Populists made the subtreasury a signature reform because they believed it would deal a deathblow to the Southern crop-lien system, stabilize farm prices, and inflate the currency. Even so, it too demanded not only government intervention but also political action from a movement that had sought to be nonpartisan. Charles Macune had introduced the subtreasury plan in 1889. The government would build warehouses, or subtreasuries, in the major agricultural counties of the nation. Farmers could deposit their crops there so they would not have to sell at harvest, when prices were lowest. They
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