POPULIST MOVEMENT –

Background -

The economic transformation taking place during the Gilded Age( 1860-1896 ) created
prosperity and new lifestyles for some, but these changes also had a widespread negative
impact in areas dominated by farming. Although crop diversification and the greater focus
on cotton as a cash crop offered some potential for farmers to get ahead, other forces
worked against that success. For instance, while technology greatly increased the amount a
farmer could harvest, it also created large surpluses that could not be sold. Farmers
struggled due to debt and falling prices. The crop failures of the 1880s greatly exacerbated
the situation coupled with a series of droughts in the west. To make matters worse, the
McKinley Tariff of 1890 was one of the highest the country had ever seen thus detrimental
to American farmers, as it drove up the prices of farm equipment. By 1890 , the level of
agrarian distress was at an all-time high.

This high level of agricultural distress led to the birth of several farmer movements,
prominently among them were –

The National Grange of the Order of Patrons of Husbandry, known as the Grange founded in
1867 to advance the social and economic needs of farmers like providing insurance and aid
to its members. The original objectives of the Grange were primarily educational, but these
were soon de-emphasized in favor of an anti-middleman, cooperative movement.
Collectively, Grange agents bought everything from farm machinery to women’s dresses,
and purchased hundreds of grain elevators, cotton and tobacco warehouses, and even
steamboat lines. They also purchased patents to enable the Grange to manufacture its own
farm machinery. In some states, these practices led to ruin, and the name, Grange, became
a reproach. However , the middle of the 1870s, the Granger movement succeeded in
regulating the railroads and grain warehouses.  partly due to the Panic of 1873, a financial
crisis that resulted in a number of bank failures and the bankruptcy of several of the nation’s
railroads. The peak of their political power was marked by their success in Munn v.
Illinois, which held that the grain warehouses were a, “private utility in the public interest”
and therefore could be regulated by public law. However, this achievement was overturned
later by the Supreme Court in Wabash v. Illinois.Other significant Grange causes included
temperance, the direct election of senators, and women’s suffrage.. During the Progressive
Era of the 1890s to the 1920s, political parties took up Grange causes. Consequently, local
Granger movements focused more on community service, although the state and national
Granges remain a political force.

In 1876, the Farmer’s Alliance was established in Texas with the goal of ending the crop-
lien system that had thrown so many farmers into poverty. The crop-lien system operated in
the cotton-growing South, among sharecroppers and tenant farmers, both white and black,
who did not own the land that they worked. These workers took out loans to obtain the
seed, tools, and other supplies they needed to grow the cotton. After the harvest, they were
required to pay back the loans in the form of cotton crops. When cotton prices tanked,
these workers were sometimes left with nothing after their crops were collected by
creditors. Their program also called for the regulation—if not the outright nationalization—
of the railroads; currency inflation to provide debt relief; the lowering of the tariff; and the
establishment of government-owned storehouses and low-interest lending facilities. These
requests were known as the “Ocala Demands.The political activism of the alliances gained
strength in the late 1880s as the organization merged with the nearly 500,000-member
Agricultural Wheel in 1888. In the South, the agenda centered on demands for government
control of transportation and communication in order to break the power of corporate
monopolies. The Southern Alliance also demanded reforms of currency, land ownership,
and income tax policies.H B PARKES had also commented that it was the most promising
liberal movement the South had known since the time of Thomas jefferson . Meanwhile, the
Northern Alliance stressed the demand for free coinage of large amounts of silver.Political
activists in the movement also made attempts to unite the two alliance organizations, along
with the Knights of Labor and the Colored Farmers’ National Alliance and Cooperative
Union, into a common movement. The efforts and unification proved futile, however, and
the Southern Alliance organized on its own, eventually reaching 43 states. The alliance
movement as a whole reached more than 750,000 members by 1890.

The alliance failed as an economic movement, but it is regarded by historians as

engendering a “movement culture” among the rural poor. This failure prompted an
evolution of the alliance into a political movement to field its own candidates in national
elections. In 1889–1890, the alliance was reborn as the Populist Party. The Populist Party,
which fielded national candidates in the 1892 election, essentially repeated in its platform
all of the demands of the alliance.The Ocala convention was part of a trend in the farmers’
movement to move from its fraternal and mutual-benefit roots toward an increasingly
political and radical position. Convention delegates hoped that future political gains would
lead to major economic and political reforms. The convention produced the “Ocala
Demands,” which included a call for the abolition of national banks, an increase in
circulating money, free silver, industrial regulations, a graduated income tax, lower tariffs,
and the direct election of U.S. senators.In 1892, the Farmers’ Alliance founded the People’s
Party, and the Ocala Demands were incorporated in the party’s Omaha Platform. As the
focus of the farmers’ movement shifted into politics, the Farmers’ Alliance faded away.

