The late 1800’s brought much strife and fear for Americans, especially the farmers that had conquered the “Great American Desert” and supported America with crops. Why were times bad for farmers? A number of reasons sparked this era of despair. One major reason was greed among the already wealthy and merciless deeds enacted to control America’s backbone.Farmers had endured many years of hardship turning America into a great agrarian society (along with the booming industrial society). Yet with every passing year, farmers were being taken advantage of more and more by large companies, banks, and the government. Crop prices were declining and farmers had to mortgage their homes and property so that they could buy more land to produce more crops.The amount of fertile land available was declining as more and more farmers bought land. The banks were charging very high rates that continued to eat away at the farmer’s earnings. The railroad companies were also a thorn in the side of farmers. The railroad companies would buy up good land cheap, build a railroad, and then sell the land to the farmers for a high profit. Railroads would charge extremely high rates to ship crops and other goods throughout the country which made it difficult for farmers to make a large enough profit to pay for their mortgage, land, crops, and family.Inflation was also on the rise. The government had issued over $500 million in paper money known as greenbacks. Unfortunately the government did not have enough gold or silver to back the paper money up. To make up for this problem, the government began to take greenbacks out of circulation. This meant that the value of the money that was still in circulation would rise. This caused even more problems for farmers. It meant that farmers now had to pay more money than what they had originally borrowed.Farmers sought out reform. One of the first groups to call for reform was the Patrons of Husbandry. This group was later known as the Grange. The Grange mainly started providing educational support and reform for farm families, but later focused most of its attention on fighting the railroads. Groups like the Grange began to spring up and the call for reform rose to over four million members. The colored farmers formed their own alliances with over 250,000 members, and most reformers were content with the separation of alliances between the blacks and the whites.Before long, Populism was created. Populism is the movement of people. The first Populist convention took place on July 2, 1892 in Omaha Nebraska. The Populists main concerns were to provide support for farmers and members of the workforce to provide better working conditions for all. The populists called for an eight-hour work day, graduated income tax, federal loans, one term for the president and vice president, and the secret ballot. The secret ballot was suggested to eliminate fraud for voting.In 1893, everything took a turn for the worse. The Panic of 1893 was a devastating wave of depression throughout the country. Railroads built more than people could use and many railroads went bankrupt. The gold reserves were running low so people panicked and tried to trade all of their paper money for gold. The stock market crashed, and, as a result, over 15,000 banks and businesses closed. In just a few years, a fifth of the population was unemployed, and hunger gripped many families.In politics, a raging war was taking place. The issue of which metal, gold or silver, had arisen as to which one of these metals should be used to back up the paper money. The Republicans were known as gold bugs because they wanted all money to be backed by gold. This would mean a smaller amount of money that would be stable and worth more than it would be otherwise. The Democrats wanted silver. The populists wanted both metals to be used.The Populists were torn between joining the Democrats and losing their voice as an individual political party, or to remain separate and possibly lose the election for president. The Republicans nominated William McKinley for the presidential candidate of 1896. The Democrats nominated William Bryan. Bryan was famous for his uncompromising advocacy for bimetallism. Bryan had the support of the South and Med-West while McKinley gained support from the Northeast. McKinley’s campaign funds vastly outnumbered Bryan’s which made it easy for McKinley to spread his name and word. Finally, the West sided with McKinley. They feared inflation and economic collapse with Bryan. The final tally was McKinley 6.5 million votes to Bryan’s 6 million.With McKinley in the White House, Populism was crushed and became no more. These were very hard times for our forefathers. As a rural community, we would have been downtrodden much as the farmers were who inhabited these lands before us. I hate to think about the strife that those men and women had to endure, but because of their sacrifices, America has benefited greatly. We need to learn from the past and get out of this recession quickly.
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