1896: A Populist Insurgency in America’s First Gilded Age

Abstract

1896: A Populist Insurgency in America’s First Gilded Age Katherine Unterman (bio) The last time I taught the class “America in the Gilded Age,” I read my students two quotes. One came from a newspaper editorial in the 1890s. The other came from Bernie Sanders in 2015. When guessing which was which, about half of the students got it wrong. The first quote read: “Ninety nine percent of the people of the United States feel that they have a standing grievance against the other one percent because of the excessive inequality in the distribution of wealth [. . .] As this inequality is continually growing greater [. . .] we are drifting toward a revolution.” While this statement could have come straight out of Sanders’ mouth, it is actually from 1891, in the midst of the period that historians call the Gilded Age. Some commentators have called the contemporary era a “Second Gilded Age” because of the similarly growing gap between the richest and the poorest members of society. The term “Gilded Age” comes from a book co-authored by Mark Twain, and the name says a lot about the 1880s and 1890s. It was not the golden age; it was the gilded age. Something that is gilded is gold on the surface, but worthless or rotten underneath. Likewise, the last two decades of the 19th century saw famous “captains of industry” like John D. Rockefeller and Andrew Carnegie accumulating vast fortunes and living in opulent mansions. These were the country’s first billionaires; they were some of the richest men not just of their day, but in modern history. However, underneath the shiny surface, the workers in the steel mills and oil refineries were living in poverty. They resided in crowded tenements and worked long hours, in dangerous conditions, for low pay. The average income for 11 million of the nation’s 12 million families was $380 annually. In 1896, the country was in the third year of a major economic depression. Unemployment nationally was around 15%, even higher in major cities. Farmers were struggling just as much. Throughout the 1890s, they faced falling crop prices, exorbitant railroad rates, high interest on their debts, and costly charges to store their crops. Farmers were barely hanging on before the economic depression, and by 1896, many were on the brink of starvation. Thousands went bankrupt and had to auction off their farms to pay their debts. [End Page 26] Meanwhile, the government was staunchly opposed to the idea of doing anything to help the disadvantaged. President Grover Cleveland, upon vetoing a bill to provide aid to drought-stricken farmers in Texas, said, “I find no warrant for such an appropriation in the Constitution, and I do not believe that the power and the duty of the General Government ought to be extended to the relief of individual suffering.” Later he stated, more succinctly, that government functions “do not include the support of the people.” This was the era of Social Darwinism, and the economic counterpoint to “survival of the fittest” was “laissez faire.” In other words, leave capitalism unregulated and let the free market reign. Government action to help struggling workers and farmers was considered counterproductive and morally wrong. However, an insurgency was brewing from below. Calling themselves “Populists,” impoverished wheat farmers from the West and cotton farmers from the South banded together in their opposition to Wall Street and economic elites. The Populists had a novel demand: that when the people were suffering, the government should step in and help. “Man over money” was their refrain. In 1891, they formally organized a third party, the People’s Party. At the top of their program, called the Omaha Platform: abandoning the gold standard and adding silver as “legal tender.” At this point in time, all currency was redeemable in gold, so the amount of money in circulation was dependent upon the amount of gold in the treasury. By making bills also redeemable in silver (with 16 ounces of silver worth 1 ounce of gold), this would increase the money supply. Farmers wanted this because they believed that, with more money in circulation, they would earn more for their crops and would be able to...