portant
business deals, and its busiest hours were those which most men
devote to rest. But John Burkett Ryder never rested. There could
be no rest for any man who had a thousand millions of dollars to
take care of. Like Macbeth, he could sleep no more. When the hum
of business life had ceased down town and he returned home from
the tall building in lower Broadway, then his real work began. The
day had been given to mere business routine; in his own library at
night, free from inquisitive ears and prying eyes, he could devise
new schemes for strengthening his grip upon the country, he could
evolve more gigantic plans for adding to his already countless
millions.

Here the money Moloch held court like any king, with as much
ceremony and more secrecy, and having for his courtiers some of
the most prominent men in the political and industrial life of
the nation. Corrupt senators, grafting Congressmen, ambitious
railroad presidents, insolent coal barons who impudently claimed
they administered the coal lands in trust for the Almighty,
unscrupulous princes of finance and commerce, all visited this
room to receive orders or pay from the head of the "System."
Here were made and unmade governors of States, mayors of cities,
judges, heads of police, cabinet ministers, even presidents. Here
were turned over to confidential agents millions of dollars to
overturn the people's vote in the National elections; here were
distributed yearly hundreds of thousands of dollars to grafters,
large and small, who had earned it in the service of the
"interests."

Here, secretly and unlawfully, the heads of railroads met to agree
on rates which by discriminating against one locality in favour of
another crushed out competition, raised the cost to the consumer,
and put millions in the pockets of the Trust. Here were planned
tricky financial operations, with deliberate intent to mislead and
deceive the investing public, operations which would send stocks
soaring one day, only a week later to put Wall Street on the verge
of panic. Half a dozen suicides might result from the coup, but
twice as many millions of profits had gone into the coffers of the
"System." Here, too, was perpetrated the most heinous crime that
can be committed against a free people--the conspiring of the
Trusts abetted by the railroads, to arbitrarily raise the prices
of the necessaries of life--meat, coal, oil, ice, gas--wholly
without other justification than that of gree