Mary E. Lease, The Money Question (1892)

“Money rules… The parties lie to us and the political speakers mislead us. We were told two years ago to work and raise a big crop, that was all we needed. We went to work and plowed and planted ; the rains fell, the sun shone, nature smiled, and we raised the big crop that they told us to; and what came of it? Eight-cent corn, ten-cent oats, two-cent beef, and no price at all for butter and eggs-thats what came of it.”

One of the most active and passionate woman during the populist movement was Mary E. Lease. Mary urged farmers to “raise less corn and more hell!”  Farmers were told to raise big crops by the parties only to learn that they were deceived into working a lot harder. After all the farmers hard work what came out of it was eight-cent corn, ten-cent oats, two-cent beef and nothing for butter and eggs. The farmers were told by the politicians that them that they suffered from overproduction but 10,000 little children starved to death and 100,000 shop girls in New York are forced to sell their virtue for the bread. The farmers were making barely enough money to survive. The Santa Fe Railroad and loan companies were just robbing the common people to make the rich richer. Mary E. Lease wanted to motivate them to fight for what belongs to them, go all out and do not give in. The people will refuse to work and pay their debts until the government pays its debt to them. Her speeches helped the farmers stop working like slaves and they also warned the government, letting them know that they were done being abused by the rich and their “masters” and they were done being controlled by the government. The country was done being run by wall street and it was going back to the peoples control. The time of people being abused is over.