what do you think were the most significant factors in bringing an end to the populist party?
Politics in the Gilded Age, 1870—1900
The challenges Americans faced in the post-Civil State of war era extended far beyond the effect of Reconstruction and the challenge of an economy without slavery. Political and social repair of the nation was paramount, equally was the correlative question of race relations in the wake of slavery. In add-on, farmers faced the task of cultivating arid western soils and selling crops in an increasingly global commodities market, while workers in urban industries suffered long hours and hazardous conditions at stagnant wages.
Farmers, who notwithstanding composed the largest percentage of the U.South. population, faced mounting debts equally agronomical prices spiraled downward. These lower prices were due in big role to the cultivation of more acreage using more productive farming tools and machinery, global marketplace contest, likewise equally price manipulation by commodity traders, exorbitant railroad freight rates, and costly loans upon which farmers depended. For many, their hard work resulted but in a standing decline in prices and even greater debt. These farmers, and others who sought leaders to heal the wounds left from the Ceremonious War, organized in different states, and eventually into a national 3rd-party challenge, but to find that, with the end of Reconstruction, federal political power was stuck in a permanent partisan stalemate, and corruption was widespread at both the land and federal levels.
As the Gilded Historic period unfolded, presidents had very niggling power, due in large part to highly contested elections in which relative popular majorities were razor-thin. Two presidents won the Electoral Higher without a popular bulk. Further undermining their efficacy was a Congress comprising more often than not politicians operating on the principle of political patronage. Somewhen, frustrated by the lack of leadership in Washington, some Americans began to develop their own solutions, including the establishment of new political parties and organizations to direct address the problems they faced. Out of the frustration wrought by war and presidential political impotence, too as an overwhelming stride of industrial change, farmers and workers formed a new grassroots reform movement that, at the terminate of the century, was eclipsed past an even larger, mostly center-grade, Progressive motility. These reform efforts did bring about alter—but not without a fight.
The Gold Age
Mark Twain coined the phrase "Gilded Historic period" in a book he co-authored with Charles Dudley Warner in 1873, The Gilded Age: A Tale of Today. The book satirized the corruption of mail-Ceremonious War society and politics. Indeed, popular excitement over national growth and industrialization only thinly glossed over the stark economic inequalities and various degrees of corruption of the era. Politicians of the fourth dimension largely catered to business organization interests in substitution for political support and wealth. Many participated in graft and bribery, often justifying their actions with the excuse that abuse was too widespread for a successful politician to resist. The machine politics of the cities, specifically Tammany Hall in New York, illustrate the kind of corrupt, but effective, local and national politics that dominated the era.
Nationally, between 1872 and 1896, the lack of clear pop mandates fabricated presidents reluctant to venture beyond the interests of their traditional supporters. As a result, for virtually a quarter of a century, presidents had a weak hold on power, and legislators were reluctant to tie their political agendas to such weak leaders. On the contrary, weakened presidents were more susceptible to support various legislators' and lobbyists' agendas, as they owed tremendous favors to their political parties, as well as to central financial contributors, who helped them garner just enough votes to squeak into part through the Balloter College. As a result of this relationship, the rare pieces of legislation passed were largely responses to the desires of businessmen and industrialists whose back up helped build politicians' careers.
What was the result of this political malaise? Not surprisingly, almost nothing was accomplished on the federal level. However, bug associated with the tremendous economic growth during this fourth dimension connected to mountain. More Americans were moving to urban centers, which were unable to accommodate the massive numbers of working poor. Tenement houses with inadequate sanitation led to widespread illness. In rural parts of the land, people fared no better. Farmers were unable to cope with the challenges of depression prices for their crops and exorbitant costs for everyday goods. All around the country, Americans in need of solutions turned further away from the federal government for aid, leading to the rise of fractured and corrupt political groups.(2)
The Key Political Issues: Patronage, Tariffs, and Gold
Patronage: The Spoils System vs Civil Service
At the middle of each president's administration was the protection of the spoils system, that is, the ability of the president to exercise widespread political patronage. Patronage, in this case, took the form of the president naming his friends and supporters to various political posts. Given the shut calls in presidential elections during the era, the maintenance of political machinery and repaying favors with patronage was important to all presidents, regardless of political party affiliation. This had been the case since the advent of a ii-political party political system and universal male suffrage in the Jacksonian era. For example, upon assuming function in March 1829, President Jackson immediately swept employees from over nine hundred political offices, amounting to 10 percent of all federal appointments. Among the hardest-hit was the U.Southward. Postal service, which saw Jackson engage his supporters and closest friends to over four hundred positions in the service.
