THE PEOPLE'S PARTY LAUNCHED 139 



Dakota, and at the time of his election was finan- 

 cial agent for Yankton College. A radical Fourth 

 of July oration which he delivered at Aberdeen 

 brought him into favor with the Alliance, and he 

 was elected to the state senate on the Independent 

 ticket in 1890. Prior to this election Kyle had 

 been a Republican. 



The other senatorial victory was gained in Kan- 

 sas, where the choice fell on William A. Peffer, 

 whose long whiskers made him a favorite object of 

 ridicule and caricature in Eastern papers. He was 

 born in Pennsylvania in 1831, and as a young man 

 had gone to California during the gold boom. Re- 

 turning after two years with a considerable sum of 

 money, he engaged in farming first in Indiana and 

 then in Missouri. When the Civil War began, his 

 avowed Unionist sentiments got him into trouble; 

 and in 1862 he moved to Illinois, where after a few 

 months he enlisted in the army. At the close of 

 the war he settled in Tennessee and began the 

 practice of law, which he had been studying at in- 

 tervals for a number of years. He removed in 

 1870 to Kansas, where he played some part in poli- 

 tics as a Republican, was elected to the state sen- 

 ate, and served as a delegate to the national con- 

 vention of 1880. After a number of newspaper 



