Rainfall and the Populist Party in Nebraska

The significance of Populism is being increasingly recognized. In this day of independent voting, and of the “farm bloc,†it is unnecessary to stimulate interest in this phase of American political, economic, and agricultural history. Although its term of life was short and turbid, its relation to other movements and questions gives it importance beyond that which it would otherwise enjoy.Many have endeavored to explain its rise. To some it represented an outpouring of the dangerous elements of the frontier combined with the beginnings of socialistic and anarchistic tendencies in the cities. An English observer characterized the supporters of Bryan in 1896 as the “forces of political and social revolution.†A western editorial writer wrote that ninety per cent of the leaders of the Populist Party were “destitute of personal or political integrity†and classed them as “vagabonds, slanderers, and demagogues.â€