LAD #23 The Populist Party Platform

The Populist Party emerged as a "response to the growth of industrialism". The Populists opposed the concentrated capital of banks and big businesses and they criticized the negative effects that industrialization had on American society. In their eyes, industrialization had "to the verge of moral, political and material ruin"; the "fruits of the toils" of the "plain people" are stolen "to build up the colossal fortunes for a few, unprecedented in the history of mankind", causing the gap between the social classes to further widen. The value of silver has been "demonetized to add to the purchasing power of gold" yet what resulted was "falling prices, the formation of combines and rings, (and) the impoverishment of the producing class". As a progressive party, the Populist Party worked towards an end of "oppression, injustice, and poverty", and "equal rights and equal privileges securely established for all the men and women of" America.