CHAPTER XV

Some of my readers will doubtless ask me why I so insistently repeat the details of the "System's" criminality, which for all purposes of argument have already been sufficiently established. My answer is that repetition alone will impress people with the real character of the class of individuals with whom I deal. The mass of Americans look upon these men as great leaders, and regard their millions as monuments to their commercial genius. I am showing that this commercial genius is no better than a high talent, for financial jugglery, and that its successes are achieved by a calculated disregard of the laws of the game. The "System's" fortunes have been won by means of marked cards and cogged dice, crooked wheels and bribed umpires—in other words, by the corruption of legislatures, the undermining of competitors, the evasion of railway rates, the wrongful manipulation of stocks, the perversion of justice, by intrigue, graft, and four play. Once the people realize this, the "System" is doomed; and it is my purpose to demonstrate so clearly and forcibly the crimes of the past that the nation may be aroused not only to prevent their repetition, but to crush their rascally perpetrators as they would so many reptiles. I shall so familiarize the people with the rights to which they are properly entitled and with the outrages committed in violation of them under the guise of legitimate commerce, that they will know them as they do the common facts of their daily lives. Let any "System" attempt to interfere between a man and his Bible, his meat and bread, and his proper allowance of sleep, and there would occur an explosion fierce enough to wipe the conspirators and their plots off the face of the earth; yet it is absolutely the fact that in the past our people have suffered unwittingly much fiercer wrongs than these would be, and far more vital invasions of their rights.