Mark you, I am not saying that these leaders knew that they were doing us an evil, or that they intended to do us an evil.  For my part, I am very much more afraid of the man who does a bad thing and does not know it is bad than of the man who does a bad thing and knows it is bad; because I think that in public affairs stupidity is more dangerous than knavery, because harder to fight and dislodge.  If a man does not know enough to know what the consequences are going to be to the country, then he cannot govern the country in a way that is for its benefit.  These gentlemen, whatever may have been their intentions, linked the government up with the men who control the finances.  They may have done it innocently, or they may have done it corruptly, without affecting my argument at all.  And they themselves cannot escape from that alliance.

Here, for example, is the old question of campaign funds:  If I take a hundred thousand dollars from a group of men representing a particular interest that has a big stake in a certain schedule of the tariff, I take it with the knowledge that those gentlemen will expect me not to forget their interest in that schedule, and that they will take it as a point of implicit honor that I should see to it that they are not damaged by too great a change in that schedule.  Therefore, if I take their money, I am bound to them by a tacit implication of honor.  Perhaps there is no ground for objection to this situation so long as the function of government is conceived to be to look after the trustees of prosperity, who in turn will look after the people; but on any other theory than that of trusteeship no interested campaign contributions can be tolerated for a moment,—­save those of the millions of citizens who thus support the doctrines they believe and the men whom they recognized as their spokesmen.

I tell you the men I am interested in are the men who, under the conditions we have had, never had their voices heard, who never got a line in the newspapers, who never got a moment on the platform, who never had access to the ears of Governors or Presidents or of anybody who was responsible for the conduct of public affairs, but who went silently and patiently to their work every day carrying the burden of the world.  How are they to be understood by the masters of finance, if only the masters of finance are consulted?

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That is what I mean when I say, “Bring the government back to the people.”  I do not mean anything demagogic; I do not mean to talk as if we wanted a great mass of men to rush in and destroy something.  That is not the idea.  I want the people to come in and take possession of their own premises; for I hold that the government belongs to the people, and that they have a right to that intimate access to it which will determine every turn of its policy.

America is never going to submit to guardianship.  America is never going to choose thralldom instead of freedom.  Look what there is to decide!  There is the tariff question.  Can the tariff question be decided in favor of the people, so long as the monopolies are the chief counselors at Washington?  There is the currency question.  Are we going to settle the currency question so long as the government listens only to the counsel of those who command the banking situation?