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History of the Populist Movement

 

            During the period of the early nineteenth century, farmers lost their economic independence and that became the beginning of the Populist Movement. And then the populist movement politically oriented coalition of agrarian reformers in the Middle West and South that advocated a wide range of economic and political legislation in the late 19th century. In this paper, I will identify the statement of the populist movement base on research of the authors John D. Hicks and Richard Hofstadter.
             John D. Hicks said that to the upper and middle classes, more had been given than to the lower, to the city dweller far more than to his country kinsman. The farmer had good reason to believe, as he did believe, that he worked longer hours, under more adverse conditions, and with smaller compensation for his labor than any other man on earth (Hicks, 118). In early nineteenth, the farmer worked hard, but got less income. The farmers did not blame the effect of the market on themselves. The country treated the people living in the cities much better than the people living in the countries. The upper and middle class got richer day by day, but the poor people needed to work daily harder to even survival. Not politician only but many others who studied the question held that overproduction was the root of the evil. (Hicks, 120) The overproduction became the biggest reason of the farmer's problem as many of the people thought. Others do not think the farmers should blame the problem on themselves, because the farmers over produced too many. Western farmers blamed many of their troubles upon the railroads (Hicks, 121). The railroad became the target that farmers to blame at. Because of the railroad needed the farmers to pay too much money to go through. That contributed to the reason why farmers had decreased income. Taxation added a heavy burden to the load of the farmer. (Hicks, 128) The taxation made the farmer got less income after they paid off the taxation.


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