13 mar 1892 ano - Rise of the Populists: Omaha Platform, Election of 1892 (POL, WXT)

Descrição:

Tired of the concentration of economic and political power held by trust and bankers, the farmers and less affluent Americans in The Alliance movement came together to form the People’s or Populist Party. In 1892, under the Populist party, delegates from different states would meet in Omaha, Nebraska, to develop a political platform and nominate candidates for office under the Populist Party. This convention is known as the Omaha Platform. In these conventions, the economic and political demands of the Populist party would be established. The Populist party demands for political change were to have popular direct voting to choose Senators of the United States, utilize initiatives, general votes by the electorate on specific political questions, and procedures that would allow citizens to directly vote on political issues. For economic reform, the People’s party demanded an unlimited collective of silver coins, a reformed income tax, government ownerships of infrastructure like railroads and telegraph systems, development of loans and federal warehouses in order for farmers to place more profitable prices on crops, and an 8 hour work day for industry workers. The movement of the populist party was seen, at the time, as being revolutionary as it challenged the economics of a capitalist government and encouraged a bond between poor whites and poor blacks. In fact, the Populust party gained a great amount of attention, exemplified by their gains in the election of 1892. The populist party racked up more than one million popular votes and was the first third party in U.S. history to gain electoral votes (22 electoral votes). Despite their attention, the election of 1892 would be between president Harrison and former president Cleveland. In their rematch at the election of 1892, Cleveland would win the popular and electoral votes, making Cleveland the first president to leave office and be admitted into office again after leaving.

Party of Patches: The image depicts politicians on a hot air balloon called the platform of lunacy which is an insult to the Omaha platform that led to the creation of the Populist party or the people’s party. The populist party is an accumulation of ideologies from different groups and associations as one political union. The artist captures this accumulation of ideologies by titling each patch that forms the hot air balloon the title of a group like the Knights of Labor or the old greenback party. One of the main reasons the populist party may have been depicted as lunatics is because of some precedence to this political party such as the association to socialism. At this time most people did not know what socialism was but big businesses attributed it to creation of unions to which the populist party supported. In other words, the populist party was seen as a radical to some people usually the wealthy who wished to keep the workers tamed.

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