THE FARMERS' REVOLT

Interpreting Primary Sources

For our business interests, we desire to bring producers and consumers, farmers and manufacturers into the most direct and friendly relations possible. Hence we must dispense with a surplus of middlemen, not that we are unfriendly to them, but we do not need them. Their surplus and their exactions diminish our profits....

We are opposed to excessive salaries, high rates of interest, and exorbitant per cent profits in trade. They greatly increase our burdens, and do not bear a proper proportion to the profits of producers.

--Declaration of Purposes of the Patrons of Husbandry (The Grangers), 1874

We meet in the midst of a nation brought to the verge of moral, political and material ruin. Corruption dominates the ballot box, the Legislatures, the Congress, and touches even the ermine of the Bench. The people are demoralized...the newspapers are largely subsidized or muzzled, public opinion silenced, business prostrated, our homes covered with mortgages, labor impoverished, and the land concentrating in the hands of the capitalists. The urban workmen are denied the right of organization for self-protection; imported pauperized labor beats down their wages; a hireling standing army, unrecognized by our laws, is established to shoot them down, and they are rapidly degenerated into European conditions. The fruits of the toil of millions are boldly stolen to build up colossal fortunes, unprecedented in the history of the world, while their possessors despise the republic and endanger liberty.

The national power to create money is appropriated to enrich bondholders; a vast public debt, payable in legal tender currency, has been funded into gold bearing bonds, thereby adding millions to the burdens of the people. 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. A vast conspiracy against mankind has been organized on two continents and is taking possession of the world....

Wealth belongs to him who creates it, and every dollar taken from industry without an equivalent is robbery. "If any will not work, neither shall he eat." The interest of rural and civic labor are the same; their enemies are identical....

We believe that the time has come when the railroad corporations will either own the people or the people must own the railroads....

The land, including all the natural sources of wealth, is the heritage of the people and should not be monopolized for speculative purposes, and alien ownership of land should be prohibited. All land now held by railroads and other corporations in excess of their actual needs, and all lands now owned by aliens, should be reclaimed by the Government and held for actual settlers only....

--1892 Populist platform

The farmers of the United States are up in arms. They are the bone and sinew of the nation; they produce the largest share of its wealth; but they are getting, they say, the smallest share for themselves. The American farmer is steadily losing ground. His burdens are heavier every year and his gains are more meager; he is beginning to fear that he may be sinking into a servile condition. He has waited long for the redress of his grievances; he purposes to wait no longer....

--Washington Gladden, "The Embattled Farmers"

Now the People's Party says..."You are kept apart that you may be separately fleeced of your earnings. You are made to hate each other because upon that hatred is rested the keystone of the arch of financial despotism which enslaves you both. You are deceived and blinded that you may not see how this race antagonism perpetuates a monetary system which beggars both."

--Tom Watson, 1892, appealing to black voters

If the gold standard advocates win, this country will be dominated by the financial harpies of Wall Street. I am trying to save the American people from that disaster--which will mean the enslavement of the farmers, merchants, manufacturers and laboring classes to the most merciless and unscrupulous gang of speculators on earth--the money power. My ambition is to make money the servant of industry, to dethrone it from the false position it has usurped as master, and this can only be done by destroying the money monopoly.

--William Jennings Bryan, 1896

The man who is employed for wages is as much a businessman as his employer. The attorney in a country town is as much a businessman as the corporation counsel in a great metropolis. The merchant at the crossroads store is as much a businessman as the merchant of New York. The farmer who goes forth in the morning and toils all day...is as much a businessman as the man who goes upon the Board of Trade and bets upon the price of grain.

We come to speak for this broader class of businessmen....It is for these that we speak. We do not come as aggressors. Our war is not a war of conquest. We are fighting in the defense of our homes, our families, and posterity. We have petitioned, and our petitions have been scorned. We have entreated, and our entreaties have been disregarded. We have begged, and they have mocked when our calamity came.

We beg no longer; we entreat no more; we petition no more. We defy them!

There are two ideas of government. There are those who believe that if you just legislate to make the well-to-do prosperous that their prosperity will leak through on those below. The Democratic idea has been that if you legislate to make the masses prosperous their prosperity will find its way up and through every class that rests upon it.

You come to us and tell us that the great cities are in favor of the gold standard. I tell you that the great cities rest upon these broad and fertile prairies. Burn down your cities and leave our farms, and your cities will spring up again as if by magic. But destroy our farms and the grass will grow in the streets of every city in this country.

