At no time in the history of the United States has the power of dollars
been as great as now. Freedom and equity are controlled by dollars. The
laws which should preserve and enforce all rights are made and enforced
by dollars. It is possible to-day, with dollars, to "steer" the
selection of the candidates of both the great parties for the highest
office in our republic, that of President of the United States. It is
possible to repeat the operation in the selection of candidates for the
executive and legislative conduct and control of every State and
municipality in the United States, and with a sufficient number of
dollars to "steer" the doings of the law-makers and law-enforcers of the
national, State, and municipal governments of the people, and to "steer"
a sufficient proportion of the court decisions to make absolute any
power created by such direction. It is all, broadly speaking, a matter
of dollars practically to accomplish these things. I must not be
misunderstood as even insinuating that there are not absolutely honest
law-makers and law-enforcers, nor that there are not as many of them in
proportion to the whole body as there were at the creation of our
republic. I believe there is at the present time as large a percentage
of honesty among Americans as ever there has been, but it is plainly
evident to any student of the times that at no other period in the
history of the United States has honesty been so completely "steered" by
dishonesty as at this, the beginning of the twentieth century.

_I shall go further and say that there to-day exists uncontrolled in the
hands of a set of men a power to make dollars from nothing._ That
function of dollar-making which the people believe is vested in their
Government alone and only exercised under the law for their benefit, is
actually being secretly exercised on an enormous scale by a few private
individuals for their own personal benefit. This, I am well aware, is a
startling statement, but not more so than the facts which support it.
Throughout the country we have all grown accustomed to the spectacle of
men who, poor yesterday, to-day display more dollars than the kings and
queens of olden times controlled. In flaunting this money these men
proudly boast: "We made all this yesternight, and are going to multiply
it five-or fifty-fold to-morrow night."

The fact that there must be in this country some secret method of
gaining vast fortunes gradually dawned on the