William Alfred Peffer

Background

William Alfred Peffer was born on September 10, 1831 in Cumberland County, Pennsylvania, United States. He was the son of Elizabeth (Souder) and John Peffer, a farmer. Both parents were of Dutch descent.

Education

Although William Alfred Peffer had slight educational advantages, by the age of fifteen he himself was a teacher.

Career

During the gold rush William Alfred Peffer went to California but returned to Pennsylvania. The next year he and his wife moved to a farm in Saint Joseph County, Indiana, and in 1859 to Morgan County, Missouri, but during the Civil War, in 1862, they returned to Warren County, Illinois. In August 1862 Peffer enlisted as a private in Company F of the 83rd Illinois Infantry. The next year he was commissioned second lieutenant. Most of his service was spent in detached duty. Using the spare time available he read law, and, soon after he was mustered out of the army at Nashville, Tenn. , in June 1865, he was admitted to the Tennessee bar. He practised at Clarksville until the close of 1869. Early the following year he removed to Kansas, took up a claim in Wilson County, and combined with its management the practice of law in Fredonia, the county seat. It was not long until he added a third duty, when he purchased a newspaper plant and became editor of the Fredonia Journal.

In 1875 William Alfred Peffer removed to Coffeyville, Montgomery County, and there edited the Coffeyville Journal. In 1874 he was elected to the Kansas state Senate and in 1880 was a Republican presidential elector. In 1881 he became editor of the Kansas Farmer, at the same time doing some work for the Topeka Daily Capital. He transferred his family to Topeka and made that his home. The Kansas Farmer became the most powerful farm journal in the state, with non-partisan political interests though with a general tone friendly to the dominant Republican party. When the agricultural distress became acute in 1888 and 1889, Peffer's voice was insistent for rural organization. When the Farmer's Alliance entered the state, he welcomed it, and the Farmer became the official paper for one branch. In 1888 he published Peffer's Tariff Manual, a pocket-size volume for popular reading.

William Alfred Peffer labored for farmer solidarity and urged remedial legislation, but toward third party activity he was at first hostile. When the creation of the People's party made the alternative unavoidable, he left the Republican party, but he stood as a conservative in the radical party. In 1890 his reputation as a farm leader, his Republican past, and his conservative position combined to win for him election to the United States Senate against more consistent and more radical third party men. In the Senate he was not in either major party organization and so played no important part in legislation. He introduced numerous bills and was a persistent, somewhat tedious speaker on a wide variety of subjects.

For Populism that was unfortunate, since Peffer's position was frequently unorthodox and inconsistent. His confusion of thought on financial problems is obvious in his speeches; and his writings, especially his volume The Farmer's Side (1891), are undigested summaries of the arguments of various reforming groups, some of them self-contradictory. He was out of sympathy with the tendency of Populism to unite with the anti-administration Democrats during Cleveland's second term. In 1896 he was not renominated by his own party. He took advantage of the new issue of imperialism to slip back to his first allegiance and published a book on the Philippines to prove his Republicanism, Americanism and the Philippines (1900).

After the term in the Senate, William Alfred Peffer undertook to prepare an index of discussions of the United States Congress. In 1902 Congress made provision for the purchase of the work as it should be completed but apparently it was never finished. William Alfred Peffer died at the home of a daughter at Grenola, Kansas on October 6, 1912.

Achievements

• William Alfred Peffer was a prominent newspaper editor who helped organize the People's Party and became the first Populist United States Senator.

Works

More photos

• book

  • Myriorama: A View of Our People and Their History, Together with the Principles Underlying, and the Circumstances Attending the Rise and Progress of the American Union: A Poem

    ( This work has been selected by scholars as being cultur...)

  • The Farmer's Side: His Troubles and Their Remedy 1891

    (Originally published in 1891. This volume from the Cornel...)

  • Agricultural Depression; Causes and Remedies: Report Submitted to the Senate Committee on Agriculture and Forestry, February 15, 1894 1894

    (Originally published in 1894. This volume from the Cornel...)

Personality

His tall, well-rounded figure, his unusually long and wavy beard, which William Alfred Peffer combed constantly with his fingers as he talked, his heavy, dry, excessively statistical speeches, his absence of humor, and his deadly earnestness made him a conspicuous figure in the Senate.

Connections

On December 28, 1852, William Alfred Peffer married Sarah Jane Barber, a teacher. He was the father of ten children, of whom eight lived to maturity.

Father:

John Peffer

Mother:

Elizabeth (Souder) Peffer

Spouse:

Sarah Jane Barber Peffer

Daughter :

Winnie Alice Peffer McClellan

Daughter :

Nellie McMullen Peffer McIlhenny

Brother:

David Souder Peffer

Brother:

Henry Peffer

Brother:

Samuel Peffer

Brother:

Philip Peffer

Brother:

Benjamin Keller Peffer

Brother:

John Augustus Peffer

Sister:

Sarah Elizabeth Peffer

Sister:

Leah Peffer

Son:

Douglas Marmion Peffer

Son :

Elwood Peffer