Farmers In The Late Nineteenth Century Essay

During the late nineteenth century, the United States’ large farmer population was growing increasingly discontent with the state and political affairs. Deflation, debts, mortgage foreclosure of farms, high tariffs, and unfair railroad rates contributed to the farmers’ desire for political reform. As a result of all of the agricultural depression, many farm groups, mostly the Populist Party, arose to fight what farmers saw as the reason for the decline of agriculture. While some of the farmers’ problems did result from overproduction, it was decreased production of silver, discriminatory railroad rates, monopolies, the big boys of business, and the limited political power of farmers which caused most of their problems. Therefore the farmers

were valid in their complaints that their way of life was being threatened.

Before 1870 the global economy was performing very deficiently because of the widespread crop failures in other countries. American farmers took advantage of this and began growing extremely large quantities of wheat, which they could sell for high profit. Nevertheless, by 1890 the global economy had rebounded causing wheat prices in the global market to plummet. Similar to the “King Cotton” economy of the Civil War South, the nineteenth century Midwest economy was also a “single crop” and thus prone to the effects of global market swing. The sudden increase of wheat available in the world market caused a deflationary effect in the Midwest. Farmers were suffering from crop failures, falling prices, and poor marketing and because of this the Populist Party was formed. The Populist movement was a revolt by farmers in the 1892, in the South and Midwest, against the Democratic and Republican parties for ignoring their interests and difficulties. The Populist party favored bimetallism because expanding the money supply would create inflation, making it easier for farmers to pay their debts. In The Platform of the People’s (Populist) party in 1892, the document states, “Silver, which has

been accepted as coin since the dawn of history, has been demonetized to add to the purchasing power of gold by decreasing the value of all forms of property as well as human labor, and the supply of currency is purposely abridged to fatten usurers, bankrupt enterprise, and enslave industry.” (doc A) The Populist party demanded the free coinage of silver because they wanted a more flexible money supply that they hoped would to a more stable economy. On the other hand farmers opposed the gold standard because of the deflation it caused that would decrease their income and economy. Some people like, William McKinley, agreed with the gold standard. In William McKinley's acceptance speech in Canton, Ohio on August 26, 1896 he states, “Free silver would not mean that silver dollars were to be freely had without cost or labor…. It would not make labor easier, the hours shorter, or the pay better. It would not make farming less laborious or more profitable….” (doc B) William McKinley thought that silver would just harm the farmers and would not help them. “No one suffers so much from cheap money as the farmers and laborers. They are the first to feel its bad effects and the last to recover from them….” (doc B) McKinley believed that the gold standard was the only standard for redeeming paper money and stopping bimetallism. The Sherman Silver Purchase Act of 1890 required government to buy 4.5 million ounces of silver a month. People realized that silver was still worthless and that debtors, like the farmers, debt kept rising. In 1893, President Grover Cleveland oversaw the repeal of the Silver Purchase Act to prevent the depletion of the government's gold reserves. Not all farmers were debtors though and the prices of various goods and services rise at different rates throughout the years because of this. In the graph of the United States Population and Money in Circulation in 1865 through 1895 the population rose faster than the money supply and because of this deflation occurred. In 1878 the Bland Allison Act was put into place requiring the United States Treasury to buy a certain amount of silver and put it into circulation as silver dollars. There was a little inflationary effect and the commercial price of silver continued to decline. In 1865 to 1870 the graph shows the population increasing by 4,204 and the money supply decreasing by $308,575. (doc C) After that, the population continued to increase significantly, but the money in circulation only increased a little. The thought of the bimetallic standard did nothing to help farmers. The many changes in currency did nothing to help their financial situation, keeping the farmers in their well justified, angry state of mind.
Government corruption also contributed greatly to the farmers’ discontent.

From the farmer's perspective the government was doing anything and everything in their power to injure the Midwest and thus the farmers. Railroad companies charged excessively high rates, that farmers had no other choice but to pay in order to get their crops to market. To the farmers it was the government's duty to protect the general public, even at the cost of corporations or private companies. James B. Weaver, the Populist party’s presidential candidate in the 1892 election, summed up the feelings of the American farmers in the A Call to Action: An Interpretation of the Great Uprising. (Doc F) The document states, “They limit the price of the raw material so as to impoverish the producer, drive him to a single market, reduce the price of every class of labor connected with the trade throw out of the employment large numbers of persons who had before been engaged in a meritorious calling….” Essentially Weaver was saying that they lowered the prices of materials to put the farmers into an even bigger debt and throw them out of employment. Farmers not only agreed that monopolies were present, but they also brought up that there was corruption all throughout the government. In the Platform of the People’s Party in 1892 (Doc A), the Populists stated, “Corruption dominates the ballot-box, the legislatures, the Congress, and even touches the ermine of the bench.” Government corruption was so bad that

it took over any chance the farmers had of changing their situation. “ If not met and overthrown at once it forebodes terrible convulsions, the destruction of civilization, or the establishment of an absolute despotism.” The Sherman Antitrust Act was passed in 1890, prohibiting any contract trust, or conspiracy in restraint of interstate or foreign trade. This was put in place to somewhat stop the monopolies, but they still occurred. James B. Weaver’s document, A Call to Action, and the passage of the Sherman Antitrust Act helped prove the farmers discontent that they were feeling about corruption in government. In J. Laurence Laughlins document, “Causes of Agricultural Unrest” in the Atlantic Monthly in November of 1896, he says, “ Feeling the coils of some mysterious power about them, the farmers, in all honesty, have attributed their misfortunes to the “constriction” in prices, caused, as they think, not by an increased production of what throughout the world, but by the ‘scarcity of gold.’” The real battle was not between gold and silver but what would be done about deflation. The government had a power over the farmers that stopped them from move further in the economy. Corruption in government and high protective tariffs put on farmers gave them even more fuel to the fire of their discontent.