ares
divulge its methods. He who is bold enough to enter upon a recital of
these secrets must be strong indeed to withstand the bribes to silence
which would be placed in his hands. The "System" can well afford to pay
any price rather than be brought face to face with its past, with an
enraged people for referee. And even if the being be found who will
venture an expose of the conspiracy, he will find it strangely difficult
to get his story past the traps and pitfalls which will be placed
between it and the people for whose enlightenment it is intended.

CHAPTER III

THE FUNDAMENTALS OF FINANCE

Finance is easy enough to comprehend if it be explained, but so long as
an explanation is deadly to the interests of the men who control it, one
can be sure none will be offered. There is no term more common to-day
than "trusts," and we are surrounded by "trusts," institutions whose
workings during the past twenty years have awakened intense public
curiosity to know what a "trust" is. Yet there is not extant a
definition of a "trust" which conveys to the rank and file of the people
any real idea of what a "trust" is. So vague is the general
understanding of the "trust's" functions and purposes that the most
intelligent and honest statesmen struggle and hopelessly flounder when
they attempt to define them, and we have at the present time the able
chief of our nation talking of regulating them by law, when, as a matter
of fact, a "trust" is, top, sides, bottom, outsides, and insides, an
absolutely illegal institution, created outside the law, existing
outside the law, and having for its purpose the performance of those
things and only those things which the law says cannot be performed
legally. Imagine our law-makers gravely meeting to make laws for the
control and regulation of the pick-pocket or burglar or counterfeiting
industry, or endeavoring to prescribe legally the times, places, and
amounts of national bank defalcations, or the kind of ink, paper, and
pens which must be used by forgers in the pursuit of their
profession--imagine it!

In entering upon an explanation of the workings of the "System," it is
necessary to set forth plainly the fundamentals of finance, the few
rules and inventions by and through which humanity regulates its
affairs. In the beginning, of course, might was right and men supplied
their wants by force, trickery, or cunning. In time the disadvantages
of this became obvious, for while the