The Populist Party of middle America

[eg101]

Some excerpts from a long essay about the leftist Populist party from about 100 years ago:

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By 1896, the equilibrium that characterized Gilded Age politics had dissolved into a fluid three-way struggle for survival. The People's party had become a major contender for power throughout the South and West. In turn, the Democratic party had collapsed in the West. Its gubernatorial candidate in Kansas carried less than ten percent of the vote in 1894. In the South, the GOP shared the same fate, garnering only thirteen percent of the vote for governor of Texas the same year. Which of the three contenders would survive the 1890s was uncertain. Angry voters had flocked to the new party which claimed to address the common people's real problems, while the old parties engaged in ritual battles over safe but ultimately meaningless issues.

Populists were hardly the rabble that mainstream party spokesmen claimed. Most were rural middle-class property owners with a moralistic bent to their politics. They claimed to represent the America of the Founding Fathers as it had been refined through the democracy of Jefferson, Jackson, and Lincoln. It was the old parties, they claimed, that had adopted the alien ideologies that were subverting the promise of America, namely laissez-faire capitalism, social Darwinism, and the gospel of wealth. The Populist Revolt was a major challenge to Gilded Age America's socioeconomic elite precisely because it was a thoroughly American response to the dislocations that Gilded Age development had thrust upon voters, particularly in the South and West.

Rapid economic growth brought forth a revolutionary new America during the late nineteenth century. Industry expanded as never before. Railroad mileage grew five-fold between 1860 and 1890, making commercial agriculture possible in the West and upland South. Consequently, Americans brought 430 million new acres of land under cultivation between 1860 and 1900. The machinery that allowed American farmers to become the most efficient producers of the age also became widely available in this era. Agricultural production soared. Despite the material advances, however, almost all historical accounts characterize the Gilded Age as a period in which farming went into decline. Farmers' share of gross domestic product dropped from thirty-eight to twenty-four percent from the 1870s to the 1890s. Millions lost their status as independent farmers and either became tenants or joined the urban working poor. Many attempted to resist proletarianization by joining farm organizations or through political action. Yet by the end of the century, a vocation championed by the nation's greatest public figures as the quintessence of Americanism was rapidly being swept away.<2>

To millions of late nineteenth century Americans, farming was a way of life that was infused with honor and patriotism. They remained loyal to an idealistic set of concepts inherited from the Founding Fathers that modern scholars have labeled republicanism. Creating a republic when all the rest of the world adhered to some form of institutionalized privilege committed the nation to an egalitarian society. The Founding Fathers also believed that history was a never-ending struggle between the forces of power and liberty. They associated the forces of power with oppression and the ascendancy of liberty with social advance. Because wealth brought power to its possessor, and poverty made men dependent upon others, liberty became contingent upon widespread equality. The commitment to both equality and liberty led Americans to develop a freehold concept which held that all men had a natural right to the land. Agricultural pursuits, they believed, encouraged frugality, industriousness, and community spiritedness. Thus, they came to look upon those who had fallen subject to the powerful and wealthy with contempt, and even fear. According to the Revolutionary Fathers only an independent citizenry could defend their liberties, and thus be the bulwark of the Republic.

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http://history.smsu.edu/wrmiller/Populism/texts/farmers_and_third_party_politics.htm

[TheFarseer]

1. I've always been facinated by the populist party

I think I'm more of a populist than anything. I think there is potential for there to be a "regular guy" party. Democrats are not it. Republicans are seen by many people to be it. We all know that couldn't be farther from the truth. Keep in mind though, that somehow in the 1990's the dems and populists teamed up and the republicans still managed to get a majority of people, 18 cent an hour workers, farmers getting screwed over everytime they turned around, and the rest of the downtroddened, to vote in favor of the "guilded age" I will never figure out why people vote against their interests. William Jennings Bryan only won his home state of Nebraska once out of the three(or was it four?) times he ran. The more things change, the more they stay the same.

[cosmicdot]

2. is history repeating itself?

Unfortunately, our citizens don't get enough history through the media available to the masses. This late 19th century/early 20th century history is, not only interesting, but poignant to what's going down today. Faux certainly won't have any history specials to keep our citizenry knowledgeable.

"The Populist Revolt was a major challenge to Gilded Age America's socioeconomic elite."