Chapter 13 Section 4 Populism By: Megan Stone, Chris Restivo, and Kris Florer

Populism - Movement to increase farmers' political power and to work for legislation in their interest. -Farmers joined the Populist movement because they were in the midst of an economic crisis.

- Populism was good because it attempted to raise the political power of farmers -Farmers thought adjusting the money supply would solve their economic problems

William Jennings Bryan -A strong supporter of silver -He was nominated because the Democrats did not waiver on the silver. -He was a former member of Congress in Nebraska -38 years old when the democrats and the populists nominated him for president.

-He was a very powerful speaker -Won the Democratic Nomination by delivering an electrifying address in defense of silver -One of the most famous in American political history.

William Jennings Bryan

Grange -The first national farm organization, The Patrons of Husbandry, better known as the Grange, in They responded to the economic crisis by pressuring state legislatures to regulate railroad and warehouse rates -Also tried to create cooperatives

Cooperatives - Marketing organizations -They try to increase prices and lower costs for their members

The Farmers Alliance -One of the goals of the organization was to end the adverse effects of the crop-lien system on farmers in the period following the American Civil War. -The Alliance also generally supported the government regulation of the transportation industry, establishment of an income tax to better speculative profits, and the adoption of an inflationary relaxation of the nation's money supply as a means of easing the burden of repayment of loans by debtors. The Farmers' Alliance moved into politics in the early 1890s under the banner of the People's Party, commonly known as the "Populists."

-The Subtreasury Land and Loan System was a plan advocated by the National Farmers' Alliance and Industrial Union and the People's party in the early 1890s. It proposed a federal solution to the problem of agricultural credit. -Depressed staple prices and tight money had forced many farmers into debt. In order to secure the credit necessary to see them through the agricultural year, farmers had to execute liens on crops or land on most unfavorable terms.

-In 1889, Charles Macune of the Farmers' Alliance proposed that the federal government establish "subtreasury" offices and storage facilities in counties selling more than $500,000 worth of agricultural products annually. -Farmers could deposit "imperishable" commodities--cotton, wheat, corn, oats, barley, rye, rice, tobacco, wool, or sugar-- and in return be loaned government legal tender notes, at 1 percent interest, for up to 80 percent of their crops' value. The proposal was later amended to provide similar loans secured by land.