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In joining the ranks of the revolutionaries, the young Jews were less actuated by resentment against the continued, though somewhat mitigated, rightlessness of their own people than by discontent with the general political reaction in Russia, that discontent which found expression in the movement of "Populism," of "Going to the People," and similar currents then in vogue.
The real question at issue is not whether the miracles be fact or fable; Mahomet, the duly ordained prophet of Allah, or an ignorant adventurer; Jonah, a delegate of the Deity or the father of Populism whether Christ was born of an earthly father or drew his vigor direct from the loins of omnipotent God. Let us leave these details to the dogmatists, these non-essentials to the sectarians.
With the year 1890 interest shifts from social to political organization, from Alliances to Populism. Alliances, wheels, leagues all the agrarian organizations which multiplied during the eighties gave tangible form to the underlying unrest created by the economic conditions of that superficially prosperous decade.
It was also radical, up-rooting many aspects of its old social pattern, speeding up the bourgeois revolution, and preparing the way for a Mexican form of populism and a Mexican foretaste of a proletarian revolution, initiated, led and manned by Mexicans. Mexico's revolution resulted in two important developments that have played a major role in socialist construction.
The woman-suffragists of the Prohibition party left the rock- ribbed champion that had put a Suffrage plank in every platform for years, in order to go with Free Silver and Populism of the most extravagant type. These parties also had Suffrage planks.
The fundamental article of faith of the Jewish socialists was cosmopolitanism, and they failed to discern in Russian "Populism" the underlying elements of a Russian national movement. Jewry was not believed to be a nation, and as a religious entity it was looked upon as a relic of the past, which was doomed to disappearance.
In our late crucial election, Wyoming and its woman suffrage gave their voices for Populism and Free Coinage. The scale hung in the balance. Why, if woman is a greater political power for good than man, did she not turn it for the principles which the State had held were best?
It remained to be seen whether the victors would attempt to study and meet the complaints of the farmer and the wage earner; whether the new Republican leaders would be able to preserve the laissez faire attitude toward the railroads and the corporations; and whether the forces of dissent represented in Populism and radical Democracy had received a death blow or only a rebuff.
The free coinage of silver, which was the chief demand of Populism, was also the ardent desire of a majority of the people west of the Alleghanies, irrespective of their political affiliations. Nothing seemed more logical, then, than the union of all silver men to enforce the adoption of their program. There was great diversity of opinion, however, as to the best means of accomplishing this union.
In eastern Kansas, where settlement was older, the pressure of hard times was withstood with less difficulty. It was in western Kansas, by the way, that Populism had its strongest following; and, after the election of 1892, a movement to separate the State into two commonwealths received serious consideration. * G. T. Fairchild, Pol. Se. Q., vol. 11, p. 614.
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