At the same fourth dimension, a movement emerged in support of reforming the practice of political appointments. As early equally 1872, ceremonious service reformers gathered to create the Liberal Republican Party in an endeavour to unseat incumbent President Grant. Led past several midwestern Republican leaders and paper editors, this party provided the impetus for other reform-minded Republicans to intermission gratuitous from the party and actually join the Democratic Party ranks. With newspaper editor Horace Greeley as their candidate, the political party called for a "thorough reform of the civil service as i the most pressing necessities" facing the nation. Although easily defeated in the election that followed, the work of the Liberal Republican Party set the stage for an even stronger push for patronage reform.
Clearly owing favors to his Republican handlers for his surprise compromise victory by the slimmest of margins in 1876, President Hayes was sick-prepared to heed those cries for reform, despite his own stated preference for a new civil service system. In fact, he achieved little during his iv years in office other than granting favors, as dictated by Republic Political party handlers. Two powerful Republican leaders attempted to control the president. The first was Roscoe Conkling, Republican senator from New York and leader of the Stalwarts, a group that strongly supported continuation of the current spoils system. Long supporting former President Grant, Conkling had no sympathy for some of Hayes' early appeals for civil service reform. The other was James G. Blaine, Republican senator from Maine and leader of the Half-Breeds. The One-half-Breeds, who received their derogatory nickname from Stalwart supporters who considered Blaine's group to be simply "half-Republican," advocated for some measure out of civil service reform.
With his efforts towards ensuring African American civil rights stymied past a Democratic Congress, and his decision to halt the coinage of silvery simply adding to the pressures of the economic Panic of 1873, Hayes failed to attain any meaning legislation during his presidency. However, he did make a few overtures towards civil service reform. First, he adopted a new patronage dominion, which held that a person appointed to an part could exist dismissed only in the interest of efficient government performance but not for overtly political reasons. Second, he declared that party leaders could accept no official say in political appointments, although Conkling sought to continue his influence. Finally, he decided that regime appointees were ineligible to manage campaign elections. Although non sweeping reforms, these were steps in a civil service management.
Hayes' first target in his meager reform endeavor was to remove Chester A. Arthur, a potent Conkling man, from his mail service as head of the New York City Customs House. Arthur had been notorious for using his post equally customs collector to gain political favors for Conkling. When Hayes forcibly removed him from the position, even Half-Breeds questioned the wisdom of the motility and began to altitude themselves from Hayes. The loss of his meager public support due to the Compromise of 1877 and the declining Congressional faction together sealed Hayes fate and made his reelection impossible.(2)
An Assassinator's Bullet Sets the Stage for Civil Service Reform
In the wake of President Hayes' failure, Republicans began to boxing over a successor for the 1880 presidential election. Initially, Stalwarts favored Grant'due south return to the White Business firm, while Half-Breeds promoted their leader, James Blaine. Following an expected convention deadlock, both factions agreed to a compromise presidential candidate, Senator James A. Garfield of Ohio, with Chester Arthur equally his vice-presidential running mate. The Democratic Party turned to Winfield Scott Hancock, a onetime Union commander who was a hero of the Battle of Gettysburg, equally their candidate.
Garfield won a narrow victory over Hancock past forty thou votes, although he even so did non win a bulk of the pop vote. Just less than four months into his presidency, events pushed ceremonious service reform on the fast track. On July 2, 1881, Charles Guiteau shot and killed Garfield (Figure), allegedly uttering at the fourth dimension, "I am a Stalwart of Stalwarts!" Guiteau himself had wanted to be rewarded for his political support—he had written a speech for the Garfield campaign—with an ambassadorship to France. His actions at the time were largely blamed on the spoils organisation, prompting more than urgent cries for alter.
Charles Guiteau was a lawyer and supporter of the Republican Party, although non particularly well known in either surface area. But he gave a few speeches, to modest crowds, in support of the Republican nominee James Garfield, and ultimately deluded himself that his speeches influenced the land enough to cause Garfield's victory. After the election, Guiteau immediately began pressuring the new president, requesting a post as ambassador. When his queries went unanswered, Guiteau, out of coin and angry that his supposed aid had been ignored, planned to kill the president.
