This unbalanced power has so perverted the judgment of those who hold it, that they believe in their right to hold it to their own aggrandizement as much as ever king believed in his divine right to rule. And, what is more deplorable still, the whole community is taught to look upon them in the same light; thus embalming, as it were, in the very heart of society, the cause of its oppression.

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Never were a people more victimized under the plea of public utility, when it was believed that the few possessed the superior wisdom to rule despotically the destinies of empires, than are the masses to-day, when acting under the delusion that the inner currents of society, on which flow the world's commerce, are superintended with greater justice to the public by private enterprise, than they could be by collective rule.

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...there can be no remedy for the evils under which we are suffering but in the surrender of private control over public necessities. And, to secure such surrender, we must show to the people at large that their happiness and security, yea, that the very life of the nation, demands the supervision and control of collective rule in every department of public industry; and that only in this manner can government be purged of its corruptions.

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Real mental freedom can not exist so long as our physical welfare is subject to the control of others, through the power of wealth.