Download The Populist Movement—The Value of Third Parties

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Advanced Placement U.S. History 1
Lesson 32
Handout 32 (page 1)
The Populist Movement—The Value of Third Parties
Part A.
For homework, research answers to each of the following questions.
1.
In which presidential campaign did the Populists first appear?
2. What groups made up the Populist movement?
3.
In what sections of the country did the Populists gain their greatest support?
4. List ten political and economic reforms the Populists proposed in their platform.
5. To what extent did Populists continue to focus on grievances of earlier movements?
6. What percent of the total popular vote in 1892 did each party gain?
a.
Republicans
b.
Democrats
c.
Populists
7. How do these percentages explain why the Democrats adopted several Populist planks and
nominated the Populist candidate as their own nominee in 1896?
8. How did William Jennings Bryan’s “Cross of Gold” speech prove to be both a strength and
a weakness of the Populists?
9. How did Republicans try to project a universal appeal in their 1896 platform?
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203
Advanced Placement U.S. History 1
Lesson 32
Handout 32 (page 2)
Name
Date
10. What role might each of the following have played in the outcome of the election of
1896?
a.
Panic of 1893
b.
Republican party’s $16 million campaign fund compared to $1 million available to Demo
crats for educating and persuading voters
c.
Some factory owners paid off their workers on Election Day and told them not to return
to work on Wednesday if Bryan won; others threatened to pay their workers in fifty-cent
pieces instead of dollars if Bryan won.
Part B.
Write answers to the questions below as your class discusses the following points.
1. Study the cartoon and answer the following questions.
a.
Why did these groups come together in a single party?
b. Flow does the cartoon explain weaknesses of the Populist coalition?
2<
From Judge. June 6. 1891 in The Adventure of the American People. 2nd ed. by Henry
Graffanci John Krout. (Chicago, IL: Riverside Publishing Co., 1970), 448.
© COPYRIGHT, The Center for Learning. Used with permission. Not for resale.
204
Name________________
Date_________________
Advanced Placement U.S. History 1
LeSSOfl 32
Handout 32 (page 3)
2. Why would a party with numerous issues agree to focus on the single issue of Inflation?
3. Why did the anticipated victory of Bryan never materialize?
4. Why did conditions of the farmers improve In the years after 1896 despite William Jennings
Bryan’s loss in the election?
5. What Populist proposals later found their way into the mainstream of American political
thought?
6.
How do the following interpretations of the Populists characterize the movement differently?
There Is Indeed much that Is good and usable In our Populist past.
Populism was the first modern political movement of practical Importance
In the United States to insist that the federal government has some respon
sibility for the common weal.
Populists.. bypassed and humiliated by the advance of Industrialism
were rebelling against the domination of the country by Industrial and
financial capitalists.
(Populists soughti to restore the conditions prevailing before the de
velopment of industrialism and the commercialism of agriculture.
.
Richard Hofstadter, The Age of Reforrnfrom Bryan to F’.D.R.
(New York: Vintage. 1955). 61-62. Reprinted by permission of Alfred A. Knopf. Inc.
Populism was Indeed a response to the times, but It was also something
more. It was an attempt to transcend those times and, In the act of tran
scending the existing social context, to pose an alternative conception for
the development of America.
Thus, Populists contended, government must be a responsive tool, one
which can actively Intervene in the economy to regulate matters affecting
the public Interest, and when necessary own outright monopolies of this
character, and can just as actively aid the underprivileged and work for
a more equitable distribution of wealth.
Norman Pollack, The Popultst Mind (New York: Bobbs-Merrill. 1967), xxx, xliv.
7. To what extent does each interpretation have merit?
8. What conclusions can you draw from this lesson on the role of third political parties in
American politics?
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