The acceptance of these demands helped the supporters of the Populist Party because during the 1870s and 1880s the American agricultural community suffered from innumerable problems as the United States became urban and industrial. Farmers first sought to solve their own problems through the economic cooperatives founded by the Grange. When these self-help programs proved a failure, farmers began to demand that government respond to their plight.
The political and economic planks of the Populist platform came directly from the Ocala Demands of the Farmers Alliance - the sub treasury program, the free coinage of silver, an end to protective tariffs on manufactured goods, the abolition of national banks, a progressive federal income tax, the direct election of U. S. senators, and the regulation of railroads or their outright nationalization by the federal government.
The Populist party demand that the federal government abandon its laissez-faire policy and take some limited responsibility for the social well-being of American citizens.
