The troubles of family farmers go back at least to the Civil War. The gold standard, the crop lien system, the dust bowl, the Great Depression, the Mc Carthy era and federal farm policy have all conspired to drive small farmers from the land.
Tom Allen
Produced in 2002 following the untimely death of Paul Wellstone. This program is evergreen. Feel free to rebroadcast but kindly drop me a line.
At the end of the Civil War monitary policy gradually contracted the money supply causing a 50-year decline in prices. Harvest-time crop prices often didn't cover costs. Farmers mortgaged farms to cover loans for seed and supplies. Debts mounted and repeated financial panics bankrupted many. By the end of the great depression a large fraction of farmers were tenants or farm laborors on land they once owned. Populism had been their attempt to remake public policy. Born in Texas, the populist movement created co-ops, pushed for monitary reform (free silver), debt moritoriums and price supports. But by the time of FDR's New Deal it was too little, too late. The last bastion of Populism was Minnisota's Democratic Farmer Labor Party and the Democratic Party in Washington State. Jim Hightower's Rolling Thunder is an attempt to rekindle the old Populist spirit.
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