My Genealogy Hound

HON. WILLIAM ALFRED PEFFER was born on the Peffer ancestral homestead in Dickinson township, Cumberland Co., Pa., on Sept. 10, 1831. He was the youngest child of John and Elizabeth (Souder) Peffer, and a grandson of the Philip Peffer, who settled upon the Yellow Breeches in Cumberland county in 1773. He received no educational training beyond that afforded by the country district school, but he naturally inclined to reading and study, and by the time he reached his twentieth year he had accumulated a considerable library of miscellaneous books. At fifteen he taught his first school, at McAllister’s, on the turnpike a few miles west of Carlisle. Afterward he taught for two years among the Quakers of Lancaster county, Pa., where he acquired habits of thought and expression, and imbibed principles, which remained with him all through life. When seventeen years of age he was offered a course in Dickinson College, to be followed by two years at the law school, tuition to be payable out of earnings in the profession after graduation. The offer was declined because of a belief that a successful lawyer could not be honest with himself. In company with a few other young Cumberland countians, he in 1850 went to the California gold mines, and in the autumn of the following year was slated for election to the first Legislature of that State, but refused to stand because of his age. In 1852 he returned to Pennsylvania, and in December of that year married Sarah Jane Barber, daughter of William Barber, the founder of Papertown, now Mount Holly Springs. In 1853 he moved to northern Indiana and began opening a farm in the thick woods of that section. There he became acquainted with Schuyler Colfax and was a delegate to a convention that named that gentleman for Congress. Mr. Peffer was born a Democrat, and cast his first vote for Franklin Pierce for President, but like many others of his party was opposed to the repeal of the Missouri Compromise, and in the campaign of 1856 took an active part for Fremont and Dayton. From 1857 to 1859 times were hard in Indiana, and with the hope of bettering his condition he removed to southwestern Missouri, where he bought land and continued farming, and, during the fall and winter months, taught school. Here on July 4, 1860, he delivered an address in which he advocated the Union cause. War coming on the next year he removed his family to Illinois, where, after securing them against want, he enlisted in Company F, 83d Illinois Regiment, and was made fifth sergeant. Because of his knowledge of military tactics he was detailed to drill the company and instruct the men in handling arms. In March, 1863, he was appointed to a lieutenancy, and from that time on was on detailed duty almost continuously until mustered out at the close of the war. He acted as quartermaster, adjutant, post adjutant, Judge Advocate of a military commission, and depot quartermaster of the engineering department at Nashville, Tenn., in which last named capacity he had charge of all engineer supplies for the military division of the Mississippi. He was in two engagements, the second battle of Donelson, in February, 1863, and the battle of Nashville, in December, 1864.

While on post duty he at odd hours read law and concluded to enter that profession, and after the war made his home in Tennessee. Shortly after leaving the army he was admitted to the Bar at Clarksville, began practice there, and was soon retained in some important cases involving questions of constitutional law growing out of the war. He was conservative and disposed to assist the people in restoring peace and good will, and with that end in view opposed the radicalism of Gov. Brownlow and avoided all occasions for needless irritation. By special requests of citizens he delivered a series of public addresses in the counties of middle Tennessee, counseling good-natured acquiescence in the new regime. Mr. Peffer was making satisfactory progress in the practice of the law in Tennessee, but social conditions there then were not agreeable to northern people, and so early in 1870 he moved his family to Wilson county, Kans. Taking up a claim near the county seat, he opened a law office, and later established the Fredonia Journal, putting two of his children to work at setting type for the paper. That country was then new and he interested himself in agriculture and politics, as well as literature and the law. He organized the Republicans of the county, held several fairs at his own expense, and personally collected material for Wilson county’s exhibit at the Centennial Exposition. His activity gave him prominence and public preferment followed. He was elected to the Kansas State Senate for the term covering the years 1875 and 1876, and in that body was chairman of the committee on Corporations, was third on the Judiciary committee and managed the bill appropriating money for the State’s display at the Centennial Fair. His district comprised two counties, Wilson and Montgomery, and in 1875 he sold out and moved into Montgomery, where he established the Coffeyville Journal, and continued his efforts at promoting the best interests of his adopted State. In 1880 he was presidential elector of the Garfield ticket, and while his prospects in general were encouraging his field was circumscribed and far away from political centers, so he quit the law and in 1881 accepted the editorship of the Kansas Farmer, an agricultural paper of wide circulation, published at Topeka, the capital of the State. This position he retained ten years, during most of which time he was also an editorial writer on the Daily Capital, the leading Republican paper in Kansas.

