"I hold that while man exists it is his duty to improve not only his own condition, but to assist in ameliorating mankind."
"Labor is prior to, and independent of, capital. Capital is only the fruit of labor, and could never have existed if labor had not first existed. Labor is the superior of capital, and deserves much the higher consideration."
"In every wise struggle for human betterment one of the main objects, and often the only object, has been to achieve in large measure equality of opportunity. In the struggle for this great end, nations rise from barbarism to civilization, and through it people press forward from one stage of enlightenment to the next. One of the chief factors in progress is the destruction of special privilege. The essence of any struggle for healthy liberty has always been, and must always be, to take from some one man or class of men the right to enjoy power, or wealth, or position, or immunity, which has not been earned by service to his or their fellows."
"Now, this means that our government, national and State, must be freed from the sinister influence or control of special interests. [... N]ow the great special business interests too often control and corrupt the men and methods of government for their own profit. We must drive the special interests out of politics. That is one of our tasks to-day. [...]"
"There can be no effective control of corporations while their political activity remains. To put an end to it will be neither a short nor an easy task, but it can be done.
"We must have complete and effective publicity of corporate affairs, so that people may know beyond peradventure whether the corporations obey the law and whether their management entitles them to the confidence of the public. It is necessary that laws should be passed to prohibit the use of corporate funds directly or indirectly for political purposes; it is still more necessary that such laws should be thoroughly enforced. Corporate expenditures for political purposes, and especially such expenditures by public-service corporations, have supplied one of the principal sources of corruption in our political affairs."
Wow this flaming radical surely is upset with the recent Citizens United decision by our learned Supreme Court and its majority jurists; i.e., upset without cause over the judicially declared clear right of a fictional person, a "corporate" person, to have and use liberties that humans hold.
And the screed goes on and on.
It is twenty-five pages and it defines, arguably, an agenda that our present-day Republican power structure would find hateful and opposed to all the Republican party has ever stood for from its founding in the mid nineteenth century onward.
So, GOP pundits, know your enemy, this link.
Know also, that the two opening paragraphs are quotes from a predecessor, i.e., the observations of labor and capital and which should be viewed as preeminent have a history. There is a thread among these sordid radical anti-American hate-filled socialist RINO speakers.
Or correct me if I am wrong.