COURSE OF THE MOVEMENT -

The Populist Party/PEOPLE’S PARTY arose after the Granger movement and Farmers’
Alliances began to decline.It was a short-lived political party in the United States established
in 1891 during the Populist movement. It was most important from 1892 to 1896, then
rapidly faded away. Based among poor, white cotton farmers in the South (especially in
North Carolina, Alabama, and Texas) and hard-pressed wheat farmers in the plains states
(especially in Kansas and Nebraska), the party represented a radical crusading form of
agrarianism and hostility to banks, railroads, and elites in general The party flourished most
among farmers in the Southwest and Great Plains, and made significant gains in the South,
where it faced an uphill battle given the firmly entrenched monopoly of the Democratic
Party. Success often was obtained through electoral fusion with the Democrats outside the
South, and through alliances with the Republicans in Southern states such as Alabama,
North Carolina, Tennessee, and Texas.
 In the 1892 presidential election, the party ran James B. Weaver of Iowa as its candidate on
an impressive platform that called for government ownership of railroads, a graduated
income tax, and unlimited coinage of silver to increase the money supply. Weaver received
more than 1 million popular votes and captured the electoral votes of four states, indicating
to the major political parties that these issues were important to the public and therefore
could not be ignored. The platform also suggested that while Populism included a potential
for what GOODWYN calls "structural alteration of hierarchical economic forms," it also
appealed to farmers on the basis of concrete but moderate changes within the existing
system. As if to justify the arguments of the Populists, a financial panic hit the nation in
1893, sparking the worst economic depression the United States had experienced up to that
time. Crop prices dropped, banks collapsed, and unemployment increased for the nation as
a whole; for farmers, already in unsafe financial situations, the depression caused serious
economic problems. Many Americans began to embrace the idea of increasing the money
supply by coining silver to ease the nation's financial hardship—a measure that the Populists
had widely supported in their political campaigns.

The "money question" became a burning issue in the Presidential election of 1896, and the
Populists, the major supporters of free silver (as the policy came to be called), joined forces
with the Democratic Party in an attempt to wrest the presidency from the Republicans as
from 1860 to 1896, the Republican Party dominated American politics, especially at the
presidential level, where the only Democratic president during this period was Grover
Cleveland. The election of 1896 offered the Democrats the possibility of garnering working-
class votes in northeastern urban areas and agrarian votes in southern and western areas.
Unfortunately ,there was a great deal of suspicion between those groups. Moreover,
northern workingmen found that their interests were closely tied to the interests of their
industrialist bosses. The Democrats decided to nominate Nebraska politician William
Jennings Bryan for president. To gain the Democratic nomination at the party convention,
Bryan supported the silver standard and delivered a speech entitled "Cross of Gold," which
ended with a promise to the moneyed interest in the countryAt the age of 36, he became
the youngest-ever presidential candidate of a major party. The Populist Party agreed to
nominate him as well, over the objections of African-American delegates as they pointed
out that the Democratic Party completely failed to support their rights, cheating and
betraying African Americans in the South. The white Populists, hoping that an alliance with
the Democrats would bring victory, ignored their appeal. Despite his talent as a
speechmaker, Bryan lost the hard-fought election to Republican William McKinley, who
campaigned on the slogan of "sound money" (adherence to the gold standard, no coinage of
silver) and warned of the danger of Populist radicalism (in other word, craziness).

With his victory, Republicans advanced their control of national politics. McKinley registered
an even more impressive win over Bryan in the election of 1900. Populism gave rise to such
colorful characters as "Pitchfork" Ben Tillman of South Carolina, "Sockless" Jerry Simpson of
Kansas, and stump-orators like Mary Lease of Kansas, who argued that farmers needed "to
raise less corn and more hell!" Some even argued that white and black farmers in the South
were both "in the same ditch" and should unite to better their conditions. African-American
farmers organized "colored" alliances and in some cases held important positions in Populist
organizations. The Populist movement lost any significant political power following the
election of 1896. Shortly after McKinley won the presidency, gold was discovered in South
 Africa, Colorado, and Alaska, and the resulting increase in the gold supply ended the
depression and brought renewed prosperity to many farmers.Some scholars have argued
that the farmers were not ready to support policies that would increase the cost of food or
cause them to lose their jobs . Mainly , their progressive ideas had been a reason for their
failure .

Though the party ultimately failed to achieve its aims, the Populist movement illustrated
the impact of industrial expansion on farming and demonstrated how ordinary farmers
could form their own unions to better their conditions. Many Populist ideas survived the
demise of the movement and were enacted into law over the span of the next 20 years. The
graduated income tax, the direct election of senators, the secret ballot, and government
subsidies to farmers all had Populist origins. The party would also serves as one of the
origins of the Progressive movement, which pushed for major reforms during the first few
decades of the 20th century.

