the
executive and legislative departments of the government. It controlled
them both. It promptly established and defended its ownership. It
instituted one scheme after another. For the purpose of fortifying its
usurpation, it learned to choose its men and to prepare its measures
in advance. In 1884 it created an administration for its own purposes,
and manned it to the same end. It forced its way into the House of
Representatives and stood with a bludgeon behind the Speaker's chair.
It entered every committee-room and dictated every successful bill.
The people's bills all went one way. If by any chance one of the
people's bills got before the House the subsidized press, owned by
Wall Street, raised against it a chorus of groans and catcalls; _that_
was "an expression of public opinion"!

From that day forth the popular voice was strangled into silence. The
next administration (that of 1888) was prepared in the same manner.
Wall Street has no politics except the politics of the bond; it has no
platform except the platform of cent per cent. It suffices that when a
president is to be elected he shall be one of us. He shall not be a
man of the people; else in that case he would be a demagogue, a
windbag, a _vox et praeterea nil_. _Our_ man shall not even know the
despised people. He shall not smell of the filthy ground, but must be
"sound" on questions of finance. If he be not "sound," we will make
him so. We will teach him his paces. If the people conclude to change
their government, we will see to it that the incoming powers are just
like the outgoing. As for the "principles" on which the candidate
shall be chosen, we will attend to that. We will make his principles
for him. We understand principles perfectly. We will fix the platform;
we know the carpenters. If the candidate and his friends have already
fixed a platform before the date of the convention, and if it have
been published everywhere as the decision of the candidate and his
following, we will take that platform from the wires and will
carefully revise it, to the end that the "national honor" shall be
preserved. We will write it over again into new meanings. We will
interpret it so that no harm shall be done to the "national credit."
We will make our candidate into a puppet. When we put our foot on the
treadle his jaw shall drop and he shall utter many mocking words about
the "national honor" and the "prospects of our glorious
country"--signifying nothing.