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populist protest

 

            "The Populist Protest" is written by James MacGregor Burns in which he recounts the story of the Populist crusade, basically pointing out how it broke down racial barriers in the South and attracted talented women orators and activists in Kansas. He further emphasized in the important of liberty that was populism's energizing force.
             The crop lien system, tight money and the rest of the farmers" ills nothing but seemed impersonal to the eastern city dweller. The system thus meant loss of liberty, as farmer became shackled to one crop and one merchant. The key to Alliance power was not organization but leadership from skilled and experienced personals. There were many sound alliance lecturers like William Lamb, Charles Macune. Macune was elected as the first president of National Farmers" Alliance and Cooperative Union. On the other hand there were women leaders who attracted even more attention than the men in Kansas. "Women who never dreamed of becoming public speakers," wrote Annie Diggs, "grew eloquent in their zeal and fervor." Fanny McCormick, Sarah Emery and Diggs were all prominent women leaders of their times. Led by such women and men champions, propelled by acute needs and high hopes, the Kansas Populists roared to a sensational victory in 1890. And thus the "first People's party government on Earth" was inaugurated in Topeka at the start of 1893. The idea of liberty had been the animating impulse behind the Alliance. Each group had taken a different meaning of liberty but more than any group the Alliance had made liberty into a positive idea. However populism was short-lived as a third-party movement. On the National level Democrats stole much of the Populist" appeal when they nominated Williams Jennings Bryan, a reformer and a westerner, for president in the campaign of 1896. but populism had a lasting effect on American politics. It helped usher in a new era of reform in the United States.


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