Farmer DBQ essays

Farmer DBQ essays During the span of 1880-1900 farmers began to feel as if their ways of life were being threatened. Farmers felt that a competition with railroads in monopolies and trusts, currency circulation shortage, and the powerful forces of Mother Nature seemed to be putting them in debt or even out of business. However, not all of the currency circulation shortage complaints could be brought up against the government, monopolies, and trusts. Over production, and bad weather accounted for these problems, which made the farmers complaint's not completely valid. Competition was a major contributing factor to farmer discontent. Farmers were constantly competing with monopolies and trusts. Railroads were putting most farmers in the brink of bankruptcy. Groups formed to help the farmers like The Grange tried to get some relief from monopolies, but they were just too influential. It came to a halt when the Wabash case made by the Supreme Court said that groups like the Grange had no power to regulate interstate commerce. (f) Monopolies were dictating the way the farming industry was as a whole. (h) Farmers sent their products all over the country in order to receive profit, but it was virtually impossible to ever make any money when the charge for use of the railroad system, was more than the farmer could make. (g) Still, the railroads saw nothing morally wrong with charging the farmers in the way they did. The government tried to help out by establishing The Sherman-Anti Trust Act, and the Interstate Commerce Act. The Sherman-Anti trust ac t was intended to help farmers mobilize against monopolies such as the railroad system, but was not very successful. The Interstate Commerce Act was made to stabilize the economy, helping the farmers avoid the railroad warpath, but only foreshadowed doom in the government trying to protect a private enterprise. The farmers w ...