Schmidt, Louis Bernard

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Masthead Logo The Palimpsest
Volume 31 | Number 4 Article 4
4-1-1950
The Farmers' Alliance
Louis Bernard Schmidt
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Schmidt, Louis B. "The Farmers' Alliance." The Palimpsest 31 (1950), 135-141.
Available at: https://ir.uiowa.edu/palimpsest/vol31/iss4/4
The Farmers’ Alliance
The Farmers’ Alliance was the outgrowth of 
clubs that had grown up for various reasons 
alongside the Grange in the seventies. In time 
these clubs were formed into state Alliances which 
in turn were united into two great Alliances: one, 
the National Farmers’ Alliance originating in Illi­
nois in 1880 and commonly known as the "Nor­
thern” or "Northwestern” Alliance; the other, the 
National Farmers’ Alliance and Industrial Union 
which was started in Texas as early as 1875 and is 
usually referred to as the "Southern” Alliance. 
These two organizations attempted to effect a 
merger at conventions held in St. Louis in 1889, 
but the cleavage in the Farmers’ Alliance move­
ment on sectional lines prevented it. The pro­
grams of the Northern and Southern Alliances, 
however, were similar — to unite the farmers for 
their own advancement and protection "against 
class legislation, monopoly and swindling.”
The Iowa Farmers’ Alliance was organized in 
Des Moines, January 12, 1881, and immediately 
became affiliated with the Northern Alliance. The 
Southern Alliance did not gain entry into Iowa 
until 1891 when the Alliance movement gave way 
to Populism. The Northern Alliance spread rap­
136 THE PALIMPSEST
idly in Iowa, serving in part as a business agent 
for the farmer, but devoting more attention to pol­
itics and legislation.
It was officially connected with the Farmers' 
Protective Association organized in Des Moines 
in April, 1881, for the purpose of fighting the 
barbed wire trust. The Association established 
a factory in Des Moines to manufacture wire for 
sale at reasonable prices, but when it began sell­
ing wire to the farmers for seven and one-half 
cents a pound it became involved in patent suits 
with the trust. The attorney for the Association 
was A. B. Cummins who carried on a legal con­
test with the trust until the price of wire was re­
duced.
The State Alliance also promoted the organi­
zation of farmers' mutual fire and tornado insur­
ance companies inaugurated by the Grange. The 
rapid growth of these companies is attested by the 
fact that in 1889 there were 116 in Iowa. The 
Iowa State Alliance also gave some attention to 
the organization of farmers' cooperative elevators 
and stores which were established in the eighties. 
But it was through political and legislative meas­
ures that the Alliance, in concert with the Anti- 
Monopoly and Greenback parties, sought to rem­
edy the ills of the farmers.
While the Iowa Alliance had been growing 
steadily in political strength and influence since 
its inception in 1881, it was during the latter part
THE FARMERS’ ALLIANCE 137
of the decade that it grew “with astonishing ra­
pidity.“ In 1887 one hundred forty delegates rep­
resenting forty counties attended the annual state 
meeting. By 1890 county Alliances had been es­
tablished in fifty-two of the ninety-nine counties. 
More than 1,700 local Alliances had been formed, 
composed of an estimated 50,000 members. The 
number of local Granges in Iowa had meanwhile 
dropped to fifty-two. While the Alliance did not 
champion the formation of a third party, fearful 
that this would lead to internal dissension and the 
destruction of the order, it tended to disregard 
party regularity and thus threatened Republican 
power.
It has been noted that the independent move­
ment in politics continued to grow in various 
forms under a continuity of leadership from 1872 
to 1890. The Alliance became active politically 
in supporting the general demand of the farmers 
for both state and federal regulation of railroads. 
It continued the agitation of the railroad question 
in the state elections of 1885 and again in 1887, 
when both the Republican and Democratic par­
ties inserted planks in their platforms supporting 
state regulation of railroads. The result was that 
the railroad forces were defeated by the election 
of a legislature which attacked the transportation 
problem under the leadership of Governor Larra- 
bee (1886-1890). Under the pressure exerted 
by the Alliance, and despite the opposition of the
138 THE PALIMPSEST
railroad lobby, a law was enacted in 1888 which 
provided for an elective commission with power 
to investigate the transportation question, to make 
freight classifications, to prepare schedules of 
“reasonable maximum rates,” and to institute 
prosecutions for extortion. Rates fixed by the 
commission were held to be reasonable before the 
courts. Discrimination between shippers, places, 
and kinds of traffic was prohibited, and freight 
pools were forbidden. The law went into effect 
in 1889 and freight rates were materially reduced.
Other remedial legislation, demanded and se­
cured by the Iowa Farmers' Alliance in 1888, in­
cluded: the prohibition of combinations fixing the 
price of oil, lumber, coal, grain, flour, provisions, 
or any other commodity; the imposition of heavy 
penalties for selling grain and seed under fraudu­
lent names; and the requirement that any article 
containing “any ingredient but the pure fat of 
healthy swine” and sold for use as lard must be 
labelled “compound lard.” In 1890 the Alliance 
secured the enactment of a law reducing the legal 
interest rate from 10 to 8 per cent; it demanded 
the election of William Larrabee to the United 
States Senate to succeed William B. Allison; and 
it urged that more emphasis be placed on practical 
and experimental farming at Iowa State College.