He spent meaning time planning his attack and considered weapons every bit diverse as dynamite and a stiletto before deciding on a gun, stating, "I wanted it washed in an American way." He followed the president effectually the Capitol and let several opportunities laissez passer, unwilling to impale Garfield in front of his wife or son. Frustrated with himself, Guiteau recommitted to the program and wrote a letter to the White House, explaining how this act would "unite the Republican Political party and save the Republic."
![An engraving of James A. Garfield's assassination, published in Frank Leslie's Illustrated Newspaper. The caption reads Washington, D.C.—The attack on the President's life—Scene in the ladies' room of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad depot—The arrest of the assassin / from sketches by our special artist's [sic] A. Berghaus and C. Upham. President Garfield is at center right, leaning after being shot. He is supported by Secretary of State James G. Blaine who wears a light colored top hat. To left, assassin Charles Guiteau is restrained by members of the crowd, one of whom is about to strike him with a cane](https://cel.fscj.edu/LUMENS/amh-2020-package/img/fig3-11-1.jpg)
Guiteau shot the president from backside and connected to shoot until law grabbed him and hauled him away. He went to jail, and, the following November subsequently Garfield had died, he stood trial for murder. His poor mental health, which had been evident for some time, led to eccentric courtroom behavior that the newspapers eagerly reported and the public loved. He defended his instance with a verse form that used religious imagery and suggested that God had ordered him to commit the murder. He defended himself in court past proverb, "The doctors killed Garfield, I simply shot him." While this in fact was true, it did not save him. Guiteau was bedevilled and hanged in the summer of 1882.
Surprising both his party and the Democrats when he assumed the office of president, Chester Arthur immediately distanced himself from the Stalwarts. Although previously a loyal party man, Arthur understood that he owed his current position to no detail faction or favor. He was in the unique position to usher in a wave a civil service reform unlike any other political candidate, and he chose to do just that. In 1883, he signed into law the Pendleton Civil Service Act, the first significant slice of anti-patronage legislation. This law created the Civil Service Commission, which listed all government patronage jobs and then set aside approximately 10 percent of the list as appointments to be determined through a competitive civil service examination process. Furthermore, to forbid future presidents from undoing this reform, the constabulary declared that hereafter presidents could enlarge the list but could never shrink it by moving a civil service job back into the patronage column.(2)
Tariffs in the Aureate Age
In add-on to civil service, President Arthur as well carried the reformist spirit into the realm of tariffs, or taxes on international imports to the United states. Tariffs had long been a controversial topic in the The states, especially as the nineteenth century came to a close. Legislators appeared to be angle to the volition of big businessmen who desired higher tariffs in order to force Americans to buy their domestically produced goods rather than higher-priced imports. Lower tariffs, on the other hand, would reduce prices and lower the average American's cost of living, and were therefore favored by many working-form families and farmers, to the extent that any of them fully understood such economical forces beyond the prices they paid at stores. Out of growing concern for the latter group, Arthur created the U.S. Tariff Commission in 1882 to investigate the propriety of increasingly loftier tariffs. Despite his concern, forth with the commission's recommendation for a 25 percent rollback in most tariffs, the most Arthur could attain was the "Mongrel Tariff" of 1883, which lowered tariff rates by barely 5 pct.
Such assuming attempts at reform further convinced Republican Political party leaders, equally the 1884 election approached, that Arthur was not their all-time option to keep in the White Firm. Arthur speedily found himself a man without a party. Equally the 1884 ballot neared, the Republican Political party again searched their ranks for a candidate who could restore some semblance of the spoils system while maintaining a reformist image. Unable to notice such a homo, the predominant One-half-Breeds over again turned to their ain leader, Senator Blaine. Even so, when news of his many personal corrupt bargains began to surface, a significant portion of the party chose to break from the traditional Stalwarts-versus-Half-Breeds argue and grade their own faction, the Mugwumps, a name taken from the Algonquin phrase for "great chief."
Anxious to capitalize on the disarray within the Republican Party, besides as to render to the White House for the first fourth dimension in well-nigh thirty years, the Democratic Party chose to court the Mugwump vote by nominating Grover Cleveland, the reform governor from New York who had built a reputation by attacking machine politics in New York City. Despite several personal charges against him for having fathered a child out of spousal relationship, Cleveland managed to hold on for a shut victory with a margin of less than thirty thousand votes.
