The Populist Party In The 1890's

These principles can be seen throughout the writings of the political thinkers of the 1890’s and illuminate how this category of thought is familiar to the American life.
Ignatius Donnelly, a social reformer who helped establish the Populist party in 1892, heavily criticised the oligarchical society that took advantage of the large, impoverished working class. To this ailment he offers the solution by stating that government should not be viewed “as a divine something which has fallen down upon us out of heaven, and therefore not to be improved upon or even criticised” instead, government is a “human device to secure human happiness, and in itself has no more sacredness than a wheelbarrow or a cooking pot” (790). Donnelly stresses that the

He uses religious metaphors to emphasize that Americans need to resist the vast and well-equipped oppressors such as the time when Moses parted the Red Sea and the people were left with no choice but to either cross the parted sea and close upon their “pursuers, or a life and death struggle will ensue between oppressors and oppressed - between those who would destroy and enslave and those who are seeking to enter into the inheritance prepared for them by a beneficent Father” (795). Weaver emphasises that currently in society, men have been reduced to slaves who are victims of corporate feudal powers and unless the common people do not acknowledge this slave relationship to the corporations, then more chaos will ensue. We, as human beings of God, should know through our history and past experience to steer clear of this danger by resisting the vast and well-equipped oppressors. This religious metaphor takes inspiration from Providentialism with the idea that Americans are living in a biblical epic and hence must act as moral agents for the sake of furthering God’s plan. Therefore, this biblical language and tone are familiar to Americans, therefore, easier for Americans to digest. Weaver also reiterates the vast difference “between the generation which made the heroic struggle for Self-government in

In his famous Cross of Gold speech, Bryan uses a religious element to discuss the labour theory of economics and to illustrate the moral decline of the government.The true Americans are the “hardy pioneers who have braved all the dangers of the wilderness, who have made the desert to blossom as the rose- the pioneers away out there who rear their children near to Nature’s heart”. Not the … “few financial magnates who, in a back room, corner the money of the world”(811). This is what Bryan considers a problem in the United States. The true businessmen, the farmers and miners, who use their God-given talents, muscle and brain, to create wealth are being overlooked by the capitalists who call themselves businessmen. He affirms that the real hard-working Christians are being taken advantage of by the idle capitalists who do not work and just move the money around. These idle capitalists go against his theory of labour and economics where labour produces wealth. Bryan worries that if this trend continues American jobs will eventually be taken by the “yellows” and the “ scheming Jews”. Bryans uses Christian terms to dramatise the businessmen as villains who are pressing down the “brow of labour” a “crown of thorns” similar to how men had crucified Jesus Christ. He highlights that