Politics 's Influence On National Politics

The Populist movement was a rising third party of angry farmers and factory workers. The idea behind this movement was to take the power away from bankers and business leaders. Baum was a supporter of William Jennings Bryan, presidential candidate for Democratic Party. Bryan supported the laboring class of the economy, his main concern was “adding silver to the nation’s gold standard” (49). They wanted money to be silver based since silver was available in the Mid-West and in doing so; the banks would no longer be able to manipulate the money supply. The goal of the participants of the party such as Baum was to break the power of the concentrated corporates. During the same time in 1890’s a severe depressions caused businesses to go bankrupt, farmers to sell their lands and factories were being shut down leaving workers unemployed. The Populist Party believed that switching to silver would pump money in the economy and would at least keep the businesses going.

The Populist Party is often referred to as the party of and for the people, and is labeled as such because it was, very candidly, founded by the common people, such as farmers and other laborers. While this party was in power, they had many ambitions and ideas that they sought to spread to others, and aspired to achieve. To understand the topic completely, one requires a general knowledge of the formation of the populist party, the elemental beliefs, goals and ideals, and how the downfall of the party came about, as this will aid in the understanding of the populist party’s want of free coinage of silver and how it would have helped debtors initially, but would have had a comprehensive and unfavorable effect on the American economy

The Coinage Act of 1873 was one of the major reasons why the Populist movement started and began forming. There were no real instant effects of the Coinage Act, and not many citizens in America used silver anyway (Friedman). Long term however, the United States would never be the same economically thanks to this monumental legislation. Officially accepting the Gold Standard, the American economy raised the demand for gold immensely, and as a result many gold deposits within America became depleted (Friedman). Consequently, the dollar and employees of America at the time became connected and tied to gold (Friedman). This was not a beneficial relationship, and the United States had become dependent on gold. Add in the fact that gold was being depleted rapidly and the demand for it was growing exponentially

Throughout American history, politics changed with the times, forming and growing as new situations and environments took place. However, the most drastic differences occurred between 1815 and 1840. During this time, the North and South develop different economic systems, which created political differences between the regions. Between 1815 and 1840, the number of eligible voters drastically increased as politicians utilized a wider variety of campaigning methods in order to appeal to as many voters as possible, all essentially caused by economic growth. Politics grow to include universal white male suffrage, a strong national government, and nationalism versus sectionalism. Economic Growth (American System, Industrial Revolution,

The Populist Movement ultimately failed to survive because of their desire for inflation and the support for the coinage of silver, as well as the fact that they merged with the Democratic Party to combat the Republicans. The 1896 election undermined agrarian insurgency, and a period of rapidly rising farm prices helped to bring about the dissolution of the Populist Party. Another important factor in the failure of the party was its inability to affect a genuine urban-rural coalition; its program had little appeal for wage earners of the industrial east. Although the populists were not outright socialists, many conservative interests saw the Populists as a threat to the basic economic system of the United States. The Populists’ agenda was

The late 1800s was an era marked by outcry by farmers towards Government and corporations for their lack of understanding towards the agrarian cause. As farmers began to have more obstacles put in the way of their economic prospects, they began to set their sights on the political stage as a last ditch effort to make their lives easier. As unrest grew, the Populist party was born to voice complaints on a political scale.

After 1880, the Grange gave rise to regional farmers’ alliances, which joined in 1892 to form the People’s Party. In the elections in the same year, their candidate gained 1 million popular votes showing the major political parties how serious the farmers’ issues were. The fall of the People’s party can be attributed to the financial panic that America faced in 1893. People started to embrace the idea of raising money supply by coining silver, which later became a burning issue in the 1896 Presidential election. Consequently, the populist joined forces with the Democratic party to support William Bryan for president who lost the seat to William McKinley, Republican. After the election, the party lost significant political power. 3.The New Deal It brought reforms in the sense that it raised the role of the American government in business and people’s welfare. When Roosevelt was elected, he made several changes to relief the starving individuals and the unemployed during the great depression

