Farmers' Revolt: A Historical Overview PDF

The Farmers' Revolt During the Civil War, farmers had done very well. An Army's need for food as well as an inflationary economy to keep debt manageable had made the war economically good for farmers. Once the war was over, though, the end of government purchases and the influx of hundreds of thous...

The Farmers' Revolt During the Civil War, farmers had done very well. An Army's need for food as well as an inflationary economy to keep debt manageable had made the war economically good for farmers. Once the war was over, though, the end of government purchases and the influx of hundreds of thousands of veterans---most of whom wanted to return to farming---meant economic collapse for farmers. A post-war agricultural recession followed by deflation sent farmers into extraordinary difficulties. As businessmen took over government their situation only worsened. Their problems got so severe, they it was finally the farmers who rose up in political rebellion and fought back against business dominated government and shook up the parties and brought realignment and action back to Washington. The problems farmers faced were many: 1\) Overproduction---Too many farmers grew too much produce, causing the prices to go into decline. To cope, they increased crop yield, causing prices to continue to decline. Though they needed to reduce production to increase prices, they could not do so without great individual risk, and so farmers as a group found themselves trapped in a never-ending cycle of overproduction and lowering prices. 2\) Deflation\--The economy was in a 'deflationary' cycle, which meant that there was less and less money in circulation, causing the money to become more valuable. This was great for creditors and businessmen, who controlled government, but bad for farmers, who were continual debtors, who never had enough cash and had to repay agricultural loans with money more valuable than they borrowed. 3\) Natural Disasters\--On top of these economic problems, farmers of the Gilded Age also had to cope with a series of natural disasters, on top of the regular reliance on nature---and dealing with tornados in the Midwest---which included drought years followed by flood years followed by plagues of grasshoppers, all contributing to increased difficulties. 4\) Regressive Tax System\--Farmers also had to deal with an unfair, 'regressive' tax structure, since there was no income tax, and no sales tax, the bulk of taxes were property taxes. Since farmers' entire assets are in land and equipment they carried all the tax burden, while the wealthy, whose property was almost exclusively corporate, paid nothing. The rich felt it their right to pay nothing in tax, and as they controlled government there was little sympathy for the middle class. (Remember the Millionaire's Club). 5\) Homestead Act\--Even the Civil War victory and seemingly great promise of free land through the Homestead Act was seen as a trap. The 160 acres of free land was great in the eastern farmlands of Indiana or Illinois, but that was a tiny dot of land in the great expanses of Nebraska and Kansas. Before irrigation, soil supplementation, etc., of later times, 160 acres was simply not enough. 6\) American Railroad\--Finally, for farmers, 'public enemy number one' was the American Railroad. Farmers would claim land by the tracks for access to distant markets, only to find that unregulated railroad companies charged ridiculous rates, knowing that the farmers had no choice but to pay or leave the crops in the field to rot. Farmers gradually began to fight back in what will become known as the Farmers' Revolt. Watching the success that labor was starting to achieve by using their numbers to organize into labor unions and striking (or threatening to shut down a business by walking off the job), farmers realized the potential power of their own numbers. Until the 1920s, the majority of Americans were farmers. If they could organize, that would be a union that included most Americans! Unfortunately for farmers, they were also scattered across the country, with farm families much more like independent business than the close-in workers in a factory. In fact, there was a national farmers' organization, but it was a social rather than political organization. Back in 1867, a farmer named Oliver Kelly formed a social club for farmers called The Grange (full name, the National Grange for the Patrons of Husbandry). By the early 1870s there were over 2 million members of the Grange, in over 12,000 local chapters. Grange leaders decided to turn this social club into a political and economic tool. The first thing they did was to create CO-OPs where they could pool their resources to buy equipment, materials, feed and seed, etc., and make them available to each other very cheaply and bypass retail businesses. They also used the CO-OP to force railroads to be more cooperative by telling rail companies they would have to haul all the farmers of the local CO-OP instead of individual farmers at a price the group set. The threat of losing hundreds of farmers worked and the railroads actually became (briefly) more cooperative. The next step was to use the Grange in a political way, through the principle of the lobby. Local Grange chapters would send lobbyists to their state capitals to talk to state government officials and explain how bad things are for them. These efforts were very successful The result was that states passed laws through their efforts---Granger Laws---to try and regulate the businesses that were hostile to farmers, and the Supreme Court saw the resulting lawsuits in what are called the Granger Cases. The Court even upheld those laws at first (see Munn v. Illinois). Unfortunately for farmers, the more business took control of government, the more everything, including the Supreme Court, became pro-business anti-farmer (see the Wabash Case). The pro-business Court ruled that states have no right to regulate business... this is the same court that ruled that the 14th Amendment's protections included corporations, but not women or African-Americans! After the Wabash decision, all of the Granger Laws were thrown out, the Grange went back to being simply a social club and the farmers were back where they started. But they had learned some lessons, and the Grange represents the opening 'salvo' in the Farmers' Revolt. With the failure of the Grange, farmers reorganized into the Farmers' Alliance Movement. The Supreme Court in Wabash had said that states didn't have the power to regulate businesses, which seemed to farmers to imply that perhaps if states didn't have the power to do anything, maybe the federal government could. Pursuing the power of the federal government, became the goal of the Alliance Movement. There were actually two branches of the Farmers' Alliance, the Southern and the Northern wings. The Southern wing wanted to continue the lobbying efforts which had worked so well with the states, only now they sent lobbyists to Washington, DC. The Northern Alliance decided8 to go for direct political action: to get out the vote. Alliance members met with individual farmers and large groups at Grange Halls and gave farmers lists of Alliance-endorsed candidates. People running for office who promised they would do something to help the farmers with their problems. These candidates did very well in the Mid-Term Elections of 1890. Farmers' Alliance backed candidates won 5 state governors races, majorities in 8 state legislatures and most significantly, Alliance candidates won 50 seats in the U.S. House of Representatives. Southern Alliance members were very impressed, so decided to stop the lobbying and turn also to direct political action. Because of this success, the Alliance Movement folded and the farmers once again reorganized and created the Populist Party. The Populist Party was an actual third party, designed to compete with the Repbulicans and Democrats. The 'exploded' onto the scene, becoming a big national party almost instantly, because while it began with the famers, all sorts of other disgruntled voters joined with the farmers---labor, women, etc., all came together to fight the establishment.. This new party had great success as a third party in the Election of '92. The Populist Party Platform promised all of the things farmers and the middle class needed: Free and unlimited coinage of Silver (to artificially turn deflation into inflation), Graduated Income Tax (so even rich people would have to pay taxes), Government ownership of the Railroad (since government is not a business and doesn't have to make a profit, rates will be cheaper), Direct election of Senators (to break up the Millionaires' Club). Their candidate for president, James B. Weaver, won 11% of the popular vote. The U.S. is a two-party country. Third parties come and go, and a third party is considered successful if it can win 2%! The two real parties were very impressed with this remarkable showing and fell all over themselves to try and grab those Populist voters. Ultimately it was the Democrats who got them. By the Election of 1896 the Democrats had shifted away from strictly pro-big business conservatism and redefined themselves as the party of the farmer, middle class and labor. The Republicans remained the party of the wealth and big business. In the Election of '96, the Democrats ran as their candidate, former Populist, Nebraska farmer, William Jennings Bryan. We will discuss the outcome of the election later, but for now it represents the ultimate victory for the Farmer's Revolt. The Farmers' Revolt had succeeded in redefining one of the two major parties and the middle class had returned to the political scene.