NATURE OF THE MOVEMENT -

WILLIAM F HOLMES argues that by no means united on every detail, these agrarian
reformers stood against the “money power” of the Gilded Age, the monopolies,  banks, and
gold standard Theirs’ was a case of a traditional society (small-proprietor capitalism) versus
the new market society (big business). To challenge political, financial, and religious elites on
the local and national levels, says Holmes, “Populism took the form of a mass movement that
had overtones of a Protestant revival.” But he does point to its had progressive aspects like
challenging gender roles, especially in the West where farm women worked for women’s
suffrage. However , in the south he states , the Populists largely upheld white supremacy,
even as poor whites were being disenfranchised along with their African-American neighbors.
Overall , he states that Populists were an “indigenous rural movement” which sought a
“purification of capitalism and a revitalization of democracy” .They “expressed the aspirations
of people who confronted the threat of economic and social decline as the nineteenth
century drew to a close.”And even thoug they were soundly defeated by the 20th century.
Yet the “image of the yeomen battling to maintain their independent status” has continued to
attract attention.

Some historians see the populists as forward-looking liberal reformers. Others view them as
reactionaries trying to recapture an idyllic and utopian past. For some they were radicals out
to restructure American life, and for others they were economically hard-pressed agrarians
seeking government relief. Much recent scholarship emphasizes Populism’s debt to early
American republicanism.[23] Clanton stresses that Populism was “the last significant expression
of an old radical tradition that derived from Enlightenment sources that had been filtered
through a political tradition that bore the distinct imprint of Jeffersonian, Jacksonian, and
Lincolnian democracy.” This tradition emphasized human rights over the cash nexus of the
Gilded Age’s dominant ideology.[24]
Frederick Jackson Turner and a succession of western historians depicted the Populist
as responding to the closure of the frontier.However , Vernon Parrington suggested that
the Populists’ motivation came not from economic concerns, but from an idealistic
background which was contested by John D. Hicks, who emphasized economic pragmatism
over ideals, presenting Populism as interest group politics, with have-nots demanding their
fair share of America’s wealth which was being leeched off by nonproductive speculators. He
emphasized the drought that ruined so many Kansas farmers, but also pointed to financial
manipulations, deflation in prices caused by the gold standard, high interest rates, mortgage
foreclosures, and high railroad rates. Corruption accounted for such outrages and Populists
presented popular control of government as the solution, C. Van Woodward extends
Hicks’s analysis to southern Populism ,arguing that they were rational , he especially
focuses on the 1896 People’s Party vice-presidential candidate, Tom Watson. Early
studies of Populism were thus mostly positive, viewing Populism as a rational response
to the abuses of the modernizing world.

Debates over populist-progressivism connections -

In the 1950s, however, scholars such as Richard Hofstadter portrayed the Populist movement
as an irrational response of backward-looking farmers to the challenges of modernity. He
discounted third party links to Progressivism and argued that Populists were provincial,
conspiracy-minded, and had a tendency toward scapegoatism that manifested itself as
nativism, anti-Semitism, anti-intellectualism, and Anglophobia. The antithesis of anti-modern
Populism was modernizing Progressivism according to Hofstadter’s model, with such leading
progressives as Theodore Roosevelt,George Norris and Woodrow Wilson pointed as having
been vehement enemies of Populism, though William Jennings Bryan did cooperate with
them and accepted the Populist nomination in 1896. He regarded farmers as small
businessmen and criticized the Populists for perpetuating myths that obscured economic
reality (the idea of a golden age, a conspiracy theory of history, and a two-class view of
society), Norman Pollack challenged the view of Populists advanced by Hofstadter by
portrayin Populists as forward-looking proto-socialists.according to him , The Movement
was “an extraordinarily penetrating critique of industrial society” Walter T.K Nugent
furthers the critique of Hofstadter’s view of the Populists as regressive, racist simpletons
by giving example of the Kansas populism to demonstrate that Populists were not nativist
or anti-Semitic, James Youngdale’s Populism: A Psychohistorical Perspective uses
Adlerian psychology to demonstrate that the Populists were not irrational; instead, they
acted in accordance with socially developed goals

