that sweetens our cup, the price of the oil that lights us on our way, the price of the very coffins in which we are finally buried; a plutocracy which encourages no kindly relation between landlord and tenant, which has so little sense of its political duties as even to abstain from voting, and which, in short, by its effrontery, is already causing the unthinking masses to seek relief in communism, in single-taxism, and in every other ism, which, if ever enforced, would infallibly make their second state worse than the first.

“And here are hundreds of warnings of the same kind.  Even the President of the United States, in that same year, 1889, uttered this significant language: 

     Those who use unlawful methods, if moved by no higher
     motive than the selfishness that prompted them, may well
     stop and inquire, What is to be the end of this?

“Bishop Potter, of New York, in the national ceremonies, held April 30, 1889, which marked the centennial anniversary of the first inauguration of George Washington, spoke of the plutocracy, which had already reached alarming proportions, and expressed his doubts whether the Republic would ever celebrate another centennial.  Afterwards, in explaining his remarks, he said: 

When I speak of this as the era of the plutocrats, nobody can misunderstand me.  Everybody has recognized the rise of the money power.  Its growth not merely stifles the independence of the people, but the blind believers in this omnipotent power of money assert that its liberal use condones every offense.  The pulpit does not speak out as it should.  These plutocrats are the enemies of religion, as they are of the state.  And, not to mince matters, I will say that, while I had the politicians in mind prominently, there “are others.”  I tell you I have heard the corrupt use of money in elections and the sale of the sacred right of the ballot openly defended by ministers of the gospel.  I may find it necessary to put such men of the sacred office in the public pillory.

“And Bishop Spalding, of Peoria, Illinois, about the same time, said: 

Mark my words, the saloon in America has become a public nuisance.  The liquor trade, by meddling with politics and corrupting politics, has become a menace and a danger.  Those who think and those who love America and those who love liberty are going to bring this moral question into politics more and more; also this question of bribery, this question of lobbying, this question of getting measures through state and national legislatures by corrupt means.  They are going to be taken hold of.  Our press, which has done so much to enlighten our people, which represents so much that is good in our civilization, must also be reformed.  It must cease to pander to such an extent to the low and sensual

appetites of man.  My God, man is animal enough!  You don’t want to pander to his pruriency!  You don’t want