the professional men and the artists are
at this present moment villeins in everything but name, while the
politicians are henchmen. Why do you, Mr. Calvin, work all your nights
and days to organize the farmers, along with the rest of the middle
class, into a new political party? Because the politicians of the old
parties will have nothing to do with your atavistic ideas; and with your
atavistic ideas, they will have nothing to do because they are what I
said they are, henchmen, retainers of the Plutocracy.

"I spoke of the professional men and the artists as villeins. What else
are they? One and all, the professors, the preachers, and the editors,
hold their jobs by serving the Plutocracy, and their service consists of
propagating only such ideas as are either harmless to or commendatory
of the Plutocracy. Whenever they propagate ideas that menace the
Plutocracy, they lose their jobs, in which case, if they have not
provided for the rainy day, they descend into the proletariat and either
perish or become working-class agitators. And don't forget that it is
the press, the pulpit, and the university that mould public opinion, set
the thought-pace of the nation. As for the artists, they merely pander
to the little less than ignoble tastes of the Plutocracy.

"But after all, wealth in itself is not the real power; it is the means
to power, and power is governmental. Who controls the government to-day?
The proletariat with its twenty millions engaged in occupations? Even
you laugh at the idea. Does the middle class, with its eight million
occupied members? No more than the proletariat. Who, then, controls
the government? The Plutocracy, with its paltry quarter of a million
of occupied members. But this quarter of a million does not control the
government, though it renders yeoman service. It is the brain of the
Plutocracy that controls the government, and this brain consists of
seven* small and powerful groups of men. And do not forget that these
groups are working to-day practically in unison.

* Even as late as 1907, it was considered that eleven groups
dominated the country, but this number was reduced by the
amalgamation of the five railroad groups into a supreme
combination of all the railroads. These five groups so
amalgamated, along with their financial and political
allies, were (1) James J. Hill with his control of the
Northwest; (2) the Pennsylvania railway group, Schiff