LAWRENCE Goodwyn is much more sympathetic to the language Of Populism and sees in the
farmers' a "movement culture" a cooperative, democratic challenge to an inegalitarian
money system and to corporate control of politics. his Populist Moment stands as the most
influential recent treatment of the farmers' movement. However , Goodwyn] and CHARLES
Postel reject the notion that the Populists were traditionalistic and anti-modern. Quite the
reverse, they argue, the Populists aggressively sought self-consciously progressive goals.
Goodwyn criticizes Hofstadter’s reliance on secondary sources to characterize the Populists,
working instead with the material generated by the Populists themselves.He is much more
sympathetic to the language Of Populism and sees in the farmers' "movement culture" a
cooperative, democratic challenge to an inegalitarian money system and to corporate control
of politics. Although Goodwyn has been criticized for excluding from true Populism those who
do not fit his interpretation, his Populist Moment stands as the most influential recent
treatment of the farmers' movement.He determined that the farmers’ cooperatives gave rise
to a Populist culture, and their efforts to free farmers from lien merchants revealed to them
the political structure of the economy, which propelled them into politics. The Populists
sought diffusion of scientific and technical knowledge, formed highly centralized
organizations, launched large-scale incorporated businesses, and pressed for an array of
state-centered reforms. Hundreds of thousands of women committed to Populism seeking a
more modern life, education, and employment in schools and offices. A large section of the
labor movement looked to Populism for answers, forging a political coalition with farmers
that gave impetus to the regulatory state. Postel also argues that Progress, however, was also
menacing and inhumane, White Populists embraced social-Darwinist notions of racial
improvement, Chinese exclusion and separate-but-equal , they saw the Panic of 1893 as
confirmation that evil global conspiracies and big city villains were to blame. . Robert
McMath’s however argues that Populism was most successful when it was able to use
existing social and economic networks in order to mobilize farmers, especially when the
main parties neglected or belittled the concerns of farmers. This analysis could explain
why demagogues such as Benjamin Tillman were able prevent the growth of Populism in
their states

WHY DIDN’T THE FARMERS MOVEMENT UNITE WITH THE URBAN MOVEMENT ?

A related problem on which historians have disagreed concerns the reluctance of urban
industrial workers to rally to Populism and make common cause with farmers. Although the
1892 Populist platform celebrated "the union of the labor forces of the United States," that
union
was never consummated. Most factory workers turned their backs on the Populist party and
continued to vote for the Democrats and Republicans. According to Goodwyn, the American
labor movement had not been schooled in the "movement culture" of Populism and "was
simply not yet ready for mass insurgent politics." Other historians have offered a simpler
explanation for the division between workers and farmers: their contrasting economic
interests. In Melvyn Dubofsky's words, "Farmers saw their economic salvation in free silver,
cheap money, and inflation; wage workers preferred cheap food, hard money, and high
wages." That the Populists were unable to extend their mass base into the cities goes a long
way toward explaining their demise.

CONSEQUENCES IN THE POLITICAL SPHERE -

They had, however, contributed to a profound upheaval in American public life to the
realignment of the political parties and to a significant expansion of popular expectations for
government. Where national elections in the Gilded Age had been closely contested and party
lines had remained largely unchanged from year to year, the Populist insurgency and the
economic depression of the 1890s brought a swift succession of shifts in party fortunes. The
ultimate victors were the Republicans, who triumphed derisively in 1896 and (except for the
years of Woodrow Wilson's presidency) remained in national power for more than a
generation.
But the political upheaval went far beyond the improvement of one major party's position at
the other's expense. Partisan loyalties, so firm for a generation, had received a severe blow
from the successive electoral changes of the 1890s. Voters soon showed themselves far less
interested than before in the vibrant party campaigns typical of the late nineteenth century.
Because most areas of the nation were now firmly dominated by one party or the other (the
Democrats in the South and the Republicans in the North and West), there was less incentive to
vote than before; in consequence, electoral turnout would soon begin a downward slide that
continued through the 1920s. For some voters, departure from the ballot box was not a matter
of choice. Frightened by the interracial Populist crusade, elite southern Democrats took steps
to disfranchise those blacks who had remained active voters through the 1890s, and, by design
as well as accident, many poorer southern whites also lost the vote. The results of these
developments were not felt fully until the early 1900s, but the party system was never the
same again.

Already in place were some groups that replaced party politics , Saloon League was formed in
1895 as an interest organization devoted to the prohibition of alcoholic beverages. Women's
groups set to work in the cities, assisting laboring women and undertaking a multitude of tasks
to make the "home" (broadly defined) a decent place to be. Urban reform movements were on
the threshold of their most vigorous campaigns to transform city governments. Soon to be
organized was the Socialist Party of America, led by Eugene V. Debs. Like the Populists, these
and other related groups believed in a strong and active government. They disagreed mightily
about what the government ought to do; they had unequal access to power; and all of them
experienced disappointments with the results of the changes they inspired. But together they
were poised to transform American public life in the early 1900s.
OVERALL , Populism can be seen as a republican response to industrialism that drew
upon previous egalitarian movements and ideologies. While itresponded to its own
economic realities, it was an idealistic movement. Populism reflected one half of a dualistic
societ i.e. Representing republicanism against capitalism, rural against urban, and
agricultural against industrial,it was both a reaction against the changes of the late 19 th
century and a recapitulation of the ideas of the early Republic. Populists were neither
“hicks” nor radicals – instead, they responded to challenges to what they understood as the
basic tenets of American republicanism.