Agrarian Discontent In The Late 1800s Essays - Free Essays

Agrarian Discontent In The Late 1800s Essays - Free Essays Agrarian Discontent in the Late 1800's "Why the Farmers Were Wrong" The period between 1880 and 1900 was a boom time for American politics. The country was for once free of the threat of war, and many of its citizens were living comfortably. However, as these two decades went by, the American farmer found it harder and harder to live comfortably. Crops such as cotton and wheat, once the bulwark of agriculture, were selling at prices so low that it was nearly impossible for farmers to make a profit off them. Furthermore, improvement in transportation allowed foreign competition to materialize, making it harder for American farmers to dispose of surplus crop. Finally, years of drought in the midwest and the downward spiral of business in the 1890's devastated many of the nation's farmers. As a result of the agricultural depression, many farm groups, most notably the Populist Party, arose to fight what farmers saw as the reasons for the decline in agriculture. During the last twenty years of the nineteenth century, many farmers in the United States saw monopolies and trusts, railroads, and money shortages and the demonetization of silver as threats to their way of life, though in many cases their complaints were not valid. The growth of the railroad was one of the most significant elements in American economic growth. However, in many ways, the railroads hurt small shippers and farmers. Extreme competition between rail companies necessitated some way to win business. To do this, many railroads offered rebates and drawbacks to larger shippers who used their rails. However, this practice hurt smaller shippers, including farmers, for often times railroad companies would charge more to ship products short distances than they would for long trips. The rail companies justified this practice by asserting that if they did not rebate, they would not make enough profit to stay in business. In his testimony to the Senate Cullom Committee, George W. Parker stated, "...the operating expense of this road...requires a certain volume of business to meet these fixed expenses....in some seasons of the year, the local business of the road...is not sufficient to make the earnings...when we make up a train of ten of fiftee n cars of local freight...we can attach fifteen or twenty cars...of strictly through business. We can take the latter at a very low rate than go without it." Later, when asked the consequences of charging local traffic the same rate as through freight, Mr. Parker responded, "Bankruptcy, inevitably and speedy...". While the railroads felt that they must use this practice to make a profit, the farmers were justified in complaining, for they were seriously injured by it. A perfect example of this fact can be found in The Octopus by Frank Norris. A farmer named Dyke discovers that the railroad has increased their freight charges from two to five cents a pound. This new rate, "...ate up every cent of his gains. He stood there ruined." (Doc. H). The railroads regularly used rebates and drawbacks to help win the business of large shippers, and made up this loss in profit by increasing the cost to smaller shippers such as farmers. As a result, many farmers, already hurt by the downslide in agriculture, were ruined. Thus, the farmers of the late nineteenth century had a valid complaint against railroad shippers, for these farmers were hurt by the unfair practices of the railroads. Near the end of the nineteenth century, business began to centralize, leading to the rise of monopolies and trusts. Falling prices, along with the need for better efficiency in industry, led to the rise of such companies as Carnegie Steel and Standard Oil, which controlled a majority of the nation's supply of raw steel and oil respectively. The rise of these monopolies and trusts concerned many farmers, for they felt that the disappearance of competition would lead to erratic and unreasonable price rises that would hurt consumers. James B. Weaver, the Populist party's presidential candidate in the 1892 election, summed up the feelings of many Americans of the period in his work, A Call to Action: An Interpretation of the Great Uprising. He wrote, "It is clear that trusts are...in conflict with the Common law. They are monopolies organized to

Eustreptospondylus - Facts and Figures

Eustreptospondylus - Facts and Figures Name: Eustreptospondylus (Greek for true well-curved vertebrae); pronounced YOU-strep-toe-SPON-dih-luss Habitat: Shores of Western Europe Historical Period: Middle Jurassic (165 million years ago) Size and Weight: About 30 feet long and two tons Diet: Meat Distinguishing Characteristics: Large size; sharp teeth; bipedal posture; curved vertebrae in spine About Eustreptospondylus Eustreptospondylus (Greek for true well-curved vertebrae) had the misfortune of being discovered in the mid-19th century, before scientists had developed a suitable system for the classification of dinosaurs. This large theropod was originally believed to be a species of Megalosaurus (the first dinosaur ever to be officially named); it took a full century for paleontologists to recognize that its unusually curved vertebrae merited assignment to its own genus. Because the skeleton of the only known fossil specimen of Eustreptospondylus was recovered from marine sediments, experts believe that this dinosaur hunted prey along the shores of the small islands that (in the middle Jurassic period) dotted the coast of southern England. Despite its difficult-to-pronounce name, Eustreptospondylus is one of the most important dinosaurs ever to be discovered in western Europe, and deserves to be better known by the general public. The type specimen (of a not-quite-fully-grown adult) was discovered in 1870 near Oxford, England, and until later discoveries in North America (notably of Allosaurus and Tyrannosaurus Rex) counted as the worlds most complete skeleton of a meat-eating dinosaur. At 30 feet long and up to two tons, Eustreptospondylus remains one of the largest identified theropod dinosaurs of Mesozoic Europe; for example, another famous European theropod, Neovenator, was less than half its size! Perhaps because of its English provenance, Eustreptospondylus was prominently featured a few years ago in a notorious episode of Walking With Dinosaurs, produced by the BBC. This dinosaur was depicted as capable of swimming, which may not be so far-fetched, given that it lived on a small island and may occasionally have had to venture far afield to forage for prey; more controversially, in the course of the show one individual is swallowed whole by the giant marine reptile Liopleurodon, and later (as nature comes full circle) two adult Eustreptospondylus are shown feasting on a beached Liopleurodon carcass. (We do, by the way, have good evidence for swimming dinosaurs; recently, it was proposed that the giant theropod Spinosaurus spent most of its time in the water.)