WILLIAM VINCENT ALLEN

William Vincent Allen, of Madison, was born in Midway, Madison county, Ohio, January 28, 1847. In 1856 he removed with his family to Iowa, and at the age of fifteen years enlisted with Company G, Thirtysecond Iowa Infantry, in the war of the rebellion. He carried a musket for three years, the last five months of his service being on the staff of General James I. Gilbert. He was educated in the common schools of . Iowa and attended the Upper Iowa University at Fayette for a time, but did not graduate. He studied law with L. L. Ainsworth of West Union, Iowa, and was admitted to the bar May 31, 1869. Iowa until 1884, when he removed to Nebraska.

He practiced law in

Senator Allen's conversion to the Populist view of politics occurred during the campaign of 1890, and since that time he has been enthusiastic and constant in the advocacy of the party's principles. In the fall of 1891 he was nominated by the Populists for Judge of the Ninth Judicial district and was elected. He was permanent president of the Nebraska Populist State convention in 1892 and was elected United States Senator to succeed Algernon Sidney Paddock, February 7, 1893, for the full term of six years, beginning March 4, 1893. Previous to his going over to the Populists he was an enthusiastic Republican, and was a member of the State convention of 1890. He took an earnest and active part in that famous campaign, stumping the State for his party ticket and doing splendid work for it.

Judge Allen is an enthusiastic Grand Army man, and on every possible occasion gives evidence of his love for the old soldiers, taking prominent part in the State and district encampments. He is a giant in stature and it is said his mental caliber is consistent with his physical make-up. Judge Allen is an enthusiastic believer in the doctrines of th People's party and an uncompromising advocate of the State ownership and control of railroads, telegraph lines and all means of transportation and communication. He is an out and out free-trader and an advocate of the free and unlimited coinage of silver. In the campaign of 1896 he was one of the most effective and earnest of Mr. Bryan's supporters, and he never spares his energies in support of his rinciples.

CHAPTER II.

THE DEMOCRACY IN HISTORY

The history of the Democracy is the history of the Republic. It had its origin as soon after the formation of the thirteen colonies as the people came to a realization of their rights as individuals. Mr. Jefferson, the founder of the party, came from aristocratic surroundings, but his sympathies from the beginning were with the "common people." His brain conceived and his hand wrote the Declaration of Independence, altogether the most notable document of its kind that ever came from human hands. Prof. Moses Coit Tyler, who has made the most careful examination of the literature of that period, says in his History of American Literature that this product from the pen of the first great Democrat has been more extensively quoted in all languages and in all races than any other. It has been the universal voice for all peoples asserting their independence against the oppression of an alien race. In South America, in Greece, in the far East, it has been quoted word for word. Americans accustomed to the cheap oratory of "patriot" declaimers are apt to forget the significance of this fact, which, however, remains as the most splendid instance of American patriotic literature, never to be forgotten; never to be belittled.

It has been remarked of Mr. Jefferson, and truly, that while other charters of liberty proclaim the liberties of a single people, his great pronouncement deals with the liberties of the human race. We find an explanation of this in the fact that for several years after he wrote the Declaration of Independence Mr. Jefferson lived in Paris, in the immediate vortex of the great events which constituted the French Revo lution. There he was an immediate witness of those facts which Thomas Carlyle has made immortal in his History. Other patriots have dealt with the rights of their own people. "We declare," says Mr. Jefferson, "the equality of all mankind." That was his theme. It was that which alienated him from the people of his own class and placed him upon the pedestal belonging exclusively to the great champions of human liberty the world over. De Tocqueville said, thirty years after