Politics, too, had become infected. Public honours were no longer heaped upon patriots and statesmen: the proudest title of distinction was to be called “a captain of industry.” The best brains of the country had been drained out of the public service into business life. Men who, in other days, would have led great public causes, were now presidents of great corporations. Their intellects were taxed to the last limit in the fierce struggle of competition. Their characters were formed and hardened into the inflexible will and ruthless determination of commanders of vast competitive business armies. Men like Morgan, upon whose shoulders rested the responsibility for billions of invested capital, brooked no obstacle that threatened for an instant the security of these vast aggregations of money, nor anything that would stand in the way of their continuous return of profit.
Such gigantic financial operations inevitably affected those inter-relationships of the people which are expressed in law; and organized government soon confronted the danger of being swallowed by organized business. By the close of McKinley’s first administration, government, indeed, had become practically a vassal of business, little better than another instrument of power in the hands of the leaders of industry. Legislation was bought like merchandise; lawmakers and administrators of law were corrupted. Politics had become an almost disreputable profession. Lobbyists of the most odious type flaunted their trade publicly. To the high-minded elements of the community it seemed as if the nation were sliding down the declivity of destruction to share the fate of Rome.
I was myself fresh from this seething caldron of materialistic competition, and I knew personally the men and the methods of Big Business, so that I had occasion to appreciate more keenly than most people the reality of the danger which confronted the nation.
To us perplexed political idealists the country over, who looked on with apprehension at this death grapple between the soul of the people and the ugly octopus of Big Business, the appearance of Woodrow Wilson on the horizon seemed a very act of Providence. Here at last was the leader: the man who, thinking our thoughts, sharing our visions, brought to us the promise of a political personality under whose banner we could range ourselves, organize our enthusiasm, and take fresh hope for redemption.
