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nydus/The History of the Great American FortunesPublic

This work examines the origins of large American fortunes by analyzing the social and industrial systems that facilitate their accumulation. The author seeks to move beyond both celebratory narratives and sensationalist critiques to provide a factual, systemic interpretation of how these vast concentrations of wealth are formed.

Page 110 of 340
Table of Contents

CHAPTER II

purchase of whisky and alcohol into the Indian country for the purpose of trade with the Indians. It is not believed that the superintendent is ever applied to for a permit for the one-hundredth gallon that is taken into the Indian country. The whisky is sold to the Indians in the face of the [Government] agents. Indians are made drunk, and, of course, behave badly....

PROFIT AND ITS RESULTS.

Not only, however, were the Indians made drunk with the express purpose of befuddling and swindling them,9 but in the very commission of this act, an enormous profit was made on the sale of the whisky. Those who may be inclined to recoil with horror at the historic contemplation of this atrocity, will do well to remember that this was simply one manifestation of the ethics of the trading class—the same class which formed and ruled government, made and interpreted laws, and constituted the leading, superior and exclusive groups of high society. Hughes continued:

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