Food Prices, Democratic Political Gains, and Legislation, 1911–1914

Although historians have recognized to some extent the role that rising prices played in Democratic and insurgent Republican successes in 1910, few have followed the pervasive influence that the high-cost-of-living issue exerted in the ongoing partisan and interest-group contests of the late Progressive era. The underlying interest-group differences were not clear-cut, of course. The 1910 meat boycotts drew both working-class and middle-class support. Farmers resisted seeing themselves as prosperous producers, complaining of their costs and losses, and as consumers farmers bought merchandise ranging from dry goods and flour to wagons and kerosene. But no politician seeking to appeal nationwide could ignore the general pattern. Farm commodity prices were up, and farm spokesmen harbored dire suspicions that city folk wanted farmers to overproduce and bring back cheap food.