"That a comparatively small class of men are absorbing the
wealth of the country as fast as it is produced, leasing to
those who create it scarce a bare subsistence, is patent to
all; that the vast body of the people, clothed with political
power and imbued with the spirit of "equality," will not
permit such conditions to long continue, any thoughtful man
will concede. Even in European countries, where the
working people have come to regard privileged classes as a
matter of course, there are mutterings of a coming storm
that will only gather fresh terrors by delay. In Europe the
change will probably be wrought by revolution; in America it
may be achieved by peaceful evolution if the moneyed
aristocracy does not, with its checks and repressions--with
its corrupted judiciary, purchased legislators and
obsequious press--drive a people, already sorely vexed, to
unreasoning madness."
William Cowper Brann*, editorial from the Waco Iconoclast, 1895 or 1896.
*"Brann the Iconoclast", journalist, lecturer, populist and racist, was shot in the back and killed in 1897. His assassin (who incidentally, Brann shot and killed as he lay dying) acted after Brann accused employees at Baylor University, the private Baptist university in Waco, of acquiring children from Baptist missionaries in South America for use as domestic slaves. The UT Austin Handbook of Texas online sums up Brann's output thus: "[he] took obvious relish in directing his stinging attacks upon institutions and persons he considered to be hypocritical or overly sanctimonious. He by no means confined his distaste to Baptists, but directed it generously to Episcopalians, anything British, women, and, perhaps with the greatest harshness, blacks."
