|
The People's Party, also known as the Populist Party or the Populists, was a short-lived agrarian-populist political party in the United States that most historians agree was on the left-wing of American politics. It was highly critical of capitalism, especially banks and railroads, and allied itself with the labor movement.〔Bruce Palmer, ''"Man over money": the Southern Populist critique of American capitalism'' (1980).〕 Established in 1891, as a result of the Populist movement, the People's Party reached its zenith in the 1892 presidential election, when its ticket, composed of James B. Weaver and James G. Field, won 8.5% of the popular vote and carried five states (Colorado, Idaho, Kansas, Nevada and North Dakota), and the 1894 House of Representatives elections, when it took over 10% of the vote. Built on a coalition of poor, white cotton farmers in the South (especially North Carolina, Alabama and Texas) and hard-pressed wheat farmers in the Plains states (especially Kansas and Nebraska), the Populists represented a radical crusading form of agrarianism and hostility to elites, cities, banks, railroads and gold. The party sometimes allied with labor unions in the North and Republicans in the South. In the 1896 presidential elections the Populists endorsed the Democratic presidential nominee, William Jennings Bryan, adding their own vice presidential nominee. By joining with the Democrats, the People's Party lost its independent identity and rapidly withered away. The terms "populism" and "populist" have been used in the 20th and 21st centuries to describe anti-elitist appeals against established interests or mainstream parties, referring to both the political left and right. ==Formation== A People's Party grew out of a large mood of agrarian unrest in response to low agricultural prices in the South and the trans-Mississippi West, as well as thought that the "Eastern Elites" were taking advantage of the farmers by charging higher rates on loans and trains.〔Foner, Eric (2005). ''Give Me Liberty! An American History, Volume Two Second Edition.'' W. W. Norton & Company, New York, London.〕 The Farmers' Alliance, formed in Lampasas, Texas, in 1876, promoted collective economic action by farmers and achieved widespread popularity in the South and Great Plains. The Farmers' Alliance ultimately did not achieve its wider economic goals of collective economic action against brokers, railroads, and merchants, and many in the movement advocated for changes in national policy. By the late 1880s, the Alliance had developed a political agenda that called for regulation and reform in national politics, most notably an opposition to the gold standard to counter the high deflation in agricultural prices in relation to other goods such as farm implements. In 1886, a "People's Party" elected no members to the Wisconsin State Assembly and Wisconsin State Senate; but this was a labor party, and by the 1888 elections was using the Union Labor Party label. In December 1888 the National Agricultural Wheel and the Southern Farmer’s Alliance met at Meridian, Mississippi where the national farmers convention was held that current year. In that meeting they decided to consolidate the two parties pending ratification. This consolidation gave the organization a new name, the Farmers and Laborers’ Union of America, and by 1889 the merger had been ratified, although there were conflicts between “conservative” Alliance men and “political” Wheelers in Texas and Arkansas, which delayed the unification in these states until 1890 and 1891 respectively. The merger eventually united white Southern Alliance and Wheel members, but it would not include African American members of agricultural organizations.〔Hild, Matthew (2007). ''Greenbackers, Knights of Labor, and Populists, Farmer-Labor Insurgency in the Late-Nineteenth-Century South.'' The University of Georgia Press, Athens & London.〕 During their move towards consolidation in 1889, the leaders of both Southern Farmers’ Alliance and the Agricultural Wheel organizations contacted Terence V. Powderly, leader of the Knights of Labor. “This contact between leaders of the farmers’ movement and Powderly helped pave the way for a series of reform conferences held between December 1889 and July 1892 that resulted in the formation of the national People’s (or Populist) Party.”〔Hild, Matthew (2007). ''Greenbackers, Knights of Labor, and Populists, Farmer-Labor Insurgency in the Late-Nineteenth-Century South.''The University of Georgia Press, Athens & London, p. 123.〕 The drive to create a new political party out of the movement arose from the belief that the two major parties Democrats and Republicans were controlled by bankers, landowners and elites hostile to the needs of the small farmer. The movement reached its peak in 1892 when the party held a convention chaired by Frances Willard (leader of the WCTU and a friend of Powderly's)〔Gusfield, Joseph (1963). ''Symbolic Crusade: Status Politics and the American Temperance Movement'' The University of Illinois Press, Urbana, Chicago & London, p. 78, 93.〕 in Omaha, Nebraska and nominated candidates for the national election. The party's platform, commonly known as the Omaha Platform, called for the abolition of national banks, a graduated income tax, direct election of Senators, civil service reform, a working day of eight hours and Government control of all railroads, telegraphs, and telephones. In the 1892 Presidential election, James B. Weaver received 1,027,329 votes. Weaver carried four states (Colorado, Kansas, Idaho, and Nevada) and received electoral votes from Oregon and North Dakota as well. The party flourished most among farmers in the Southwest and Great Plains, as well as making significant gains in the South, where they faced an uphill battle given the firmly entrenched monopoly of the Democratic Party. Success was often obtained through electoral fusion, with the Democrats outside the South, but with alliances with the Republicans in Southern states like Alabama, North Carolina, Tennessee, and Texas.〔http://history.missouristate.edu/wrmiller/Populism/Texts/bibliography.htm〕 For example, in the elections of 1894, a coalition of Populists and Republicans led by Populist Marion Butler swept state and local offices in North Carolina, and the coalition would go on to elect Republican Daniel Lindsay Russell as Governor in 1896.〔William S. Powell, "Marion Butler", Dictionary of North Carolina Biography (1979)〕 Quite separate from the Populists were the Silverites in the western mining states, who demanded Free silver to solve the Panic of 1893. By allowing the coining of silver coins, they hoped to make the value of the money more than what it represented, which would lead to inflation of the currency, and thus, reduce the debt of the farmers to the Eastern Elites. This idea led to former Greenback Party members to join the Populist Party. The Populists followed the Prohibition Party in actively including women in their affairs. Some southern Populists, including Thomas E. Watson of Georgia, openly talked of the need for poor blacks and poor whites to set aside their racial differences in the name of shared economic self-interest. Regardless of these rhetoric appeals, however, racism did not evade the People's Party. Prominent Populist Party leaders such as Marion Butler, a United States Senator from North Carolina, at least partially demonstrated a dedication to the cause of white supremacy, and there appears to have been some support for this viewpoint among the rank-and-file of the party's membership.〔James L. Hunt, ''Marion Butler and American Populism'' (2003), pp. 3-7〕 After 1900 Watson himself became an outspoken white supremacist and became the party's presidential nominee in 1904 and 1908, winning 117,000 and 29,000 votes. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「People's Party (United States)」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
|