164 THE AGRARIAN CRUSADE 



old parties and even hoped to send their candidates 

 through the breach to Congress and the presidency. 

 A secret organization, known as the Industrial 

 League of the United States, in which the leaders 

 were for the most part the prominent officials oi' the 

 People's Party, afforded for a time through its 

 lodges the machinery with which to control and 

 organize the silverites of the West and the South. 



The most notable triumph of 1893 was the selec- 

 tion of Judge William V. Allen, by the Democrats 

 and Independents of Nebraska, to represent that 

 State in the United States Senate. Born in Ohio, 

 in a house which had been a station on the " under- 

 ground railroad" to assist escaping negroes, Allen 

 at ten years of age had gone with his family to Iowa. 

 After one unsuccessful attempt, he enlisted in the 

 Union Army at the age of fifteen and served from 

 1862 to the end of the War. When peace came, he 

 resumed his schooling, attended college, studied 

 law, and in 1869 was admitted to the bar. In 1884 

 he went to Madison County, Nebraska, where 

 seven years later he was elected district judge by 

 the Populists. Reared in a family which had been 

 Republican, he himself had supported this party 

 until the campaign of 1890. "I have always," 

 said he, "looked upon a political party . . . 