Cleveland'due south record on civil service reform added little to the initial blows struck past President Arthur. Afterwards electing the outset Democratic president since 1856, the Democrats could actually brand great utilize of the spoils system. Cleveland was, nonetheless, a notable reform president in terms of business regulation and tariffs. When the U.S. Supreme Courtroom ruled in 1886 that individual states could not regulate interstate transportation, Cleveland urged Congress to pass the Interstate Commerce Act of 1887. Amidst several other powers, this law created the Interstate Commerce Committee (ICC) to oversee railroad prices and ensure that they remained reasonable to all customers.
This was an important shift. In the past, railroads had granted special rebates to big businesses, such every bit John D. Rockefeller's Standard Oil, while charging small farmers with little economic muscle exorbitant rates. Although the deed eventually provided for real regulation of the railroad industry, initial progress was slow due to the lack of enforcement ability held by the ICC. Despite its early efforts to regulate railroad rates, the U.S. Supreme Court undermined the commission in Interstate Commerce Commission 5. Cincinnati, New Orleans, and Texas Pacific Railway Cos. in 1897. Rate regulations were limits on profits that, in the opinion of a majority of the justices, violated the Fourteenth Subpoena protection against depriving persons of their holding without due process of the law.
Equally for tariff reform, Cleveland agreed with Arthur's position that tariffs remained far too loftier and were clearly designed to protect big domestic industries at the expense of boilerplate consumers who could benefit from international contest. While the general public applauded Cleveland'southward efforts at both civil service and tariff reform, influential businessmen and industrialists remained adamant that the next president must restore the protective tariffs at all costs.
To counter the Democrats' re-nomination of Cleveland, the Republican Party turned to Benjamin Harrison, grandson of erstwhile president William Henry Harrison. Although Cleveland narrowly won the overall popular vote, Harrison rode the influential coattails of several businessmen and party bosses to win the key electoral states of New York and New Jersey, where political party officials stressed Harrison'south back up for a college tariff, and thus secure the White Business firm. Not surprisingly, after Harrison's victory, the United States witnessed a brief render to higher tariffs and a strengthening of the spoils system. In fact, the McKinley Tariff raised some rates every bit much as fifty percent, which was the highest tariff in American history to date.
Some of Harrison's policies were intended to offer relief to average Americans struggling with high costs and depression wages, simply remained largely ineffective. First, the Sherman Anti-Trust Human action of 1890 sought to prohibit business monopolies as "conspiracies in restraint of merchandise," but it was seldom enforced during the first decade of its being. Second, the Sherman Argent Buy Act of the same yr required the U.S. Treasury to mint over four meg ounces of argent into coins each calendar month to circulate more cash into the economic system, heighten prices for farm goods, and help farmers pay their way out of debt. Just the measure could not undo the previous "hard money" policies that had deflated prices and pulled farmers into well-entrenched cycles of debt. Other measures proposed by Harrison intended to support African Americans, including a Strength Bill to protect voters in the Southward, besides as an Teaching Nib designed to support public instruction and improve literacy rates amid African Americans, as well met with defeat.(two)
Budgetary Policies and the Issue of Golden vs Silver
Although political corruption, the spoils organization, and the question of tariff rates were popular discussions of the day, none were more relevant to working-class Americans and farmers than the result of the nation'south monetary policy and the ongoing debate of gilded versus silvery. There had been frequent attempts to establish a bimetallic standard, which in turn would have created inflationary pressures and placed more than coin into circulation that could have subsequently benefitted farmers. But the authorities remained committed to the gilded standard, including the official demonetizing of silver altogether in 1873. Such a stance greatly benefitted prominent businessmen engaged in strange merchandise while forcing more farmers and working-grade Americans into greater debt.
As farmers and working-class Americans sought the means by which to pay their bills and other living expenses, especially in the wake of increased tariffs every bit the century came to a close, many saw adherence to a strict gold standard as their well-nigh pressing problem. With limited gold reserves, the coin supply remained constrained. At a minimum, a return to a bimetallic policy that would include the production of argent dollars would provide some relief. However, the aforementioned Sherman Silver Purchase Act was largely ineffective to combat the growing debts that many Americans faced. Nether the law, the federal government purchased four.v one thousand thousand ounces of argent on a monthly footing in order to mint silver dollars. However, many investors exchanged the bank notes with which the government purchased the silver for gold, thus severely depleting the nation'southward gold reserve. Fearing the latter, President Grover Cleveland signed the human action's repeal in 1893. This lack of meaningful monetary measures from the federal authorities would lead one group in particular who required such assistance—American farmers—to attempt to have control over the political process itself.(2)
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Farmers Revolt in the Populist Era
The challenges that many American farmers faced in the last quarter of the nineteenth century were pregnant. They contended with economical hardships born out of rapidly failing farm prices, prohibitively loftier tariffs on items they needed to purchase, and strange competition. One of the largest challenges they faced was overproduction, where the glut of their products in the market drove the price lower and lower.
