Dr. Gregg Cantrell is the Erma and Ralph Lowe Chair in Texas History at Texas Christian University. His books include The People’s Revolt: The Texas Populists and the Roots of American Liberalism (2020), The History of Texas (with Arnoldo De León and Robert A. Calvert), and the award-winning Stephen F. Austin, Empresario of Texas (2001). Dr. Cantrell has been active in the leadership of the Texas State Historical Association for many years and is a dedicated teacher and mentor, as well as a friend of our Center. We’re delighted to host this conversation with him.
Fronteras: Congratulation on the publication of your new book, The People’s Revolt: Texas Populists and the Roots of American Liberalism. In a sentence, how does the Texas People’s Party reflect an important element of American political history writ large?
Dr. Gregg Cantrell: Thank you. My argument in The People’s Revolt is that the roots of modern liberalism run deep—deeper than most people realize—and that those roots extend all the way back to a most unexpected time and place—the prairies of Texas in the 1880s.
Fronteras: What gap did you see in the literature about this topic that you wanted to fill with this book?
Dr. Gregg Cantrell: There have only been two published histories of Populism in Texas, one by a political scientist in the 1930s and one by an anthropologist in the 1980s. Nationally, Lawrence Goodwyn’s Democratic Promise: The Populist Moment in America cast a very long shadow. He was a product of the so-called “New Left” of the 1960s, and he portrayed Populism as a radical alternative to the course of American capitalism and liberal politics. (Hence the subtitle of his book, “the Populist Moment.”) But Goodwyn wasn’t very interested in the actual politics of the People’s Party in Texas—he was more interested in the party’s antecedents in the Alliance and Knights of Labor in the 1880s, and I knew that there was still a story to be told about the party in the 1890s. Little did I suspect that when I got deep into the research, I would part ways with Goodwyn interpretively, eventually landing in a place that would’ve horrified the old radical.
Fronteras: What was it about the Southwest, and Texas in particular, that helped create Populism?
Dr. Gregg Cantrell: It was a complicated mix of things. Texas was the newest of the southern states, so political institutions—particularly the Democratic Party—were perhaps not as entrenched there as in other places. The Farmers’ Alliance was really born on the frontier, a place where government at all levels was weak, and people often had to take matters into their own hands. So a self-help organization like the Alliance held much appeal. The experience with the Alliance, which TRIED to solve farmers’ problems via self-help but which ultimately failed to do so, served to convince many Texans that the only institution the common people could control—the government—was the only tool at their command. IF they would use it. As in many other parts of the country, industrial capitalism had arrived in Texas in the form of the railroads, which seemed to exemplify everything that was wrong with the new industrial order. Government at all levels seemed unresponsive to the deepening depression of the 1880s and early 1890s. The labor movement, spearheaded by the Knights of Labor, helped farmers to articulate their grievances and make common cause with railroad workers (the Knights had hammered out a very sophisticated set of “demands” in the 1870s and 1880s). So all of this potent brew came together in the early 1890s, as the depression bottomed out and people were increasingly impoverished and frustrated with their government. .
“Labor, of course, had virtually no protections for wages, hours, or working conditions. Populists began to ask, “Why does the government seem to exist solely for the benefit of the rich, at the expense of the poor?” It didn’t seem very democratic to them.“
Fronteras: It occurs to us that there were massive economic upheavals at the turn of the twentieth century, not unlike the massive economic changes underway in the last few decades in the United States. What is the connection between “Gilded Age” economic change and the rise of populism?
Dr. Gregg Cantrell: The rise of the new large-scale industrial capitalist enterprise was really the driving force of the movement. The mammoth new corporations (steel, railroads, oil, etc.) received all sorts of favors and protections from the government—favors and protections that enabled them to ride roughshod over workers and farmers. Incorporation itself, with its grants of limited liability to stockholders, made for an unlevel playing field, and with virtually no regulation of money in politics, those corporations could buy all the political power they needed. A deflationary federal monetary policy contributed mightily to the impoverishment of farmers, who needed easy credit to finance farming operations. Labor, of course, had virtually no protections for wages, hours, or working conditions. Populists began to ask, “Why does the government seem to exist solely for the benefit of the rich, at the expense of the poor?” It didn’t seem very democratic to them.
