136 THE AGRARIAN CRUSADE 



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 that's what 

 came of it. ... The main question is the money 

 question. . . . We want money, land, and transpor- 

 tation. We want the abolition of the National Banks, 

 and we want the power to make loans directly from the 

 Government. We want the accursed foreclosure sys- 

 tem wiped out. Land equal to a tract 30 miles wide 

 and 90 miles long has been foreclosed and bought in by 

 loan companies of Kansas in a year. . . . The people 

 are at bay, and the blood-hounds of money who have 

 dogged us thus far beware ! 



A typical feature of this campaign in Kansas was 

 the contest between Jerry Simpson and Colonel 

 James R. Hallowell for a seat in Congress. Simp- 

 son nicknamed his fastidious opponent "Prince 

 Hal" and pointed to his silk stockings as an evi- 

 dence of aristocracy. Young Victor Murdock, 

 then a cub reporter, promptly wrote a story to the 

 effect that Simpson himself wore no socks at all. 

 "Sockless Jerry," "Sockless Simpson," and then 

 "Sockless Socrates" were sobriquets then and 

 thereafter applied to the stalwart Populist. Simp- 

 son was at this time forty-eight years old, a mar 

 with a long, square-jawed face, his skin tanned by 