Having behind us the commercial interests and the laboring interests and all the toiling masses, we shall answer their demands for a gold standard by saying to them: you shall not press down upon the brow of labor this crown of thorns. You shall not crucify mankind upon a cross of gold.

--William Jennings Bryan, 1896

For the first time since the civil war the American people have witnessed the calamitous consequence of full and unrestricted Democratic control of the government. It has been a record of unparalleled incapacity, dishonor, and disaster....It has...entailed an unceasing deficit...piled up the public debt...forced an adverse balance of trade...pawned American credit to alien syndicates....In the broad effect of its policy it has precipitated panic, blighted industry and trade with prolonged depression, closed factories, reduced work and wages, halted enterprise and crippled American production, while stimulating foreign production for the American market.... [Our] policy taxes foreign products and encourages home industry. it puts the burden of revenue on foreign goods; it secures the American market for the American producer....

The Republican party is unreservedly for sound money....We are unalterably opposed to every measure calculated to debase our currency or impair the credit of our country.

--1896 Republican Party Platform

Questions to think about:

1. Identify the economic and political grievances of late 19th century American farmers.

2. How compelling do you find the farmers' reform program?

3. Do you think that agrarian radicalism was a realistic response to actual conditions or an irrational and hysterical expression of farmers' fears and anxieties?

4. Was the decision of farmers in l896 to focus on the issue of free silver a betrayal of agrarian ideals or a reasonable response to the political situation facing farmers?

INTERPRETING STATISTICS: THE CHANGING LIVES OF AMERICAN FARMERS

Agricultural Productivity

1800 1900

Wheat

Worker-hours to produce an acre 56 15

Yield per acre 15 14

Corn

Worker-hours per acre 86 38

Yield per acre 25 26

Cotton

Worker-hours per acre 185 112

Yield per acre 147 191

Questions to think about:

1. How great was the increase in agricultural productivity between 1800 and 1900?

2. Why did agricultural productivity increase between 1800 and 1900?

3. Describe the social and economic consequences of increasing agricultural productivity?

Trends in American Farming

Percentage of Labor force in Agriculture

1860 53%

1870 52

1880 51

1890 43

1900 40

1910 31

1920 26

1930 21

Number of Farms Proportion of Total Population

(in thousands)

1940 6,350 23.1

1950 5,648 15.2

1960 3,963 8.7

1970 2,949 4.7

1980 2,428 2.7

U.S. Population

Year Total Population Rural Urban

(in millions)

1870 40 74% 26%

1880 50 72 28

1890 63 65 35

1900 76 60 40

Questions to think about:

1. When did the steepest decline take place in the proportion of American workers earning their livelihood in agriculture?

2. How did rural growth compare with urban growth?

Farming

Year Number Bales of Cotton Bushels of Corn Bushels of Wheat Price

of Farms Index

(in millions) 1860=100

1860 2 3.8 839 173 100

1870 2.7 4.4 1,124 254 140

1880 4 6.6 1,706 502 100

1890 4.6 8.7 1,650 449 90

1900 5.7 10.1 2,662 599 90

Questions to think about:

1. What happened to farm production after the Civil War?

2. What happened to farm prices?

Growth of Farm Tenancy

Percentage of Farms Operated by Tenants

U.S. South Non-South

1880 26 36 19

1900 35 47 26

Questions to think about:

1. Did farm tenancy grow in the late l9th century? By how much?

2. Was the growth of farm tenancy largely confined to the South? Or was it a national phenomenon?

Regional Differences in Urbanization

Percent Living in Cities of 2,500 or more

1860 1900

Northeast 36 66

Midwest 14 39

West 16 41

South 7 15

Regional Differences in Per Capita Income

Per Capita Income as a Percentage of U.S. Income

1860 1900

Northeast 139 137

Midwest 68 103

West n.a. 163 (This figure reflects high incomes in mining)

South 72 51

Questions to think about:

1. Did various regions share equally in the growth of national wealth following the Civil War?

2. If not, why?

STUDY AID: NEW STATES

New States in the Union

1860s

Kansas (1861)

West Virginia (1863)

Nevada (1864)

Nebraska (1867)

1870s

Colorado (1876)

1880s

Montana (1889)

North Dakota (1889)

South Dakota (1889)

Washington (1889)

1890s

Idaho (1890)

Wyoming (1890)

Utah (1896)

Since 1900

Oklahoma (1907)

Arizona (1912)

New Mexico (1912)

Alaska (1959)

Hawaii (1959)