Historian Case

Between the years 1880- 1990, American politics was booming. However, because of the failing prices of wheat and cotton, demonetization of silver, railroads, monopolies and trusts farmers were using them as reasons to justify their harder and harder lives; therefore, creating numerous famers' alliance and finally the Populist Party to show their discontentment. However, in many cases, their arguments were invalid. With the depreciating value of crops such as wheat, farmers were having a tough time to make a profit to sustain their lives. They therefore decided that the demonetization of silver was the cause of their problems and the deflationary trend(Document A). However, the depreciation of the value of wheat was caused by over production of the crop,producing more than they consume. The farmers also did not realize that the price of the wheat was determined by the worldmarket, not just within America. The lack of correspondence between the rest of the world market and the farmers in growing wheat was the result of deflation. Although it is true that the money supply during 1865-1880 was inadequate (Document C), the farmers used money supply to explain deflation problems that didn't have much to do with money problems at all. As J Laurence Laughlin said "... the alarming fall in the price of wheat which [had] made the farmer's excuse for thinking that silver is the magic panacea for all his ills..." (Document E), the farmers had the wrong assessments of their problems. As William McKinley mentioned in his acceptance speech (Document B), silver is not the cureto the roots of their problems. The blame that they placed on the demonetization on silver '' therefore - cannot be justified and is invalid. In many ways, railroads havehurt small shippers and farmers in a lot of ways significantly. To prevent bankruptcy and to stay in business, railroads charge less for larger shippers to attract them while charging more to smaller shippers such as farmers going shorter distances (Document G). Already hurt by the downslide and deflation of crops, these unfair practices of the railroads company left their in ruins. Just like Dyke, whom, because the Railroad decided to charge him 3 cents extra, he will lose money instead of making a profit (Document H); many farmers were ruined by the Railroad companies' tactics to stay in the business. Therefore, their complaints on the unfair practices of the Railroad companies were justified and valid. Monopolies and trusts also played a role towards the discontentment in farmers' lives. James B. Weaver basically summarized in his piece: A Call to Action: An Interpretation of the Great Uprising how farmers,populists felt about trusts and monopolies '' "The main weapons of the trust are threats, intimidation, bribery, fraud, wreck and pillage" (Document F). They felt that the disappearance of competition would lead to unreasonable prices that would

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