Today's video is dedicated to Jesse and everyone else in Mr. Steve Lynch's history classes. Story Time with Mr. Pete! What is popular? No, seriously!
What is popular? I really don't know. My name is Mr. Beat. Today, the term populist is thrown around quite a bit. Whether it's someone from the Tea Party, or the Occupy Wall Street movement, or another movement, my modern definition of populist is someone who is a support...
of a movement seeking to represent the interests of ordinary people. But who were the original populists, man? Well, here's the story of the Populist Movement. Once upon a time, in the late 1800s, the United States experienced huge growth and industrialization. Factories began to pop up all over the place, and more and more people were making more money thanks to the increase in the mass production of goods.
This was later called... The Gilded Age A time which caused John D. Rockefeller to eventually become the nation's first billionaire. However, not all Americans benefited from this newfound prosperity. In particular, many farmers across the American South and the Great Plains struggled. Inflation was low due to the country's limited supply of money.
Because of this, farmers suffered because their crops were selling at lower and lower prices, and therefore they weren't making as much money anymore. Not only that, loans for equipment and land had ridiculously high interest rates, somewhere as high as 345%, and farmers could not pay them back. These farmers, who were understandably angry and frustrated, blamed these plutocrats, or people who get their power from becoming rich.
They particularly blamed the bankers who were taking advantage of them and the giant corporations who were hurting competition in the marketplace. In the 1870s, Groups like the Grangers and the Farmers'Alliances called for lower railroad rates. They also argued that corporations and the wealthy should pay more taxes.
These groups, along with the Greenbackers and various labor political parties, began to unite against the mainstream Democratic and Republican parties. By the late 1880s, many of these like-minded groups began to merge. The National Agricultural Wheel, the Southern Farmers'Alliance, and the Knights of Labor, a group called the Greenbackers, credited for further popularizing the 8-hour workday and 40-hour workweek, consolidated to become the Farmers'and Laborers'Union of America.
With the urban labor organizations and rural farmers'organizations now joining forces, the Democratic Party and Republican Party began to have a legitimate threat. Although the People's Party, also called the Populist Party, wasn't officially created until 1891, people across the Midwest and South had already been elected as Populists the year before. Populism was more, uh, popular in Kansas, probably more so than any other place in the country.
The populists there took control of the legislature after 92 of them were elected. Kansas was also home of some of the most famous and earliest adopters of populism. Jerry Simpson, elected in 1890 to the U.S.
House of Representatives, became nationally known as the party's congressional leader. William Pfeffer was the first populist to serve as a U.S. Senator. Another Kansan.
Mary Elizabeth Leis, became nationally famous for her passionate speeches calling for racial and gender equality. She also talked trash about the plutocrats. Quote, Wall Street owns the country.
It is no longer a government of the people, by the people, and for the people, but a government of Wall Street, by Wall Street, and for Wall Street. By 1892, the populist movement had quickly spread across the country. On July 2, 1892, the populists had a national convention in Omaha, Nebraska, to nominate James B. Weaver of Iowa for president and James G. Field of Virginia for vice president.
It also adopted an official party platform. Number one, the free and unlimited coinage of silver to create inflation. Number two, getting rid of the national banking system. Number three, the printing of more cash, with the ability for people to borrow cash more easily. Number four, national ownership of all public communication and transportation.
Number five, a progressive income tax. In other words, the more money you make, the higher percentage of your income is taxed. Number six, the popular election of United States senators. At the time, state legislatures voted them in.
Number seven, more direct democracy on specific acts of legislation. 8. Making it illegal for foreigners to own land in the United States Weaver and Field received 22 electoral votes and a popular vote of 1,055,424, which was promising for the future. However, after 1892's Several factions began to emerge within the populist movement. Some populists supported Republicans.
Some wanted the prohibition of alcohol. Others wanted to focus more on civil rights or getting women the right to vote. Some populists wanted to support Democratic candidates, as many Democrats were beginning to adopt populist causes. In 1896, the populists had their best chance ever to get their guy in office.
They nominated the extremely charismatic and energetic William Jennings Bryan for president. even though he was already nominated by the Democratic Party. However, populists disagreed over who to support as his running mate. Bryan ended up losing the 1896 election.
His push for the free and unlimited coinage of silver did not resonate with factory workers in the city who would be hurt by inflation, not helped. By this time, so many populists were supporting or identifying with the Democratic Party, and they began to lose their identity. In addition, the economy had recovered in the late 1890s, and there was less outrage due to there being less economic hardship. In fact, times were better for the majority of Americans.
Because of this, in addition to the increase of divisions within the People's Party, the populist movement quickly faded. By 1900, the remaining populists supported Bryan again, but this time he lost by a much larger margin. After Bryan's second presidential defeat, the populist party fell apart. While some populists retired from politics, many ended up continuing with the Democratic Party or followed Eugene Debs into his new Socialist Party. Though the Populist Party was officially dead by 1909, most progressive ideas that took the country by storm in the coming years had their roots in populism.
In fact, the populist movement is one of the most influential movements in American history. Today, populist is a term frequently used to describe the anti-elitist beliefs by people of all political backgrounds. Anytime you hear a politician talking bad about, quote, Washington insiders, that's populist rhetoric. Populism has been, and continues to be, a driving force in politics around the world. Much of what the American populace said in the 1890s is just as relevant today as it was back then.
The end.