“One traitor inside the citadel is worth ten thousand soldiers on the outside.”
Editors have been bribed into collusion or silence; politicians have been softened with boodle; lobbyists have been kept in clover; legislators have been duped or corrupted. Railroad Commissions have been seduced or defied, federal judges have been mellowed with favors, blandishments, indirect temptings which poor human nature can seldom resist.
Bully for Sam!
He is victorious all along the line. From Washington City he rules the South. In his native State of Georgia he is monarch of all he surveys. He made Terrell governor, and he means to make Howell governor. He controlled nearly all the daily papers, but he wanted another—so he had Jim English to cut the ground from under the feet of John Temple Graves and scoop the Atlanta News.
Hamp McWhorter is his hireling, and Hamp keeps the mechanism of corruption oiled. Hamp keeps the Legislature in pliant mood. Hamp jollies and greases the local politician. Hamp peddles the free passes. Hamp picks and chooses the “local attorneys.” Hamp “sees” the editor who appears to require “seeing.”
But the Brain and Will of the whole plot are those of Sam Spencer.
For eleven years that God-given brain and will have been concentrated upon one purpose, only one—to heap up riches for Wall Street rascals! Great has been the result. Sam Spencer’s masters are so highly pleased with his work that they congratulate him!
How interesting! It seems to me that they are the fellows to be congratulated. Sam has doubled the amount of their property, he has trebled the gross income from that property, and has increased their net revenues over 525 per cent!
Colossal profits these. How were they made?
By such a system of dishonesty, extortion, law-breaking, and reckless disregard of human life as has rarely been known, even in the history of modern commercialism.