offspring of the "System." Thus it
may learn that it is within its power to destroy the brood already in
existence and render impossible similar creations.

In the course of my task I shall describe such parts of the general
financial structure as will place my readers, especially those
unfamiliar with its more complicated conditions, in a mental state to
comprehend the methods by which the savings they think are safely
guarded in the banks, trust and insurance companies, are so manipulated
by the votaries of frenzied finance as to be in constant jeopardy. I
shall show them that while the press, the books, the stump, and our
halls of statesmanship are full to overflowing with the whys,
wherefores, and what-nots of "tariff," "currency," "silver," "gold," and
"labor"; while our market systems are perfected educational machines for
disseminating accurate statistics about the necessaries and luxuries of
life, the water and land carriers, real estate, and other material
things which the people have been taught to believe are the only things
that vitally affect their savings; that while they imagine they
understand the system by which speculation and investments are
controlled and worked, and that the causes and effects of this system
are at all times get-at-able by them through their bankers and their
brokers; there is a tangible, complicated, yet simple trick of financial
legerdemain, operated twenty-four hours in each day in the year, and
which the press, the books, the politicians, and the statesmen never
touch upon--a trick by means of which the savings of the people and the
public funds of the Government, whether in the national banks,
savings-banks, trust or insurance companies, are always at the absolute
service and mercy of the votaries of frenzied finance.

Therefore, in the course of my story of Amalgamated will come a few
kindergarten pictures of how the necessaries and luxuries of the people
are "incorporated"; of how the evidences of corporation ownership are
manufactured; of the individuals who "manufacture" them; of the
individuals who control and make or unmake their values; of the
meeting-place of these individuals, within and without the
stock-exchanges; of some of the corporations and of some of the signs
and tokens of corporation ownership; of some of their histories; of some
of their doings, and of some of their contemplated doings. These
kindergarten pictures I will endeavor to paint, not in that
"ov