Overproduction of crops occurred in part due to the westward expansion of homestead farms and in part considering industrialization led to new farm tools that dramatically increased crop yields. As farmers fell deeper into debt, whether it exist to the local stores where they bought supplies or to the railroads that shipped their produce, their response was to increase crop production each year in the hope of earning more coin with which to pay back their debt. The more than they produced, the lower prices dropped. To a hard-working farmer, the notion that their own overproduction was the greatest contributing factor to their debt was a completely foreign concept.
In addition to the cycle of overproduction, tariffs were a serious trouble for farmers. Rising tariffs on industrial products fabricated purchased items more expensive, all the same tariffs were not being used to keep farm prices artificially high as well. Therefore, farmers were paying inflated prices but not receiving them. Finally, the issue of gilded versus silver as the basis of U.Southward. currency was a very real trouble to many farmers. Farmers needed more money in circulation, whether it was newspaper or silverish, in order to create inflationary pressure level. Inflationary pressure would allow farm prices to increase, thus allowing them to earn more than coin that they could then spend on the higher-priced goods in stores. However, in 1878, federal law set the corporeality of paper money in circulation, and, as mentioned in a higher place, Harrison'southward Sherman Argent Act, intended to increase the amount of silver coinage, was too small-scale to practice whatsoever real good, specially in lite of the unintended event of depleting the nation's gilt reserve. In short, farmers had a big stack of bills and wanted a big stack of money—exist it paper or argent—to pay them. Neither was forthcoming from a regime that cared more almost issues of patronage and how to stay in the White House for more than than four years at a time.(2)
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Farmers Brainstorm to Organize
The initial response by increasingly frustrated and angry farmers was to organize into groups that were similar to early labor unions. Taking note of how the industrial labor movement had unfolded in the last quarter of the century, farmers began to sympathize that a commonage phonation could create pregnant pressure among political leaders and produce noun change. While farmers had their ain challenges, including that of geography and various needs among different types of famers, they believed this model to be useful to their cause.
Ane of the commencement efforts to organize farmers came in 1867 with Oliver Hudson Kelly'due south cosmos of the Patrons of Husbandry, more popularly known as the Grange. In the wake of the Civil State of war, the Grangers chop-chop grew to over 1.5 meg members in less than a decade. Kelly believed that farmers could all-time help themselves past creating farmers' cooperatives in which they could puddle resources and obtain better shipping rates, also as prices on seeds, fertilizer, mechanism, and other necessary inputs. These cooperatives, he believed, would let them self-regulate production too as collectively obtain ameliorate rates from railroad companies and other businesses.
The Farmers' Brotherhood, a conglomeration of three regional alliances formed in the mid-1880s, took root in the wake of the Grange motility. In 1890, Dr. Charles Macune, who led the Southern Alliance, which was based in Texas and had over 100,000 members past 1886, urged the cosmos of a national alliance betwixt his organization, the Northwest Alliance, and the Colored Alliance, the largest African American organization in the United States.
Led by Tom Watson, the Colored Alliance, which was founded in Texas simply quickly spread throughout the Old South, counted over one 1000000 members. Although they originally advocated for cocky-help, African Americans in the group before long understood the benefits of political system and a unified voice to improve their plight, regardless of race. While racism kept the brotherhood splintered among the 3 component branches, they however managed to craft a national agenda that appealed to their big membership. All told, the Farmers' Alliance brought together over 2.v million members, 1.v million white and 1 million black.
The alliance move, and the subsequent political political party that emerged from information technology, also featured prominent roles for women. Nearly 250,000 women joined the move due to their shared interest in the farmers' worsening situation every bit well equally the promise of being a total partner with political rights inside the group, which they saw as an of import step towards advocacy for women's suffrage on a national level. The ability to vote and stand for function within the organisation encouraged many women who sought similar rights on the larger American political scene. Prominent alliance spokeswoman, Mary Elizabeth Charter of Kansas, often spoke of membership in the Farmers' Brotherhood every bit an opportunity to "raise less corn and more hell!"
