Lorenzo Lewelling (Populist Governor of Kansas), speech at Huron Place, Kansas, 26 July 1894

The same principles that made me a Republican in the early days, have today made me a Populist, and I'll tell you what they are. I remember when I was a little boy my parents were the old line abolition kind of people that believed in equal rights to all and special privileges to none. . . . We took a little paper called Uncle Lucas Child's paper, and one side of the paper bore a motto about the size of a coin in the centre of a picture--a picture of an African slave with his hands uplifted and in chains, and around the rim of the coin a motto, "Am I not a man and Brother?" That made a wonderful impression on my mind. I was taught thus in my infancy . . . to stand for the weak against the strong, for God knows the strong can take of themselves. And I say now, it is the duty of government to protect the weak. . . I believe, and I say it freely, that the working men and women of this country, many of them, are simply today in the shackles of industrial slavery.