Political+Issues+of+the+Late+Nineteenth+Century+G

Populism is an American movement that started in 1891 with the founding of the Populist Party, which worked to improve conditions for farmers and laborers. The Populist Party supported its own third-party candidate, James B. Weaver (1833–1912), in the 1892 presidential election. Although he lost, the Populists remained a strong force. In the following election of 1896 they backed Democratic Party candidate William Jennings Bryan (1860–1925), who proclaimed himself sympathetic to the causes of the Farmer's Alliance, the National Grange (a reform-minded agricultural organization), as well as the nation's working class. Soon after Bryan lost to William McKinley (1843–1901) the Populist Party began to fall apart, disappearing altogether by 1908. Nevertheless, many of the party's initiatives and ideals remained strong themes in the nation's political life. During the next two decades many Populist Party goals.
 * Populism**

1. The U.S. labor union should be permanent and perpetual. 2. Rural and civil labors are equal. Workers should be paid fairly for their labor. 3. The government [should] enter upon the work of owning and managing all the railroads.
 * Platform**


 * Finance:** coinage in silver in addition to gold currency; less tax, less than 2% of earnings per year; money should belong to the people, not to the government; postal savings banks for the safekeeping of money.


 * Transportation:** government should regulate the railroad, telegraph, and telephone.


 * Land:** no monopolization of natural resources; foreign ownership of land is not allowed; and the government should preserve the land for settlers.

1. Based on home rule and individual liberty 2. Against the tendency to centralize all power at the Federal capital; such as the Lodge Federal Elections Bill, which proposed federal judicial supervision of federal elections; more over, against the restrictive and protective tariffs and large expenditure of the government. 3. Emphasized decentralized power located in the states 4. For popular education and the coinage of both gold and silver (Denounced the Sherman Act of 1890)
 * Democrats**
 * Platform**

Republican - wise revenue legislation of the Republican congress. - All articles not produced in the U.S., should be admitted freee of duty, and that on all imports coming into competition with the products of American labor, there should be levied duties equal to the difference between wages abroad and at home. - prices of manufactured articles of general consumption have been reduced under the operations of the tariff act of 1890. - Republican policy of reciprocity (allowed for the tariff-free importation of specified products from Western Hemisphere nations in return for their admitting American exports on the same terms.) export trade has vastly increase and new and enlarged markets have been opened for the products of our farms and workshops. - Republican party demands the use of both gold and silver as standard money, with such restrictions and under such provisions, to be determined by legislation, as will secure the maintenance of the parity of values of the two metals so that the purchasing and debt-paying power of the dollar, whether of silver, gold, or paper, shall be at all times equal. - Demand every citizen of the United States shall be allowed to cast one free and unrestricted ballot in all public elections, and that such ballot shall be counted and returned as cast.