So in the South, the Wall Street robber-gangs do not operate in person; they act through Southern agents.
In pursuance of this subtle policy, the Wall Street corporations, who gobbled up the various lines which now compose the Southern Railway System, put at the head of it a Southern man, a Georgian, of the name of Samuel Spencer.
They chose wisely. They generally choose wisely. The expert workman does not better know how to select his tools than such men as Belmont, Morgan, Ryan, Rogers and Rockefeller know how to pick out the men who can do what Wall Street expects.
The Wall Street rascals had faith in Sam Spencer, and Sam has justified that confidence.
Never did any robber-chief have an abler lieutenant than Belmont, the Rothschild agent, has had in Sam.
The task to which they set him was hard. It demanded that he freeze his heart and stifle his conscience. It demanded that he shut out from his view of life every other purpose whatsoever, save the heaping up of dividends for a ravenous gang of Wall Street rascals.
To make his work seem good in the sight of the men who had bought him it was necessary that he combine railroads which the law said should not be combined, that he destroy competition where the law said it should live, that he charge excessive rates to shippers and passengers when the law said the rates should be reasonable.
He has done this in spite of the law, in spite of the people.
How?
