Populist Party Analysis

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Populists advocated for federal intervention to offset “the economic depression, curtail corporate abuses, and prevent poverty among farming and working-class families.” (Edwards) William Jennings Bryan has come to represent the Populist Party even though he never directly supported them. Bryan ran for the office of the presidency three times in 1896, 1900, and 1908 and lost every time. I’m going to focus on the election of 1896 since it signifies the end of the Populist Party and explains why William Jennings Bryan kept losing. One of the major issues, if not the majorist, was bimetallism, which is the principle of basing a currency on equivalent values of gold and silver. The Panic of 1893 which really affected farmers and workers …show more content…
The Democratic Party was a little different, the incumbent president (a Democrat), Grover Cleveland, was for the gold standard which bothered members of the general populus. So at the Democratic convention we see a large amount of Populists who are tired of not being heard. Then William Jennings Bryan comes out and he gives his famous Cross of Gold Speech (Dickinson) where he advocates for free silver. After that, the Democratic Party stops representing the South and starts to represent the workers and farmers especially those concentrated in the …show more content…
McKinley had a campaign manager named Mark Hanna who goes to monopolists and the heads of major corporations and he essentially says that they won’t be happy if Bryan is elected. So McKinley ends up raising some $3.5 million, five times more than that of Bryan and we see business owners telling their workers that if Bryan is elected factories would shut down and the workers would be fired. Business owners even put up signs outside of factories saying that if Brian was elected they shouldn’t bother coming to work the next