3. Washington's Prophecy Fulfilled

Source: Anthony Weekly Bulletin (KS), March 30, 1894            

Populists opposed the greed and exploitation implicit in the reigning ideologies of social Darwinism, laissez-faire capitalism, and the gospel of wealth.  They were especially incensed by the growing wealth, power, and aristocratic pretensions of Plutocracy, which they considered a subversion of American republicanism.  In the 1890s, almost all European governments had some form of institutionalized privilege (monarchy, aristocracy, etc.).  America, on the other hand, symbolized republican equality and a fair opportunity for the less privileged.  In this cartoon, Populists invoke the warnings of Washington, Jefferson, and Lincoln about the degeneration from republican equality to plutocratic privilege that they see in late nineteenth century America. 

Cartoons used in this presentation that are drawn from the Anthony Weekly Bulletin, Kansas Populist, and Republic County Freeman were part of "boiler-plate" syndications (which also contained several news and propaganda items) that many smaller Populist newspapers used.  The National Reform Press Association (the organization of Populist editors), the A.N. Kellogg Co. of Kansas City, Missouri, and the Industrial Free Press of Caldwell and Winfield, Kansas (among others) regularly provided such pages.  They usually contained cartoons.

For more on Populism and republicanism:

Clanton, Gene. Populism: The Humane Preference in America. Boston: Twayne, 1991.

         . "Populism, Progressivism, and Equality: The Kansas Paradigm." Agricultural History. 51(3):559-81. 1977. 

Hahn, Stephen. The Roots of Southern Populism: Yeomen Farmers and the Transformation of Georgia's Upcountry, 1850-1890. 340 p. New York: Oxford University P, 1983.

McMath, Robert C., Jr. American Populism: A Social History, 1877-1898. New York: Hill and Wang, 1992.

Miller, Worth Robert. "A Centennial Historiography of American Populism." Kansas History: A Journal of the Central Plains 16, no. 1 (Spring 1993): 54-69

_____. Oklahoma Populism: A History of the People's Party in the Oklahoma Territory. Norman and London: U of Oklahoma P, 1987.

_____. "The Republican tradition," in William F. Holmes, American Populism. Problems in American Civilization Series. pp. 209-14. Lexington, MA: D.C. Heath & Co., 1994.  This chapter is drawn from the previous selection.

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