Fronteras: The book introduces so many noteworthy individuals who shaped the Populist movement in Texas. Which ones do you think might highlight best the movement—say for US or Texas history survey classes that must cover Populism in a couple of lectures?
Dr. Gregg Cantrell: Thomas Nugent was one of the remarkable figures in Texas political history. You rarely find a major political figure whose private and public lives were so remarkably free from any hit of corruption or even self-interest. It said a lot about the Populists that they chose to elevate this relatively obscure Fort Worth lawyer and former state district judge to a position of preeminence in their party. Nugent was more a symbol of Texas Populism than a leader of it, though he became a leader, for sure. He was the public face that Populists wanted to put forward to the public. He was sympathetic to the woman suffrage movement. He spoke warmly of socialism, though he disclaimed being a socialist himself. And this mass movement of farmers and laborers didn’t hold any of this against him. We so often associate “populism” today was demagoguery, but there was no hint of the demagogue in Nugent.
John B. Rayner, the leader of the African American Populists, the classically educated ex-slave who stood preeminent among the party’s orators and organizers, serving on the party’s state executive committee and often speaking to mixed-race crowds. (My first book was a biography of him, along with his white congressman father). He was a complex (and ultimately tragic) figure, but his heroic efforts to make the party a genuine biracial coalition are one of the things that makes Texas Populism so unique for its day and time.
James Harvey “Cyclone” Davis represented the dark side of Populism. He was the best-known Texas Populist outside of Texas, a spell-binding orator who gained national fame for his debating prowess. He was utterly without political principles—in many ways the prototype of the populist demagogue—but even has he became nationally famous, he was widely renounced and repudiated by his fellow Texas Populists. An embittered racist, he embraced the KKK in the 1920s and generally made a spectacle of himself. His example shows that no political movement is insulated from the occasional demagogue, but I interpret Davis as the “exception that proves the rule” about Texas Populists being the progenitors of modern American liberalism.
“I believe that the Populists were groping their way toward a more modern understanding of gender relations. That is to say, their movement challenged traditional notions of patriarchy… Among the most obvious signs of it was their welcoming of women into political gatherings, inviting them to speak at conventions and to contribute editorials to Populist newspapers.”
Fronteras: Turning now to women’s history: In what ways did gender shape the practices, tactics, and ideas of the Texas Populists? Did they challenge traditional southern notions of “honor” and masculinity?
Dr. Gregg Cantrell: I believe that the Populists were groping their way toward a more modern understanding of gender relations. That is to say, their movement challenged traditional notions of patriarchy…Not that every Populist always lived up to these ideals, but you can see the culture of dignity reflected in much of their rhetoric and actions. Among the most obvious signs of it was their welcoming of women into political gatherings, inviting them to speak at conventions and to contribute editorials to Populist newspapers. To couch it in modern terms, Populists stopped being so “macho” and decided that “manliness” meant something different than what Democrats had always portrayed it as being.
Fronteras: Could you tell us more about that? How did Texas Populists’ approach to gender roles lay at the heart of what it meant to be a Populist? How was its support among both ordinary farm women and the party’s educated class noteworthy?
Dr. Gregg Cantrell: If you embrace the belief that all humans have worth and dignity, and that your worth is not measured by what station in life you were born into but rather how your comport yourself, then that not only opens the door to something more like a modern notion of gender equality but a more modern notion of equality in general. The Populists often fell short by modern standards, but at their best they conferred the dignity of equality upon not just women but upon the poor, African Americans, and Mexican Americans. Often this just mean treating individuals with common respect rather than demanding subservience from them. Populist egalitarianism was qualitatively different from that of their Democratic opponents.
