the book derives its name from an august 15, 1896 editorial by william allen white in the emporia gazette, in which he took populist leaders to task for letting kansas slip into economic stagnation and not keeping up economically with neighboring states because of populist policies chasing away economic capital from the state. the republicans sent out hundreds of thousands of copies of the editorial in support of william mckinley during the 1896 u.s. presidential election.