Donnelly wrote this for the normal people, and is speaking for the people’s rights in this article. The government was giving nothing to the hard working. Lease spoke of a personal story about her family loosing land, which was pathos and an emotional way to convince readers to agree with the Populist Party. According to The Omaha Platform: Launching the Populist Party, the authors believe the power should be with the people. Even the way this document is formatted shows it’s logos and logic. The preamble expresses the feelings more, the platform expresses what actions should be taken to change the government (their demands), and the expression of sentiments explains more resolved feelings. It is organized and each point is supported. This party also wanted to protect their property from big corporations. When talking about corporations the words, “tramps and millionaires” is used to sway emotions towards those words. The author targeted people who were suffering economically, so it was convincing to me and probably people then, because everyone wants help and a voice when they are in need. This is significant to our history because of it’s impact on people’s opinions surrounding freedom, and how much power the government and people should have.
(sorry it is late, hopefully you will grade it still!)
I also agree with your assessment of this primary source, the party tried its best to convey that it was for peoples rights, especially common farmers. which is fitting since the movement emerged out of the farmers alliance in 1880. The way this was written was very logical and made sense in its order of the parties agenda. Its significant in history because it represents people coming together to express their opinions.
ReplyDeleteI thought it was interesting that in the beginning of the article they complained that our government was corrupt and ineffective, yet they are requesting more government control. I would suggest they are looking for a government representative of the people. The people being the majority which are the plain laborers. Our world would be a very different place had these ideas caught on and been implemented. Unfortunately the elite few still control the world.
ReplyDeleteI agree with you, Kerry, about the requesting government control thing. But maybe they just wanted the government to control more in the sense of doing what the Constitution said they should be doing. Like ensuring domestic tranquility. Seeing that the rich were rich and the poor were poor, tranquility probably isn't going to exist. The poor will be mad that they aren't getting what they deserve for all the hard work they want, and the rich will get all scared that their "hard earned fortunes" will be taken from them. Anyways... I pretty much agree with everything you guys are saying. The party just wants the country to fix itself and live more in line with the Constitution. I think we still need to change the country and do that... The country was built on it, so why do we keep straying farther and farther away from it. I think it's completely unfair and ridiculous that the 1%, so to speak, have all this power. Then and still do. It's not right. The country needs to change - hence the Occupy movements. This document makes it clear their opinions on how corrupt and out of line the country had gotten.
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