Fronteras: It’s not a dinner party, so let’s talk about politics, religion, and race. How much of a “big tent” did the Populists create? How did the Populist Party navigate the significant problems around race? Was their approach as one of the elements of the movement that mark it as a forerunner of modern liberalism?
Dr. Gregg Cantrell: As we’ve seen in the case of Thomas Nugent, Populists were surprisingly tolerant of religious dissent. Even so-called “free thinkers” (that is, atheists or agnostics) found a home in the party. When Populists occasionally uttered an anti-Catholic or anti-Semitic remark, they were often quickly admonished by their fellow Populists. The Texas party never officially came out in favor of woman suffrage, but many individual Populists, including Nugent, were sympathetic toward the women’s movement. They reached out to African- and Mexican Americans, usually couching their appeals in terms of shared economic interests, but—and I think this is really important—they treated members of those communities with far more common decency than Democrats did. Still, race was a tremendously difficult issue in the 1890s, no matter what one’s private opinions might have been. In American politics, you have to win races ultimately, and white Populists knew that to be TOO progressive on matters of race was to invite white backlash. Black Populist leaders like John Rayner and Melvin Wade understood this as clearly as anyone. So the Populists tried to do the impossible—to extend the hand of political friendship and civil citizenship to blacks without inviting what in the day was called “social equality.” Now, today we understand that these things can’t actually be separated—you can’t have political or civil equality while withholding social equality. You can’t have one without the other. But this is the impossible needle that the Populists tried to thread. That they ultimately failed is not to credit them with having done more than just about any other southerners to realize a more equitable racial situation, and I argue that their efforts at least pointed the way that white liberals of a later generation would follow.
Fronteras: How did Populists ideas reverberate/endure on the national level in the 20th century? (USDA, labor law, monetary policy, welfare state, etc.)
Dr. Gregg Cantrell: There is a long list of Populist ideas that eventually came to fruition in the twentieth century. Some of these found expression in Progressive reforms; some had to wait for the New Deal; and still others didn’t find full expression till LBJ’s Great Society. I’ve used the case of the Johnson family to illustrate this—LBJ’s grandfather, Sam Ealy Johnson, was a dedicated Populist in the 1890s; his son Sam Jr. was a progressive Democrat, and of course we know what LBJ did with the Civil Rights Act, Voting Rights Act, and the programs of the Great Society. In all of these cases, the basic Populist idea that some public problems require public solutions was the driving philosophy behind reform.
“The word ‘populism’ has been bent and twisted almost beyond recognition today.”
Fronteras: I want to conclude by facing the elephant in the room. How are your Populists connected to the small-p populism so often invoked in American politics today?
Dr. Gregg Cantrell: The word “populism” has been bent and twisted almost beyond recognition today. In one sense, if you think of populism as a political style—an appeal to the common man (and woman) against the malignant power of an out-of-touch, corrupt elite—then you can see how the term gets applied to a wide range of political figures, from Huey Long to George Wallace to Bernie Sanders to Donald Trump, and to foreign figures like Hugo Chavez of Venezuela, Marine Le Pen of France, Jair Bolsonaro of Brazil, or Viktor Orban of Hungary. But it matters a great deal how and why a so-called populist is making his or her populist appeal. Is the political figure doing it cynically, to grab or maintain power, with no real interest in the welfare of the people to whom the appeals are being made? In other words, is populism just a cover for demagoguery? Or is the Populist genuinely concerned about championing the interests of ordinary citizens against the predations of a corrupt, unresponsive establishment? My book suggests that the original Texas Populists, with a few notable exceptions, were sincere in their (small-p) populism. However, most leaders today who are identified as populists (again, with some notable exceptions) are cynical in their populism—their appeals are to the fears and prejudices of the masses whom the purport to represent, and their true goals are to gain and hold on to power. Indeed, many of today’s so-called populists are profoundly anti-democratic, the antithesis of the Texas Populists I’ve written about. All of this suggests that it may be time to retire the p-word and call out modern populists for what they really are.
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