30.
The Gate to Honest Labor
Source:
Anthony Weekly Bulletin (KS), October 12, 1894
Many,
Populists and non-Populists alike, believed that apocalypse was near by 1894.
Unemployment, labor conflict, destitution was rampant.
The depression appeared to create a greater sympathy for the underdog and
greater currency for the humane ideals of Populism.
John
Sherman, Shylock, and Grover Cleveland, who Populists blamed for the distress,
peer out from behind the gate in this cartoon.
Sherman considered the Sherman Silver Purchase Act of 1890 to be a
compromise that allowed the United States to avoid commitment to "free
silver." He was a leader in
getting the act repealed in 1893.
For
more on Populism, Utopia, and Apocalypse, see:
Roemer, Kenneth M. The Obsolete Necessity: America
in Utopian Writings, 1888-1900. Kent: Kent State UP, 1976
Thomas, John L. Alternative America: Henry George,
Edward Bellamy, Henry Demarest Lloyd and the Adversary Tradition.
Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1983.
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