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CHAPTER 9: DISCONTENT AND REFORMOUTLINE OF U.S. HISTORY“A great democracy will beneither great nor a democracyif it is not progressive.”Former President Theodore Roosevelt, circa 1910AGRARIAN DISTRESS ANDTHE RISE OF POPULISMIn spite of their remarkable progress,late-19th century Americanfarmers experienced recurring periodsof hardship. Mechanical improvementsgreatly increased yieldper hectare. The amount of land undercultivation grew rapidly throughoutthe second half of the century,as the railroads and the gradualdisplacement of the Plains Indiansopened up new areas for westernsettlement. A similar expansion ofagricultural lands in countries suchas Canada, Argentina, and Australiacompounded these problems in theinternational market, where muchof U.S. agricultural production wasnow sold. Everywhere, heavy supplypushed the price of agriculturalcommodities downward.Midwestern farmers were increasinglyrestive over what theyconsidered excessive railroadfreight rates to move their goodsto market. They believed that theprotective tariff, a subsidy to bigbusiness, drove up the price of theirincreasingly expensive equipment.Squeezed by low market pricesand high costs, they resented everheavierdebt loads and the banksthat held their mortgages. Even theweather was hostile. During the late1880s droughts devastated the westernGreat Plains and bankruptedthousands of settlers.In the South, the end of slaverybrought major changes. Much agriculturalland was now worked bysharecroppers, tenants who gaveup to half of their crop to a landownerfor rent, seed, and essentialsupplies. An estimated 80 percentof the South’s African-Americanfarmers and 40 percent of its whiteones lived under this debilitatingsystem. Most were locked in a cycleof debt, from which the only hope ofescape was increased planting. Thisled to the over-production of cottonand tobacco, and thus to decliningprices and the further exhaustionof the soil.The first organized effort to addressgeneral agricultural problemswas by the Patrons of Husbandry, afarmer’s group popularly known asthe Grange movement. Launchedin 1867 by employees of the U.S.Department of Agriculture, theGranges focused initially on socialactivities to counter the isolationmost farm families encountered.Women’s participation was activelyencouraged. Spurred by the Panicof 1873, the Grange soon grew to20,000 chapters and one-and-a-halfmillion members.The Granges set up their ownmarketing systems, stores, processingplants, factories, and cooperatives,but most ultimately failed. Themovement also enjoyed some politicalsuccess. During the 1870s, a fewstates passed “Granger laws,” limitingrailroad and warehouse fees.By 1880 the Grange was in declineand being replaced by the Farmers’Alliances, which were similar inmany respects but more overtly political.By 1890 the alliances, initiallyautonomous state organizations,had about 1.5 million membersfrom New York to California. A parallelAfrican-American group, theColored Farmers National Alliance,claimed over a million members.Federating into two large Northernand Southern blocs, the alliancespromoted elaborate economicprograms to “unite the farmers ofAmerica for their protection againstclass legislation and the encroachmentsof concentrated capital.”By 1890 the level of agrarian distress,fueled by years of hardship andhostility toward the McKinley tariff,was at an all-time high. Workingwith sympathetic Democrats in theSouth or small third parties in theWest, the Farmers’ Alliances madea push for political power. A thirdpolitical party, the People’s (or Populist)Party, emerged. Never beforein American politics had there beenanything like the Populist fervorthat swept the prairies and cottonlands. The elections of 1890 broughtthe new party into power in a dozenSouthern and Western states, andsent a score of Populist senators andrepresentatives to Congress.The first Populist convention wasin 1892. Delegates from farm, labor,and reform organizations met inOmaha, Nebraska, determined tooverturn a U.S. political system theyviewed as hopelessly corrupted bythe industrial and financial trusts.Their platform stated:We are met, in the midst of anation brought to the verge ofmoral, political, and material ruin.Corruption dominates the ballotbox,the legislatures, the Congress,and touches even the ermine of thebench [courts]. ... From the same190191