"BUT WHAT, really, had the People's Party--the farmers who called themselves "Alliancemen"--asked for? Only that when men found themselves at the mercy of forces too big for them to fight alone, government--their government--help them fight. What were the demands for railroad and bank regulation, for government loans, for public-works projects, but an expression of a belief that after men have banded together and formed a government, they have a right, when they are being crushed by conditions over which they have no control, to ask that government to extend a helping hand to them--if necessary, to fight for them, to be their champion? They"