These events and conditions were the reason behind the foundation of the populist’s party and their platform. They declared “ that this republic can only endure as a free government while built upon the love of the whole people for each other and for the nation.”(Populist party platform, 1892) They believed that they would be able to correct the wrong and bring back the power of the government to the people, and put end to the poverty through the platform they issued. Through the platform, they provided solutions to both economical and political problems. To begin with, they called for creating unions to defend the producing class and the labor to protect them and giving them back their stolen rights. Also, they declared that “ wealth belongs to him creates it” and any other sources of income are counted as robbery. In addition, the populist’s party regarded the railroads as a public corporation not to be owned privately to prevent any monopoly or increase in the costs to protect these poor farmers from exploitation. They called for the a safe, flexible, national currency to be issued by the government as well as free coinage of silver and gold in a ratio of 16:1. Regarding the taxes they demanded it would not exceed the 2 percentile per year and it should be graduated according to the income, so the rich

President Grant brought the US economy into a six year depression because of the war reparations that had to be paid off from the Civil war. A decision aspect that affected the economy was the decision to decide the extermination of paper money or better known as during the civil war greenbacks. This also affected the decision of how to pay war reparations back, with greenbacks or specie, coins. Because of the economic status, it worried and overtook the countries attention and made them forget the problems with Reconstruction. In Document C, Harper's Weekly states, “ many Northern voters shifted their attention to such national concerts as the Panic of 1873”. The North was now worried about the economy and the stability of the US instead of Reconstruction, and this created more hardships during the already failing project. The photo to the right of the paragraph represents the amount of pressure and anger from citizens (slideshow). Also the political and economical disturbance also negatively influenced the North's views on the republican

There was pushback from the Federal Government, President Grover Cleveland included, wanted to keep the money supply fixed in gold, held in the hand of the government (Doc D). Monopolization of the wealth supply was pandemic in the United States in the late

The Populist Party had its origins in the agrarian West. A lengthy and devastating drought, followed by a depression, exacerbated the tensions between urban and rural interests and farmers began to unite under the Populist banner. "In the 1880s, as drought hit the wheat-growing areas of the Great Plains and prices for Southern cotton sunk to new lows, many tenant farmers fell into deep debt. This exacerbated long-held grievances against railroads, lenders, grain-elevator owners, and others with whom farmers did business. By the early 1890s, as the depression worsened, some industrial workers shared these farm families' views on labor and the trusts" (Edwards, "The People's Party," 2001).

1. Which had a more significant impact on the political evolution of the West: Populism or Progressivism?

Discontented farmers, despite their passion, lacked the numbers to make a national impact. They accomplished many of their goals, though most were not recognized as populist achievements. Ultimately, class played a primary role in the apparent failure of the populists in comparison to the success of the progressives. Despite the brevity of its existence, the Populist movement exercised a profound influence on subsequent U.S. political life. Almost all the Populist demands, which at one time were widely viewed as radical and contradictory to America’s free enterprise system, were eventually enacted into law.

The distribution of support for different political parties partially explains the inequality in magnitude and source of funding. The Whigs were popular with merchants and manufacturers in the Northeast, migrants from the Northeast to the West, and wealthy Southern planters. The Democrats held power with the rest

Politics is more than just the activities of those in power in the government but is especially the debate of those who are running to achieve power of the government. During political debates the candidates are asked questions about their position on various current issues. They put signs out to inform people that they are running for office. They also attend parades, go to meetings, hold political events, host meet the candidate events, and they even have republican and democratic conventions. The consequence of these events is they are promoting themselves to have the voters to elect them. Political thinking and acting such as having different views on a specific issues such as abortion. Either they can be pro-choice or pro-life. Their views on variety of issues affects whether or not someone will vote for them. Other views on how the government should run, spend money, if the country should be involved in a war or not, and how to deal with terrorists are other important topics too. Not only is politics important in today’s society but politics was important in mythology too.