Analyze the Reasons for the Emergence of the Populist Party

In the late 1800’s, the farmers of America faced many serious financial problems, so they decided it was time to restructure the nation. In the 1860s the first reform movement, was a collection of farmers that were unhappy with the way they were being treated by the government, and met together to discuss their problems. As the years went on, more farmers joined these reform movements. There were many reasons for the emergence of the Populist, or People's, Party in the late nineteenth century, such as The Government ownership of railroads, the terrible economic state of the farmers, and government indifference. These factors along with others inevitably caused an agricultural depression, leading to the formation of farmer groups such as the Populist Party, which would help to reduce the problems troubling the farmers. Some problems that these farmers felt threatened their way of life included transportation, such as trains, monopolies and trusts, money shortage and the demonetizing of silver.

The growth of railroads was very beneficial to industries across America, but analyzing this fact was not very helpful for the farmers. Although, the benefits bought to these companies were at the expense of farmers. These practices seriously hurt the farmers by raising their shipping rates in order to lower that of larger companies. The increase the rates of Railroad companies not only made farmers lose profits but it even caused many of those farmers bound by contract to fall into debt. Although these Railroad companies gained the business of larger companies they hurt the business of farmers, and thus the farmers’ complaints were valid. These brought as a consequence those farmers from the north and from the south stared think a similar though that initialized a Alliance against the principles or the government.

Another reason that helps farmers to initiating would be the terrible economic state of the farmers; the monopolies basically controlled every aspect of business giving them the power to increase the price leaving the consumers helpless. This centralization of power allows monopolies to fix prices, making them unreasonably high if they chose to do so. Firstly, there was a scarcity of money in the country under the government's tight money policy. Farmers, producing a certain number of crops per year, were not making enough money to be able to pay back their bills. However, there was not enough money in the country to buy their produce. This caused falling prices in almost all the farms in the north and in the south. . The farmers wanted sliver currency because they believe it would make it easy to pay back debt and bring inflation. The land was over assessed. They had to pay high taxes, and tariffs. Over production forced farmer to sell their products at low-prices to remain competitive. The farmer got pull in to a depressing loop of buying expensive machinery to increase their production and selling them product at a lower price. These facts affect seriously de farmers’ economy, devaluating their products through almost 15 years.

Finally the government indifference, the absence of importance about the farmers and their needs brought a new aspect that in that time was very helpful for the majority of the population of the United States. Because they were feeling ignore, they find a way to