country and is running it, not for the object for which
the machine was devised, but for the benefit and personal profit of its
votaries, and so the vast correlated organization of banks, trust
companies, and insurance corporations which were brought into being for
the safe handling of the people's savings has become an agency for
transferring these savings to the control of unscrupulous manipulators,
who take liberal toll of every dollar that passes through their hands.

The duty of the American people is to unloosen the thraldom of the
"System" on our financial mechanism; to pluck out of their high places
the dishonest usurpers who have degraded the purposes of our financial
institutions, and to restore those institutions to their legitimate
functions. When the people are fully awakened to the condition I
describe, surely they will arise in their wrath and sweep the
money-changers from the temple.

CHAPTER II

THE "SYSTEM" AND THE LOUISIANA LOTTERY COMPARED

Years ago one of the greatest evils in this country was the Louisiana
Lottery. Through that lottery millions and millions annually were taken
from the people and transferred to a few unprincipled schemers, who soon
found themselves in possession of enormous fortunes. Wise men called for
the abatement of this awful drain on the savings of the nation, but the
law-abiding, God-fearing people of the country met their plaints with
"Why should we be bothered about this matter? If fools and knaves elect
to gamble in such palpably fraudulent ways, let them gamble, and their
losses are no affair of ours. It is none of our business." But presently
these honest people had it pounded into their well-meaning heads that
the principal instrument by which the swindle was conducted was their
own mail service, one of the most important branches of their
Government; that, in fact, in each and every city, town, village, and
cross-road in all our virtuous land, Government officials were acting as
distributing agents for this huge corrupter and robber.

Then the people rose in their irresistible might, and between the rising
of one day's sun and its setting this powerful machine went as goes the
gum-drop on the red-hot stove cover at a pop-corn soiree. It melted,
leaving nothing but a faint odor and a thin stain, both of which
disappeared in the next morning's scrubbing, and the Louisiana Lottery
was as though it had never been. Yet during its reign its insolent
votaries c