Title
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 United States presidential election, 1896.
The editorial established White as a spokesman for the ordinary folks in small town America; five Republican presidents were to spend nights at his home -- Theodore Roosevelt, William Howard Taft, Warren Harding, Calvin Coolidge, and Herbert Hoover.
Read more about this topic: What's The Matter With Kansas?
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