with the Greenbackers, they elected many state officers throughout the West.Ten years later, when the Union Labor party was at its height, labor candidates were successful in several municipalities.In 1888 labor tickets were nominated in many Western States, including Colorado, Indiana, Kansas, Minnesota, Michigan, Missouri, Nebraska, Ohio, and Wisconsin.Of these Kansas cast the largest labor vote, with nearly 36,000, and Missouri came next with 15,400.In the East, however, the showing of the party in state elections was far less impressive.
In California the political labor movement achieved a singular prominence.In 1877 the labor situation in San Francisco became acute because of the prevalence of unemployment.Grumblings of dissatisfaction soon gave way to parades and informal meetings at which imported Chinese labor and the rich "nobs," the supposed dual cause of all the trouble, were denounced in lurid language.
The agitation, however, was formless until the necessary leader appeared in Dennis Kearney, a native of Cork County, Ireland.For fourteen years he had been a sailor, had risen rapidly to first officer of a clipper ship, and then had settled in San Francisco as a drayman.He was temperate and industrious in his personal life, and possessed a clear eye, a penetrating voice, the vocabulary of one versed in the crude socialistic pamphlets of his day, and, in spite of certain domineering habits bred in the sailor, the winning graces of his nationality.
Kearney appeared at meetings on the vacant lots known as the "sand lots," in front of the City Hall of San Francisco, and advised the discontented ones to "wrest the government from the hands of the rich and place it in those of the people." On September 12, 1877, he rallied a group of unemployed around him and organized the Workingman's Trade and Labor Union of San Francisco.On the 5th of October, at a great public meeting, the Workingman's party of California was formed and Kearney was elected president.The platform adopted by the party proposed to place the government in the hands of the people, to get rid of the Chinese, to destroy the money power, to "provide decently for the poor and unfortunate, the weak and the helpless," and "to elect none but competent workingmen and their friends to any office whatever....When we have 10,000 members we shall have the sympathy and support of 20,000 other workingmen.This party,"concluded the pronouncement, "will exhaust all peaceable means of attaining its ends, but it will not be denied justice, when it has the power to enforce it.It will encourage no riot or outrage, but it will not volunteer to repress or put down or arrest or prosecute the hungry and impatient, who manifest their hatred of the Chinamen by a crusade against 'John,' or those who employ him.Let those who raise the storm by their selfishness, suppress it themselves.If they dare raise the devil, let them meet him face to face.We will not help them." In advocating these views, Kearney held meeting after meeting each rhetorically more violent than the last, until on the 3d of November he was arrested.This martyrdom in the cause of labor increased his power, and when he was released he was drawn by his followers in triumph through the streets on one of his own drays.His language became more and more extreme.He bludgeoned the "thieving politicians" and the "bloodsucking capitalists," and he advocated "judicious hanging" and "discretionary shooting." The City Council passed an ordinance intended to gag him; the legislature enacted an extremely harsh riot act; a body of volunteers patrolled the streets of the city; a committee of safety was organized.On January 5, 1878, Kearney and a number of associates were indicted, arrested, and released on bail.When the trial jury acquitted Kearney, what may be called the terrorism of the movement attained its height, but it fortunately spent itself in violent adjectives.
