Chapter 5

Part 4

Review Farmers’ Problems

• Railroad Rates: discrimination

• Falling farm prices

• Falling land values

• High Interest rates from Eastern Banks

• Tariff

• No government representation

• Needed inflation

1873 The Greenback Party

• Farmers needed inflation to get out of debt and get higher prices for their crops

• BUT Greenbacks issued during the Civil War (whose value ws not pegged to the value of gold) were replaced with gold certificates…so no inflation

1878 Bland-Allison Act

• Forced the government to purchase 2 to 4 million dollars worth of silver each month

• Was not enough to help inflate the economy

• Creditors did not want inflation

Railroad Rates

• Farmers NEEDED to use RRs to get their goods to market

• Fewer RRs in the West and South so these RRs charged high prices to hall agricultural goods to make up for their losses in the East

• Rate Discrimination

The Grange and Farm Alliances

• The Grange was founded by Oliver Kelly

• He was concerned about the isolation of the American farmer

• Was a social organization at first

• But as farmers gathered, they decided to work together to improve their conditions

Women in the Grange

• Women WERE real partners in the family on the Plains

• They were respected and active in the Grange…Often gave speeches

Mary Elizabeth Lease

• “Farmers ought to raise less corn and more hell!”

Alliances

• Worked much like the Grange but at a local level

• Farm Cooperatives

• The Wheel, the Southern Alliance

• Black farmers not welcome. Formed their own alliances: The Colored Farmers National Alliance

1890 The Ocala Demands

• Representatives of the Grange and Farmers Alliances met together at Ocala Florida and came up with a list of demands

• The Ocala Demands became the Populist Party Platform

The Ocala Demands

• Railroad Regulation

• Curb the power of monopolies

• A lower Tariff

• Direct Election of Senators

• Income Tax

• Inflation through Free Silver

• An 8-hour Day (why?)

The Economy

• Panic of 1873 and depression• Panic of 1893 and Depression• Gold Drain• Cleveland and J.P. Morgan

• From the Civil War to the election of 1892 the main issue was the Tariff.

• Reps liked high, Dems wanted low

Cleveland was a Democrat

• And the whole country hated him!

• Deal with J.P. Morgan

• “Vacation” on the Presidential yacht

• Coxey’s Rebellion

• Democrats needed a new cause

Democrats

• Stole the inflation issue from the Populists

• The Problem…should the Populists join with the Democrats and abandon their party and other issues?

• Or should the Populists hang together and lose the election for sure?

The Populists joined the Democrats

• William Jennings Bryan (Democrat) a great speaker

• The Cross of Gold Speech (metaphor)

The Cross of Gold Speech

• “…you shall not press down upon the brow of labor this crown of thorns. You shall not crucify mankind upon a cross of gold.”

The Election of 1896

• McKinley (Republican)• Bryan (Democrat)• John Bell (Gp;d Democrats)

• The Democrats split!• McKinley won!• The U.S. Went on the gold standard!• The Poor farmers!

The Wizard of Oz

• Frank Baum

• An allegory

• The Wizzard, Cowardly lion, Scarecrow, wicked witch of the East, the West, the yellow brick road, Emerald City, Dorothy’s shoes, those weird flying monkeys, the munchkins

The Writers• The Turner Thesis F. J. Turner• A Century of Dishonor H.H. Jackson

• Mark Twain…Roughing It, Tom Sawyer, etc

• Willa Cather My Antonia (Prairie Trilogy)• Bret Harte The Outcasts of Poker Flat• Wister The Virginian