The brotherhood movement had several goals like to those of the original Grange, including greater regulation of railroad prices and the creation of an inflationary national monetary policy. Nevertheless, nearly creative amidst the solutions promoted by the Farmers' Alliance was the call for a subtreasury plan. Under this plan, the federal regime would store farmers' crops in authorities warehouses for a brief menstruum of time, during which the government would provide loans to farmers worth 80 percent of the current ingather prices. Thus, farmers would take immediate cash on mitt with which to settle debts and buy goods, while their crops sat in warehouses and farm prices increased due to this control over supply at the market. When market prices rose sufficiently high enough, the farmer could withdraw his crops, sell at the higher cost, repay the government loan, and even so have profit remaining.
Economists of the solar day thought the plan had some merit; in fact, a greatly altered version would subsequently be adopted during the Neat Depression of the 1930s, in the form of the Agricultural Adjustment Human activity. Nonetheless, the federal government never seriously considered the plan, as congressmen questioned the propriety of the government serving as a rural creditor making loans to farmers with no balls that production controls would result in college article prices. The government's refusal to deed on the proposal left many farmers wondering what information technology would take to find solutions to their growing indebtedness.(ii)
From Arrangement to Political party
Angry at the federal government's continued unwillingness to substantively accost the plight of the boilerplate farmer, Charles Macune and the Farmers' Alliance chose to create a political party whose representatives—if elected—could enact real change. Put simply, if the government would not address the problem, then it was time to change those elected to power.
In 1891, the brotherhood formed the Populist Party, or People's Party, as it was more widely known. Kickoff with nonpresidential-yr elections, the Populist Political party had modest success, particularly in Kansas, Nebraska, and the Dakotas, where they succeeded in electing several state legislators, i governor, and a handful of congressmen. As the 1892 presidential election approached, the Populists chose to model themselves afterwards the Democratic and Republican Parties in the hope that they could shock the land with a "third-party" victory.
At their national convention that summertime in Omaha, Nebraska, they wrote the Omaha Platform to more than fully explain to all Americans the goals of the new party. Written by Ignatius Donnelly, the platform statement vilified railroad owners, bankers, and big businessmen every bit all being part of a widespread conspiracy to control farmers. As for policy changes, the platform called for adoption of the subtreasury plan, government command over railroads, an end to the national bank organisation, the creation of a federal income tax, the direct election of U.S. senators, and several other measures, all of which aimed at a more proactive federal regime that would support the economic and social welfare of all Americans. At the close of the convention, the political party nominated James B. Weaver equally its presidential candidate.
In a rematch of the 1888 election, the Democrats again nominated Grover Cleveland, while Republicans went with Benjamin Harrison. Despite the presence of a third-party challenger, Cleveland won another close popular vote to become the first U.S. president to exist elected to nonconsecutive terms. Although he finished a distant third, Populist candidate Weaver polled a respectable i million votes. Rather than being disappointed, several Populists applauded their showing—especially for a tertiary party with barely two years of national political feel under its chugalug. They anxiously awaited the 1896 election, assertive that if the balance of the state, in particular industrial workers, experienced hardships similar to those that farmers already faced, a powerful alliance among the two groups could carry the Populists to victory.(2)
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Social and Labor Unrest in the 1890s
Insofar as farmers wanted the remainder of the country to share their plight, they got their wish. Soon later Cleveland'southward election, the nation catapulted into the worst economic depression in its history to appointment. As the authorities continued to fail in its efforts to address the growing problems, more than and more Americans sought relief outside of the traditional ii-political party system. To many industrial workers, the Populist Party began to seem like a feasible solution.(2)
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From Farmers' Hardships to a National Depression
The tardily 1880s and early 1890s saw the American economy slide precipitously. As mentioned to a higher place, farmers were already struggling with economical woes, and the residuum of the state followed speedily. Following a brief rebound from the speculation-induced Panic of 1873, in which depository financial institution investments in railroad bonds spread the nation's financial resources too thin—a rebound due in large part to the protective tariffs of the 1880s—a greater economic catastrophe hit the nation, as the decade of the 1890s began to unfold.
The causes of the Low of 1893 were manifold, merely ane major element was the speculation in railroads over the previous decades. The rapid proliferation of railroad lines created a false impression of growth for the economy as a whole. Banks and investors fed the growth of the railroads with fast-paced investment in industry and related businesses, not realizing that the growth they were following was built on a bubble. When the railroads began to fail due to expenses outpacing returns on their construction, the supporting businesses, from banks to steel mills, failed also.
