AN ANALYSIS OF AGRICULTURAL DISCONTENT 

 IN 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 

 civilization than the rest of the community, and are looking about for remedies 

 of a drastic nature. In England they are hoping for aid from councils of all 

 kinds ; in France they have put on protective duties which have been increased 

 in vain twice over ; in Germany they put on the relaxed similar duties, and are 

 screaming for them again ; in Scandinavia Denmark more particularly 

 they limit the aggregation of land ; and 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 to the artisans of the cities. Until 



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