THE PEOPLE'S PARTY LAUNCHED 137 



exposure on shipboard, in the army, and on the 

 farm, and his mustache cut in a straight line over a 

 large straight mouth. He wore clerical eyeglasses 

 and unclerical clothes. His opponents called him 

 clownish; his friends declared him Lincolnesque. 

 Failing to make headway against him by ridicule, 

 the Republicans arranged a series of joint debates 

 .between the candidates; but the audience at the 

 first meeting was so obviously partial to Simpson 

 that Hallo well refused to meet him again. The sup- 

 porters of the "sockless" statesman, though less 

 influential and less prosperous than those of Hallo- 

 well, proved more numerous and triumphantly elect- 

 ed him to Congress. In Washington he acquitted 

 himself creditably and was perhaps disappointingly 

 conventional in speech and attire. 



The outcome of this misery, disgust, anger, and 

 hatred on the part of the people of Kansas focused 

 by shrewd common sense and rank demagogism, 

 was the election of five Populist Congressmen and 

 a large Populist majority in the lower house of 

 the state legislature; the Republican state offi- 

 cers were elected by greatly reduced majorities. 

 In Nebraska, the People's Independent party ob- 

 tained a majority of the members of the legislature 

 and reduced the Republican party to third place in 



