The Populist Moment: a Short History of the Agrarian Revolt in America

"The ultimate problem in Nebraska was the absence of the kind of statewide cooperative infrastructure that elsewhere provided the agrarian movement with its vehicle of organization, it schoolroom of ideology, and its culture of self-respect. Cooperation, sometimes merely the promise of cooperation, could attract farmers to the Alliance and, under other additional influences, could propel them towards an insurgent political stance; but only the cooperative experience provided the kind of education that imparted to the political movement the form and substance of the greenback heritage. It was banker opposition to large-scale cooperatives that made farmers want to do something about private banking control over the nation's currency."

"The ultimate victory is nailed into place, therefore, only when the population has been persuaded to define all conceivable political activity within the limits of existing custom."