Beginning with the closure of the Philadelphia & Reading Railroad Company in 1893, several railroads ceased their operations as a result of investors cashing in their bonds, thus creating a ripple effect throughout the economic system. In a single year, from 1893 to 1894, unemployment estimates increased from 3 percent to nearly 19 percent of all working-class Americans. In some states, the unemployment rate soared even higher: over 35 per centum in New York State and 43 percent in Michigan. At the height of this low, over three meg American workers were unemployed. Past 1895, Americans living in cities grew accustomed to seeing the homeless on the streets or lining upward at soup kitchens.
Immediately following the economic downturn, people sought relief through their elected federal government. Only as apace, they learned what farmers had been taught in the preceding decades: A weak, inefficient government interested solely in patronage and the spoils system in order to maintain its power was in no position to help the American people face this challenge. The federal authorities had piffling in place to support those looking for work or to provide direct aid to those in need. Of class, to be fair, the government had seldom faced these questions earlier. Americans had to look elsewhere.
A notable case of the authorities'south failure to human activity was the story of Coxey's Ground forces. In the spring of 1894, businessman Jacob Coxey led a march of unemployed Ohioans from Cincinnati to Washington, DC, where leaders of the grouping urged Congress to pass public works legislation for the federal government to hire unemployed workers to build roads and other public projects. From the original one hundred protesters, the march grew five hundred potent as others joined along the route to the nation'south uppercase. Upon their arrival, not just were their cries for federal relief ignored, but Coxey and several other marchers were arrested for trespassing on the grass exterior the U.S. Capitol. Frustration over the event led many aroused works to consider supporting the Populist Party in subsequent elections.
Several strikes also punctuated the growing low, including a number of violent uprisings in the coal regions of Ohio and Pennsylvania. Merely the infamous Pullman Strike of 1894 was nigh notable for its nationwide impact, as information technology all but shut downward the nation's railroad organisation in the middle of the depression. The strike began immediately on the heels of the Coxey'southward Ground forces march when, in the summertime of 1894, company owner George Pullman fired over two 1000 employees at Pullman Co.—which made railroad cars, such as Pullman sleeper cars—and reduced the wages of the remaining three yard workers. Since the factory operated in the company town of Pullman, Illinois, where workers rented homes from George Pullman and shopped at the company store endemic by him equally well, unemployment also meant eviction. Facing such harsh treatment, all of the Pullman workers went on strike to protestation the decisions. Eugene V. Debs, head of the American Railway Wedlock, led the strike.
In guild to bring the plight of Pullman, Illinois, to Americans all around the country, Debs adopted the strike strategy of ordering all American Railroad Wedlock members to reject to handle any railroad train that had Pullman cars on it. Since virtually every train in the United states operated with Pullman cars, the strike truly brought the transportation industry to its knees. Fearful of his ability to cease the economic low with such a vital piece of the economic system at a standstill, President Cleveland turned to his attorney general for the reply. The attorney general proposed a solution: use federal troops to operate the trains nether the pretense of protecting the delivery of the U.Southward. mail service that was typically institute on all trains. When Debs and the American Railway Union refused to obey the court injunction prohibiting interference with the mail, the troops began operating the trains, and the strike quickly ended. Debs himself was arrested, tried, convicted, and sentenced to six months in prison house for disobeying the court injunction. The American Railway Union was destroyed, leaving workers fifty-fifty less empowered than before, and Debs was in prison house, contemplating alternatives to a backer-based national economic system. The Depression of 1893 left the country limping towards the side by side presidential election with few solutions in sight.(2)
The Election of 1896
As the last presidential election of the nineteenth century unfolded, all signs pointed to a possible Populist victory. Non merely had the ongoing economic depression convinced many Americans—farmers and factory workers alike—of the inability of either major political party to address the situation, but also the Populist Party, since the terminal election, benefited from iv more years of experience and numerous local victories. As they prepared for their convention in St. Louis that summertime, the Populists watched with keen interest equally the Republicans and Democrats hosted their own conventions.
The Republicans remained steadfast in their defence of a gilt-based standard for the American economy, too every bit high protective tariffs. They turned to William McKinley, former congressman and current governor of Ohio, as their candidate. At their convention, the Democrats turned to William Jennings Bryan—a congressman from Nebraska. Bryan defended the importance of a silver-based monetary system and urged the authorities to coin more silver. Furthermore, existence from farm country, he was very familiar with the farmers' plight and saw some merit in the subtreasury system proposal. In short, Bryan could have been the platonic Populist candidate, merely the Democrats got to him outset.
