14. How to Lift the Burden from Labor   

Source:  Kansas Populist (Cherryvale, KS), October 18, 1895

The term, "Non-Interest Bonds," meant greenbacks (paper money not backed by silver or gold), which Populists and their forerunner third parties, the Greenback and Union Labor parties, advocated.  If labor alone created wealth (according to the labor theory of value), then money was only a method of keeping count, and could be made of anything.  All major industrialized nations today accept the idea that money need not be backed by precious metals.  But, the idea was controversial during the late nineteenth century.  The man labeled "Populist Party" in this illustration is Jacob Coxey.  He led a poor people's march on Washington, DC in 1894.  This cartoon was originally drawn for Coxey's newspaper, Sound Money.

For more on Coxey, see:

Schwantes, Carlos A.  Coxey's Army: An American Odyssey. Lincoln: U of Nebraska P, 1985.

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