Puzzle picture

Politicians Henry Gassaway Davis, William Jennings Bryan, Theodore Roosevelt, Charles W. Fairbanks, Thomas Collier Platt, and Alton B. Parker shake hands with farmers outside a tent labeled “The New Farmers’ Alliance.” Caption: Find the real farmers.

comments and context

Comments and Context

At first glance, this cartoon by J. S. Pughe can be viewed as a prosaic view of campaign-season politicians seeking the voters of farmers and the agrarian class. It is what politicians do, reaching out to all segments of the voting public. A chuckle can be raised by the depiction of politicians, even those in top hats, wearing farmers’ boots, trousers, and chore coats.

The significance of relevance of the cartoon, however, can be seen in the banner over the tent in the background: “The New Farmers’ Alliance” Party, a real political movement that mainstream political leaders wanted to attract.

Since the 1870s various American constituencies in the South, Midwest, and prairies — agrarian farmers, planters, and livestock ranchers — experienced booms and expansions, but also depressions and financial problems. Open spaces, land grants, and fertile soil were offset by myriad impediments, including poor planning; disruptions and dislocations after the Civil War; one-crop depletion of land; over-extension and under-capitalization; a population explosion mainly comprised of European immigrants; variable prices and high mortgages; droughts and blizzards; and unpredictable freight charges.

When agrarian discontent was able to coalesce and focus, starting most prominently with the Grange movement, it identified practices like tenant-farming and crop-lien arrangements that squeezed farmers; and the financial interests of big cities and banking representatives who offered, and foreclosed on, mortgages.

A thread, or family tree, of protest movements, social activists, and political pressure groups can be traced — and perhaps best profiled by the challenge of a Kansas activist, Mary Elizabeth Lease, who proclaimed: “We need to raise less corn and more hell!) — The Grange; the Greenback Party; The Farmers’ Alliance; The Northern Alliance; The Colored Farmers’ National Alliance and Cooperative Union; The Southern Alliance; The Texas Farmers’ State Alliance; The National Farmers’ Alliance and Industrial Union, The Agricultural Wheel; The Alliance of Colored Farmers; and the Knights of Reciprocity.

As the variety of economic conditions varied, especially during times of droughts, blizzards, and national depressions, these groups merged or morphed, and gradually grew more radical in their prescriptions. So did they generally grow increasingly savvy in political realms.

In the 1892 presidential elections, leaders and groups fielded candidates under the banner of the People’s Party, recently founded and nicknamed “Populists.” Candidates for national legislative and local offices scored successes, and drew support from both major political parties. The Populists grew yet further in strength when a major depression hit the United States in 1893; protests included a march on Washington and the adoption of economic panaceas, for instance the free coinage of silver, a proposal that would artificially inflate the currency and ease the debts of agrarian America.

In 1896 a Populist-minded Democratic congressman from Nebraska addressed his party’s nominating convention, and caused a stampede of support, and his sudden nomination for president. William Jennings Bryan’s “Cross of Gold” speech put currency reform and other Populist proposals on the nation’s agenda for nearly a decade. Bryan headed the Democratic and Populist tickets and lost to Republican William McKinley, but Bryan remained a force in his party, twice more the presidential nominee, and in national debates, adding anti-imperialism to his critiques. He died in 1924 immediately after his legal prosecution in the famous Creationist / Evolution Scopes Trial.

The Populists threatened the conservative East, and Wall Street. Its candidate James Weaver garnered nearly 10 per cent of the vote in 1892 and carried five states, and in the face of fanatical hostility by the Republican press and “Gold Democrats” like President Cleveland who rejected Bryan, the Nebraska candidate garnered a respectable vote total.

As Bryan’s Democratic Party absorbed many Populist planks (joined by some “Silver Republicans” who still advocated fiat currency), the Populists waned as a political force. The acceptance of some reforms by President Roosevelt also affected their strength.

In one last gasp of the independent agrarian entities, Thomas E. Watson of Georgia pulled remnants together and formed the “New Farmers’ Alliance” Party, with himself as the presidential nominee in 1904 — the subject of this cartoon, though Watson is not pictured — and 1908.

Despite the realistic portrayal of politicians’ general interest in co-opting the Farmer’s Alliance strength, there was little strength remaining to be wooed. The demise of the agrarian movements came at the hands of a general national prosperity; the inclusion of Populist critiques into Democrat and Republican orthodoxy; and reforms undertaken by Roosevelt, Republican Insurgents, Progressives, and eventually, the New Deal’s agenda and regulations.

Collection

Library of Congress Prints and Photographs

Creation Date

1904-08-10

Creator(s)

Pughe, J. S. (John S.), 1870-1909

Period

U.S. President – 1st Term (September 1901-February 1905)

Repository

Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division

Page Count

1

Record Type

Image

Resource Type

Cartoon

Rights

These images are presented through a cooperative effort between the Library of Congress and Dickinson State University. No known restrictions on publication.

Citation