"This Spreading Radicalism": Hamlin Garland's A Spoil of Office and the Creation of True Populism

Abstract

A Spoil of Office (1892), Hamlin Garland's most sustained Populist novel, captures as no other work of American fiction does tremendous growth and difficulties of post Civil War agrarian uprisings in West. Set in years 1877 to late 1884, describes crest and decline of Grange movement and beginnings of Farmers' Alliance, parent of Populist Party. The difficult path toward Populism is embodied in protagonist, Bradley Talcott, who develops from an ignorant lowa farmhand into United States Congressman and Alliance supporter; other main character, Ida Wilbur, embodies similar development from young and somewhat naive Grange lecturer into an impassioned feminist and Alliance organizer. By end of novel, Bradley and Ida--like agrarian West they live in, are dedicated to, and symbolize--are transformed: they have become Populists.(1) Despite novel's importance, though, remains virtually forgotten and uniformly misread. The most recent study of book, by Eberhard Alsen, is nearly 30 years old and shows little interest in dominant subject matter of novel, namely political uprising in West. Alsen, with an avowedly and insistently political novel in front of him, avoids any discussion of politics. Indeed, he claims that novel is not really political at all, but rather one about courtship and development (rise) of protagonist. The agrarian uprising only serves as historical background; what is most interesting about book is how it illustrates Garland's development as writer, as shown by Garland's revision of in 1897, five years after was originally published.(2) The many cuts in this later edition, especially at end of book, reveal writer who, in Alsen's view, is wisely moving away from issues of and economic injustices to more general and humanitarian concern for physical suffering that farmers of that time had to endure. To Alsen's way of thinking, shift from specifics of mere economic injustice to general humanitarian themes marks an important aesthetic advance, and renders 1897 edition superior to original version.(3) This essay argues that exact opposite is true, that 1892 version is clearly superior: Garland's pruning of Ida's political speeches and his other cuts and changes de-politicize and de-radicalize text; fundamentally political novel is shorn of much of its essential politics. By 1897, Garland had accepted notion, one that would affect his fictional practice for following two decades, that politics necessarily weakens one's art. As he later wrote of Spoil, the controversial side of my book killed it. I included too many political arguments.(4) The same belief that politics and art are contradictory has dominated criticism of Spoil and of Garland' s work in general. Even Garland's best critics have proven unable to perceive most elementary issues and virtues of Spoil. Donald Pizer, for example, claims that despite excellence of A Spoil of Office as contemporary social history, is undoubtedly failure as novel.(5) V.L. Parrington, writing in late 1920s, surprisingly makes same art-versus-politics distinction, calling Spoil a social tract rather than work of art.(6) Edward Wagenknecht, following suit, claims that Spoil is forward-looking sociologically but undistinguished as fiction.(7) Garland himself repudiated novel as nothing more than a partisan plea for stertorous People's Party and refused to reprint in 1922 Border edition of his works.(8) To be sure, Spoil is far from perfect. Perhaps most grievous drawback is that in this frankly political novel, politics, even in 1892 edition, are oftentimes poorly explained. The scenes set in political capitals of Des Moines and Washington, D.C., for example, contain some quotable speeches on political corruption, but never go much beyond that. …