The low price received by the Western producer had been much increased before the cereals reached the Southern consumer.

The Southern farmer was consequently becoming desperate and was threatening revolt against the established order.
While Southern delegates joined the Western Alliance in the organization of the People's party in 1891 and 1892, the majority of the members in the South chose an easier way of attaining their object: they entered the Democratic primaries and conventions and captured them.

In State after State, men in sympathy with the farmers were chosen to office, often over old leaders who had been supposed to have life tenure of their positions.

In some cases these leaders retained their offices, if not their influence, by subscribing to the demands of the Alliance.
Perhaps some could do this without reservation; others, Senators particularly, justified themselves on the theory that a legislature had the right to speak for the State and instruct those chosen to represent it.
The feeling of the farmer that he was being oppressed threatened to develop into an obsession.

His hatred of "money-power," "trusts," "corners," and the "hirelings of Wall Street" found expression in his opposition to the local lawyers and merchants, and, in fact, to the residents of the towns in general.