Wheat or What? Populism and American Fascism
| Published date | 01 September 1961 |
| Author | Paul S. Holbo |
| Date | 01 September 1961 |
| DOI | 10.1177/106591296101400308 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
727
WHEAT
OR
WHAT?
POPULISM
AND
AMERICAN
FASCISM
PAUL
S.
HOLBO
University
of
Oregon
N
HIS
STIMULATING
ESSAY
on
American
fascism’s
roots
in
earlier
pop-
ulism
(&dquo;Populist
Influences
on
American
Fascism,&dquo;
Western
Political
Quar,
terly,
June
1957),
Victor
Ferkiss
declares:
&dquo;Sympathetic
interest
in
the
ideology
of
Populism
is
at
a
low
point.&dquo;
This
comment
is
verified
by
recent
widely
noted
writings
in
American
his-
tory.
Professor
Oscar
Handlin
of
Harvard
has
traced
the
beginnings
of
anti-
Semitism
in
America
back
to
the
rustic
reformers.’
An
historian,
A.
Whitney
Griswold,
and
a
sociologist,
C.
Wright
Mills,
have
concluded
that
American
farmers
reverted
periodically
to
a
naive
belief
in
a
Jeffersonian
myth
of
the
self-
sufficient
yeoman.2
In
an
influential
volume,
The
American
Political
Tradition,
Richard
Hofstadter
has
portrayed
the
agricultural
spokesman
William
Jennings
Bryan
as
a
moralist
in
politics
and
has
debunked
the
Great
Commoner’s
reform
reputation.3
3
Then,
in
his
Age
of
Ref orm,
the
Columbia
University
historian,
adopting
terms
from
sociology
to
describe
his
subjects,
bore
in
upon
the
larger
body
of
Populists.4
According
to
Hofstadter,
the
Populists
were
resentful
agrarian
fundamentalists
suffering
from
status
conflicts
who
reverted
to
the
yeoman
myth;
they
expressed
a
utopianism
of
the
past;
they
displayed
tendencies
towards
sadism
and
nihilism;
they
held
a
conspiracy
theory
of
history;
and
they
were
anti-Semitic,
nativist,
and
Anglophobic.
Journalist
and
social-scientist
Daniel
Bell
adopted
Hofstadter’s
ideas
and
expanded
them
in
two
recent
works,
one
on
the
Amer-
ican
right,
the
other
on
the
American
left.5
He
interprets
the
once-popular
progressives
as
pastoral
paranoids.
Edward
Shils,
Peter
Viereck,
Max
Lerner,
and
Seymour
M.
Lipset,
among
others,
also
look
upon
the
Populists
with
little
favor
6
Thus,
Populism
has
undergone
a
full
cycle
of
interpretation.
In
its
own
day,
the
People’s
party
was
feared
and
mocked
and
described
as
anarchistic
and
socialistic,
if
not
worse.
Friendlier
interpretations
followed,
largely
after
the
first
world
war,
by
Solon
Buck,
John
D.
Hicks,
and
their
many
disciples,
and
during
1
Oscar
Handlin,
"How
U.S.
Anti-Semitism
Really
Began,"
Commentary,
XI
(1951),
541-48.
2
A.
Whitney
Griswold,
Farming
and
Democracy
(New
York:
Harcourt,
Brace,
1948).
C.
Wright
Mills,
White
Collar
(New
York:
Oxford
University
Press,
1951),
chap.
2.
3
Richard
Hofstadter,
The
American
Political
Tradition
(New
York:
Vintage
Books,
1956).
4
Richard
Hofstadter,
The
Age
of
Reform,
From
Bryan
to
FDR
(New
York:
Knopf,
1955).
5
Daniel
Bell,
"The
Background
and
Development
of
Marxian
Socialism
in
the
United
States,"
in
Socialism
in
American
Life,
ed.
Donald
D.
Egbert
and
Stow
Persons
(Princeton:
Prince-
ton
University
Press,
1952),
I,
303-5;
and
Daniel
Bell
(ed.),
The
New
American
Right
(New
York:
Criterion
Books,
1955).
6
Edward
Shils,
Torment
of
Secrecy
(Glencoe:
Free
Press,
1956).
Peter
Viereck,
The
Unadjusted
Man
(Boston:
Beacon
Press,
1956).
Max
Lerner,
American
as
a
Civilization
(New
York:
Simon
&
Schuster,
1959).
Seymour
M.
Lipset,
Political
Man
(Garden
City:
Doubleday,
1960).
Viereck
(p.
180)
wonders
why
no one
ever
traced
the
connection
between
Robert
M.
La
Follette,
Sr.,
and
Joseph
McCarthy,
and
proceeds
to
make
the
attempt.
Though
his
pen
is
skillful,
he
misinterprets
Wisconsin
political
history
and
displays
a
serious
lack of
understanding
of
the
elder
La
Follette,
whom
he
incorrectly
terms
a
trust-buster
(p.
192).
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