The Populist Party subsequently endorsed Bryan as well, with their party'southward nomination three weeks later.
As the Populist convention unfolded, the delegates had an important determination to make: either locate some other candidate, even though Bryan would take been an excellent choice, or join the Democrats and support Bryan equally the best candidate but risk losing their identity as a third political party as a outcome. The Populist Party chose the latter and endorsed Bryan'south candidacy. However, they also nominated their own vice-presidential candidate, Georgia Senator Tom Watson, as opposed to the Democratic nominee, Arthur Sewall, presumably in an attempt to maintain some semblance of a split identity.
The race was a heated one, with McKinley running a typical nineteenth-century fashion "front end porch" campaign, during which he consort the long-held Republican Political party principles to visitors who would phone call on him at his Ohio home. Bryan, to the contrary, delivered speeches all throughout the country, bringing his message to the people that Republicans "shall not excruciate mankind on a cross of gilt."(2)
William Jennings Bryan and the "Cross Of Gilded"
William Jennings Bryan was a political leader and speechmaker in the late nineteenth century, and he was particularly well known for his impassioned statement that the land move to a bimetal or silvery standard. He received the Democratic presidential nomination in 1896, and, at the nominating convention, he gave his most famous speech. He sought to fence against Republicans who stated that the gold standard was the only fashion to ensure stability and prosperity for American businesses. In the speech he said:
Nosotros say to you that you have made the definition of a business organization human being besides express in its application. The human being who is employed for wages is as much a business human being as his employer; the attorney in a country town is as much a business man as the corporation counsel in a great metropolis; the merchant at the cantankerous-roads shop is as much a business man equally the merchant of New York; the farmer who goes forth in the forenoon and toils all day, who begins in bound and toils all summertime, and who past the awarding of brain and musculus to the natural resources of the country creates wealth, is as much a concern man as the man who goes upon the Board of Trade and bets upon the cost of grain; … We come to speak of this broader class of business men.
This defence force of working Americans as disquisitional to the prosperity of the country resonated with his listeners, as did his passionate ending when he stated, "Having behind united states of america the producing masses of this nation and the world, supported by the commercial interests, the laboring interests, and the toilers everywhere, nosotros will answer their demand for a gold standard by proverb to them: 'You shall not press downwardly upon the brow of labor this crown of thorns; you shall not excruciate mankind upon a cantankerous of gilded.'"
The speech was an enormous success and played a function in convincing the Populist Party that he was the candidate for them.
The result was a shut election that finally saw a U.South. president win a majority of the pop vote for the first fourth dimension in twenty-iv years. McKinley defeated Bryan by a popular vote of 7.1 million to vi.5 1000000. Bryan'south showing was impressive past whatsoever standard, as his popular vote total exceeded that of any other presidential candidate in American history to that engagement—winner or loser. He polled nigh i one thousand thousand more votes than did the previous Democratic victor, Grover Cleveland; withal, his campaign too served to split the Democratic vote, as some party members remained convinced of the propriety of the gold standard and supported McKinley in the election.
Amidst a growing national depression where Americans truly recognized the importance of a strong leader with audio economic policies, McKinley garnered almost ii million more votes than his Republican predecessor Benjamin Harrison. Put but, the American electorate was energized to elect a strong candidate who could adequately address the state's economic woes. Voter turnout was the largest in American history to that date; while both candidates benefitted, McKinley did more so than Bryan.
In the aftermath, information technology is easy to say that it was Bryan's defeat that all just ended the rise of the Populist Party. Populists had thrown their back up to the Democrats who shared similar ideas for the economical rebound of the country and lost. In choosing principle over distinct party identity, the Populists aligned themselves to the growing two-party American political system and would have difficulty maintaining political party autonomy subsequently. Time to come efforts to establish a separate party identity would be met with ridicule past critics who would say that Populists were merely "Democrats in sheep'southward clothing."
But other factors also contributed to the decline of Populism at the close of the century. Offset, the discovery of vast aureate deposits in Alaska during the Klondike Gold Rush of 1896–1899 (likewise known as the "Yukon Gold Rush") shored up the nation'southward weakening economy and fabricated it possible to thrive on a gold standard. 2nd, the impending Spanish-American State of war, which began in 1898, further fueled the economy and increased need for American farm products. Still, the Populist spirit remained, although it lost some momentum at the close of the nineteenth century. As will be seen in a subsequent chapter, the reformist zeal took on new forms as the twentieth century unfolded.(2)
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