The Farmers Alliance movement reached its greatest development in Kansas in 1890, and Mr. Peffer being in sympathy with it, he was in constant demand as speaker at Alliance meetings. In response to these calls he that year delivered more than a hundred speeches, and did his editorial work “on the wing,” writing on his knees, on benches in waiting rooms, on wagon seats, on the open prairies, wherever, during the day or the night, a moment could be devoted to writing. There was no system about the Alliance meetings. They were scattered over the State at random, with no direction from any organized head, except that each county chose the time for its own meetings and without reference to the others. The Alliance, however, worked a revolution in Kansas politics. A large majority of the members of the Legislature chosen that year were members of the organization, and when the time came they all voted for Mr. Peffer to represent the State in the United States Senate. This was the beginning of the People’s or Populist party. In May, 1891, there was held at Cincinnati, Ohio, a national conference comprised of about fourteen hundred delegates, representing the Alliance and other various farm and labor organizations. Of this large conference Mr. Peffer was made permanent chairman, and by it arrangements were made for the formation of the National People’s party, which held its first nominating convention at Omaha, Neb., July 4, 1892.

Mr. Peffer’s election to the Senate was wholly without his seeking, and did not cost him one cent. His career in the Senate was marked chiefly by advocacy of doctrines he had taught in editorial writings and public addresses. He believed in organization among farmers, in public warehouses, and in use of warehouse receipts for grain and cotton as temporary currency. He believed in public banks and that the government should lend money to needy people on good security at an interest rate that would pay for the attendant expenses; in government ownership, or control, of all means of public transportation, and that coal mines ought to be owned by State or national government and operated in the interest of consumers. He believed that public utilities, such as water works and lighting plants, like school-houses, ought to belong to the people and be subject to their control. He favored the use of paper money for all sums of one dollar and its multiples, making the precious metals commodities to be bought and sold by weight; and also favored the submission of all great public questions to the people for ratification before being enacted into laws. The first measure he introduced proposed an investigation into the necessary expense of the business of lending money, outside the value of the money lent, with the view of ascertaining what public banking would cost, and his last bill provided for a system of government banking. One of his bills provided for the construction of government freight railroads; another for organizing the present railway system under one management, subject to national supervision. He urged the investigation of the management of banks during the panic of 1893, and secured passage of a resolution to investigate the bond sales to syndicates in 1894, 1895 and 1896. He also proposed a measure to abolish the present practice of conducting funeral, obsequies and processions on the death of Senators and Congressmen.

Mr. Peffer’s tastes from boyhood ran in literary and political lines, and the labors of the after years of his life, in the main, have been confined to the same channel. In 1869 he published a national story in blank verse called “Myriorama”; and another in prose entitled “The Carpetbagger in Tennessee.” Prior to his election to the United States Senate he found sufficient time from his pressing editorial duties to do much literary work. In 1883 he published a story called “Geraldine,” or “What May Happen.” in which he reproduced on paper many of the social customs of the good people of old Cumberland, apple butter boilings, spelling schools, rope making, etc. This he followed up with sketches of the settlement of Kansas, leading into the great war of 1861, and concluding with a description of the growth and development of the State he had chosen for his home. In 1888 he published his “Tariff Manual”; in 1889 he contributed an article to the Forum, entitled “The Farmers’ Defensive Movement,” and in 1890 his pamphlet, “The Way Out,” appeared, followed in 1891 by “The Farmers’ Side.” While in the Senate, he at the request of magazine publishers, wrote several articles for them and since his retirement he has devoted his time entirely to literary work. Some of his later productions have attracted much attention, notably “The Passing of the People’s Party,” “The United States Senate,” “Republic in the Philippines,” “Imperialism, America’s Historic Policy,” and “Americanism and the Philippines.” This last named work, at the request of the Republican National Committee, in 1900, he condensed into a campaign document, of which the first edition printed consisted of a million copies. In 1902 he began the preparation of an index, by subjects, to the discussions which have taken place in Congress from the beginning in 1789 down to date. He was engaged on that work when this sketch was written and estimated that four years more would be required to complete it.

Mr. Peffer’s theories were so new and in some respects so startling, and his coming into national prominence so sudden, that, naturally he was much talked about and belabored on all sides. His long and heavy beard, besides being good matter for cartoonists, furnished a descriptive symbol to the party to which he belonged. It is doubtful whether, during the time that he was in the public eye, any other man was more frequently held up in pictures. While his theories were new, Senators soon discovered that he was honest and sincere. His manner was diffident rather than aggressive, he respected the great body of which he was a member and the body respected him. He was temperate in his habits, modest in demeanor, was never absent without leave, was never paired, and answered to every roll call.

Mr. Peffer is a firm believer in the Christian religion, is a Master Mason, and a member of the Episcopal Church. He is the father of ten children: Winnie Alice, William Barber, May Keller, Charles Theodore, Douglas Marmion, William Alfred, Emma Milburn, John Sherman, Nellie McMullen and Ellwood Souder, William Barber being deceased.