Populism failure
The movement was brought about due to financial and natural disasters which affected the farming community. The country was dealing with bad weather in the late 19th century. In the early 1880's there were severe droughts, while the winter of 1886-1887, had a great deal of blizzards. These national disasters led to a loss of crop and profit, it soon turned into debt. Due to a great amount of debt that the farmers acquired over the years, they were forced to sell their farms to big business. The majority of the time these farmers stayed on their land and farmed as tenant farmers, keeping a certain amount of crop for their families and giving the remaining to the owner for profit. Because of these hardships, the small farmers felt that they needed to be hear in the government. In 1892, the Omaha Platform, known as the Populist Party, formed a independent third party. The party was involved in two Presidential elections, 1892 and 1894, but then dissolved. Why did the Populists fail in their effort to secure power? The answer comes in three parts: lack of effort or time, William James Bryan, and the viewpoin
t of silver.For the first presidential election, the Populists nominated a man by the name of James B Weaver. In this election, he received 1 million popular votes along with 22 electoral votes. This was a pretty good showing considering they were a new party. Unfortunately for the member of the party, the leaders didn't think it was good enough. In the next election, 1896, the Populist Party departed from its third party status and joined the Democratic Party. In this election, the Populists followed the Democrats lead and nominated William James Bryan. By joining the Democrats so early in the life of the party, they did not give themselves a chance to prosper in politics. The lack of effort and time that the party leaders put in was not a sufficient amount. They should have stayed with the third party philosophy for a longer period of time.In 1986, when the Populists followed the Democrats by nominating Bryan for the Presidency, they made another crucial mistake which led to their downfall. Bryan was a 36 year old farmer/lawyer from Nebraska. Many people criticized him for not being an extremely intell
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Approximate Word count = 754
Approximate Pages = 3 (250 words per page double spaced)
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