"IT CAN'T HAPPEN HERE" IN OREGON - Southern Oregon Digital ...

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mover-and-shaker, was a "clear, forceful speaker" who
effectively made the Populist case to voters.28 The local
two-party press was far less respectful of Ira Wakefield,
whom Charles Nickell scorned as a "calamity" and a
"political preacher" who was "pregnant with theories." 2 9
A
Civil War veteran and ardent prohibitionist from
Massachusetts, the Reverend Wakefield brought an old Yankee
style of moralistic fervor to the Rogue River Valley.
He
seemed drawn to the campaign of reform like a moth to the
flame.
The Populist Southern Oregon Mail carried
Wakefield's weekly letters, full of rhetorical trumpet calls
to the troops. 30
Like Holt and Nealon, Wakefield remained
one of the party's "middle-roader" faithful until the end.
People's party leaders in southern Oregon made
effective use of the ready-made public symbols and political
tools--the grass-roots "movement culture"--first developed
by Populist organizers in the Great Plains.
The movement
culture imparted a sense of independence and self-respect to
downtrodden farmers through a variety of ways.
Symbolic
language that stressed solidarity, particularly the use of
"Brother" and "Brethren" in addressing their fellows, was
28 "People's Party Speeches," AT, 4 Mar. 1892, 3.
29,It has become evident...," DT, 7 May 1896, 2; "Rev.
Ira Wakefield," DT, 11 May 1896, 2; "The Populist
bosses...," DT, 14 May 1896, 2.
30 SOM, Aug.-Nov. 1892, passim. Wakefield, who did not
serve as a full-time minister, was associated with the
Methodist Episcopal church.