Unit VIII: "Waves of Reform" ca 1880s to 1921
Question/Problem 1: What were the political, economic, and social reforms that shaped America?
Directions: Read the excerpts from the 1892 platform of the Populist party and answer the questions that follow.
We meet in the midst of a nation brought to the verge of moral, political, and material ruin. Corruption dominates the ballot box, the legislatures, the Congress, and touches even the... bench.... The newspapers are largely subsidized or muzzled, public opinion silenced, business prostrated, homes covered with mortgages, labor impoverished, and the land concentrating in the hands of capitalists. The urban workmen are denied the right to organize for self- protection, imported pauperized labor beats down their wages, a hireling standing army, unrecognized by our laws, is established to shoot them down, and they are rapidly degenerating into European conditions. The fruits of the toil of millions are boldly stolen to build up colossal fortunes for a few, unprecedented in the history of mankind and the possessors of these in turn despise the Republic and endanger liberty. From the same prolific womb of governmental injustice we breed the two great classes-- tramps and millionaires....
From Richard B. Morris and James Woodress, eds., Voices from America's Past, vol. II (New York: E.P. Dutton and Co., Inc., 1963), p. 251.
Answer the following question on a separate sheet of paper.