machine. This editor, who published patent medicine advertisements,
called me a scoundrelly demagogue because I dared him to print in his
paper the truth about patent medicines.* This man, talking soberly and
earnestly about the beauties of idealism and the goodness of God, had
just betrayed his comrades in a business deal. This man, a pillar of the
church and heavy contributor to foreign missions, worked his shop girls
ten hours a day on a starvation wage and thereby directly encouraged
prostitution. This man, who endowed chairs in universities and erected
magnificent chapels, perjured himself in courts of law over dollars
and cents. This railroad magnate broke his word as a citizen, as a
gentleman, and as a Christian, when he granted a secret rebate, and he
granted many secret rebates. This senator was the tool and the slave,
the little puppet, of a brutal uneducated machine boss;** so was this
governor and this supreme court judge; and all three rode on railroad
passes; and, also, this sleek capitalist owned the machine, the machine
boss, and the railroads that issued the passes.

* PATENT MEDICINES were patent lies, but, like the charms
and indulgences of the Middle Ages, they deceived the
people. The only difference lay in that the patent
medicines were more harmful and more costly.

** Even as late as 1912, A.D., the great mass of the people
still persisted in the belief that they ruled the country by
virtue of their ballots. In reality, the country was ruled
by what were called POLITICAL MACHINES. At first the
machine bosses charged the master capitalists extortionate
tolls for legislation; but in a short time the master
capitalists found it cheaper to own the political machines
themselves and to hire the machine bosses.