From Populists to Progressives

2017-10-19

The 1896 Election



Grover Cleveland

William Jennings Bryan

Bryan

Bryan after the speech

Bryan's Whistlestop tour

William McKinley

1896: the stakes

Democrats (Bryan) Republicans (McKinley)
Silver (cheap money) Gold standard (strong money)
Lower tariffs to lower prices High Tariffs to protect industry
Anti-railroad, anti-monopoly Pro-business
Isolationist Imperialist: Annex and invade the world
Farmers and some laborers--party of segregation More diverse urban coalition

Mark Hannah, 1877.

Mark Hannah, 1896



The Porch




speakers

McKinley parade umbrella (?)

Legacy of 1896

  • A roundabout, 80-year path to fiat money
  • The accidental end of the long deflation
  • The rise of the (nearly) modern parties.
  • A weak democratic party
  • Recommitment to Republican imperialism
  • The extinction of Jefferson's idea of farmers

Legacy of 1896

  • A roundabout, 80-year path to fiat money
  • The accidental end of the long deflation
  • The rise of the (nearly) modern parties.
  • A weak democratic party
  • Recommitment to Republican imperialism
  • The extinction of Jefferson's idea of farmers

Legacy of 1896

  • A roundabout, 80-year path to fiat money
  • The accidental end of the long deflation
  • The rise of the (nearly) modern parties.
  • A weak democratic party
  • Recommitment to Republican imperialism
  • The extinction of Jefferson's idea of farmers

McKinley

Legacy of 1896

  • A roundabout, 80-year path to fiat money
  • The accidental end of the long deflation
  • The rise of the (nearly) modern parties.
  • A weak democratic party
  • Recommitment to Republican imperialism
  • A strategy for remaking a major political party through reform

From Populists to progressives

  • Franklin Roosevelt.

Rough Riders

Grape Nuts advertisement, c. 1895.

Frances Willard

Carrie Nation

Carrie Nation

Carrie Nation

Jane Addams and the Settlement movement.

Teddy Roosevelt

Teddy Roosevelt's vision of progressivism

Teddy Roosevelt

Teddy Roosevelt

The "Rough Riders"

Teddy Roosevelt as policeman 

Roosevelt at Osawatomie

The true friend of property, the true conservative, is he who insists that property shall be the servant and not the master of the commonwealth; who insists that the creature of man’s making shall be the servant and not the master of the man who made it. The citizens of the United States must effectively control the mighty commercial forces which they have called into being.

There can be no effective control of corporations while their political activity remains. To put an end to it will be neither a short nor an easy task, but it can be done.

Combinations in industry are the result of an imperative economic law which cannot be repealed by political legislation. The effort at prohibiting all combination has substantially failed. The way out lies, not in attempting to prevent such combinations, but in completely controlling them in the interest of the public welfare.