In national affairs, the Iowa Alliance urged the 
passage of the butter and oleomargarine bill, 
which defined butter and imposed a tax regulat-
THE FARMERS' ALLIANCE 139
ing the manufacture, sale, importation, and ex­
portation of oleomargarine. The bill was enacted 
into law on July 20, 1884, Senators William B. 
Allison and James F. Wilson of Iowa voting for 
the measure. The vote in Congress was divided 
sharply on sectional lines; the Southern represen­
tatives supported the cotton-seed oil interests. 
This division is of significance in explaining the 
cleavage in the Farmers’ Alliance and also in later 
and more recent phases of the butter versus oleo­
margarine controversy. The Iowa Alliance de­
manded federal regulation of railroads by the pas­
sage of the Interstate Commerce Act of 1887; the 
elevation of the United States Department of 
Agriculture to cabinet rank in 1889; passage of 
the Sherman Anti-Trust Act of 1890; the free 
coinage of silver; eventual government ownership 
of railway, telegraph, and telephone lines; and the 
popular election of United States Senators.
In the advocacy of state and national legislative 
reforms, the Iowa Farmers’ Alliance maintained 
a nonpartisan attitude on the assumption that the 
major parties could serve the interests of the farm­
ers better than an independent farmers’ party 
which would wreck rather than strengthen the 
Alliance. It was apparent by 1890, however, that 
an independent party spirit was rising in both the 
Northern and Southern Alliances. Rival factions 
were developed, favoring and opposing an inde­
pendent party. The Iowa Homestead, owned by
140 THE PALIMPSEST
J. M. Pierce, and with Henry Wallace as editor, 
opposed the organization of the Alliance into a 
third party, urging that it could accomplish more 
through the major parties than by the third party 
method; while the Iowa Tribune, which became 
the Iowa Farmers' Tribune, controlled by James 
B. Weaver and E. H. Gillette, championed the 
independent movement. In 1891 the Iowa Farm­
ers’ Alliance (Northern) was incorporated. Fac­
tionalism and rivalry were intensified. The ques­
tion that gave the Alliance leaders great concern 
was farm support of an independent third party.
As the tendency toward independent political 
action in Iowa was getting under way, the South­
ern Alliance entered the state. The Des Moines 
Iowa State Register, the leading Republican news­
paper in the state, emphasized the difference be­
tween the two Alliances by commending the 
Northern Alliance for its nonpartisan policy and 
assailing the Southern Alliance for coming into 
the state with its third-party heresy. The Iowa 
Homestead denounced the Southern Alliance for 
its opposition to the Conger lard bill, which taxed 
the manufacture and sale of compound lard, 
while The Farmers’ Tribune became the official 
spokesman of the Southern Alliance with the 
declaration that it endorsed ‘‘that political organi­
zation which supports the Alliance principles and 
no others.” This paper, a consolidation of four 
others, claimed a circulation of 11,520, comparing
TH REE EARLY FARM LEADERS
N. B. Ashby William Larrabee James B. Weaver
Farmers Alliance Governor Populist Leader
THREE MODERN FARM LEADERS
Ralph W. Smith D. H. Zentmire Mrs. Raymond Sayre
Past Master County Agent Past President
Iowa State Cirange 32 years at Marengo Women’s Division IFBF
FIVE JASPER C O U N TY  GRANGE BUILDINGS
Sugar Grove 
Amboy
Oak Ridge 
Palo Alto
Buena Vista Grange (center) near Newton is home of oldest existing 
Iowa Farm Organization. Organized in 1872 — meetings
held regularly ever since.
Iowa Grange Leaders
Oliver H. Kelley Wm. D. Wilson Dudley W. Adams
iFARM BUREAU FEDERATION BUILDING IN DES MOINES
Some Presidents of Iowa Farm Bureai
E. Howard Hill Francis Johnson James R. Howard Charles Hearst
Top — Allan Kline — President American Farm Bureau Federation
IO W A  LEADERS OF FARM ERS’ UNION
Milo Reno Fred W. Stover
Photos Des Moines Register
Milo Reno addresses Farm Holiday Association Meeting in
Des Moines (1933)
THE FARMERS' ALLIANCE 141
with the Homestead’s estimated 15,000 circulation.
The Farmers’ Alliance movement for an inde­
pendent political party culminated in a call for a 
conference which met in Cincinnati in May, 1891, 
and adopted a resolution favoring the formation 
of the People’s party of the United States. This 
movement was supported by the Iowa delegation 
headed by General James B. (“Jumping Jim’’) 
Weaver and E. H. (“Heifer-calf ”) Gillette. Pur­
suant to this action, a People’s Independent State 
Convention composed of delegates from sixty 
counties was held June 3, 1891, and adopted the 
platform of the Cincinnati conference.
While the People's, or Populist, party was a 
continuation of all the independent party move­
ments following the Civil War, it was more di­
rectly the outgrowth of the Farmers’ Alliance. 
The Iowa Alliance was merged in the Populist 
party which attracted only a small per cent of the 
Alliance members, the great majority of whom 
supported the two major parties. Thus did the 
Iowa Alliance pass into history. The Grange was 
the only surviving nonpartisan farm organization 
(barely surviving in Iowa) until the emergence 
of the Farmers’ Union and the Farm Bureau.
Louis B. Schmidt


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