Agrarian Discontent In The Late 1800s :: essays research papers

"Why the Farmers Were Wrong"The diaphragm between 1880 and 1900 was a boom time for American politics. The country was for in angiotensin-converting enzyme case free of the threat of war, and numerous of its citizens were living comfortably. However, as these two decades went by, the American rearer found it harder and harder to live comfortably. Crops such as cotton and wheat, one time the bulwark of agriculture, were selling at prices so low that it was nearly insurmountable for farmers to make a profit off them. Further much, improvement in transfer of masterminding allowed foreign competition to materialize, making it harder for American farmers to dispose of surplus crop. Finally, days of drought in the midwest and the downward spiral of blood in the 1890s devastated many of the nations farmers. As a result of the agricultural depression, many farm groups, most notably the Populist Party, arose to fight what farmers saw as the reasons for the eliminate in agr iculture. During the last twenty years of the nineteenth century, many farmers in the United States saw monopolies and trusts, railroads, and money shortages and the demonetization of silver as threats to their track of life, though in many cases their complaints were not valid.The growth of the railroad was one of the most significant elements in American economic growth. However, in many ways, the railroads hurt small shippers and farmers. Extreme competition between rail companies necessitated round way to win business. To do this, many railroads offered rebates and drawbacks to larger shippers who used their rails. However, this execute hurt smaller shippers, including farmers, for often times railroad companies would charge more to ship products short distances than they would for long trips. The rail companies justified this practice by asserting that if they did not rebate, they would not make enough profit to bear in business. In his testimony to the Senate Cullom Commit tee, George W. Parker stated, "...the operating expense of this road...requires a trusted volume of business to meet these fixed expenses....in some seasons of the year, the local business of the road...is not sufficient to make the earnings...when we make up a train of ten of fifteen cars of local freight...we can attach fifteen or twenty cars...of strictly through business. We can take the latter at a very low rate than go without it." Later, when asked the consequences of charging local work the same rate as through freight, Mr.