AX ANALYSIS OF AGRICULTURAL DISCONTENT 

 IX THE UNITED STATES 



BY C. F. EMERICK 



(From the Political Science Quarterly, Vol. XI, September and December, 

 1896: Vol. XII, March, 1897) 



[ Many footnotes are omitted from this reprint. The reader is referred to the 

 original article. ED.] 



INTRODUCTION 



THE closing years of the nineteenth century are witnessing 

 the unusual spectacle of restless discontent on the part of 

 the tiller of the soil. Nearly every civilized country has its 

 agrarian problem in one form or another. In England few 

 expressions are more familiar than that of agricultural oppression. 

 Germany has a storm center of agrarian difficulties. Even the 

 peasants of France, concerning whose social contentment and 

 conservative influence in political affairs so much has been said, 

 have in recent years become aroused, and clamor for activity in 

 behalf of their interests on the part of the government. A simi- 

 lar state of affairs appears to exist among the farming classes of 

 the other nations of Europe. A writer in an English periodical 

 in 1893 thus sums up the situation : 



Almost everywhere, certainly in England, France, Germany, Italy, Scandi- 

 navia and the United States, the agriculturists, formerly so instinctively con- 

 servative, are becoming fiercely discontented, declare they have gained less by 

 rivili/ation than the rest of the community, and are looking about for remedies 

 astic nature In England they arc hoping for aid from councils of all 

 in France they have put on protect i A huh have bcu-n increased 



in vain twice over : in < x rmany they put on the relaxed similar duties, and are 

 screaming for them again, in .via Denmark more particularly 



they limit the aggregation of 1 i in the United States they create 



organizations like the Grangers, the Farmers* League, and the Populists. 



It has become customary to speak of the rural population as a 

 counterpoise in political affairs t<> ilu- artisans of the cities. Until 



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