MARY ELIZABETH LEASE

In the campaign of 1890 she made speeches so full of fiery eloquence, of righteous wrath, and fierce denunciation of the oppressors, that she became the delight of the people of the new party and the detestation of the followers of the old. Seldom, if ever, was a woman so vilified and so misrepresented by malignant newspaper attacks. A woman of other quality would have sunk under the avalanche. She was quite competent to cope with all that was visited upon her. Indeed, the abuse did her much service. The people but loved her the more for the enemies she made. Her chiefest distinguishing gift is her powerful voice; deep and resonant, its effect is startling and controlling. Her speeches are philippics. She hurls sentences as Jove hurled thunderbolts.

Kansas had better stop raising corn and begin raising hell.

Wall Street owns the country. It is no longer a government of the people, for the people and by the people, but a government for Wall Street, by Wall Street, and for Wall Street. The great common people of this country are slaves, and monopoly is the master…Let the bloodhounds of money who have dogged us thus far beware.

There are two great enemies of thought and progress, the aristocracy of royalty and the aristocracy of gold.

The great common people of this country are slaves, and monopoly is the master. . . . The politicians said we suffered from overproduction. Overproduction, when 10,000 little children, so statistics tell us, starve to death every year in the United States. . . . We will stand by our homes and stay by our fireside by force if necessary, and we will not pay our debts to the loan-shark companies until the government pays its debts to us.

An organized effort is making to deceive the people. There are two great enemies of thought and progress, the aristocracy of royalty and the aristocracy of gold.

What you farmers need to do is raise less corn and more hell.

Wall Street owns the country. It is no longer a government of the people, by the people and for the people, but a government of Wall Street, by Wall Street, and for Wall Street... Over 100,000 shopgirls are forced to sell their virtue for the bread their niggardly wages deny them.

A mortgaged home, an empty stomach and a ragged back know no party. We will live to write the epitaphs of the old parties: "Died of general debility, old age, and chronic falsehoods."

We want the accursed foreclosure system wiped out.... We will stand by our homes and stay by our firesides by force if necessary, and we will not pay our debts to the loan-shark companies until the government pays its debts to us.

Yet today our splendid theory of government is confronted by a great peril. We have become blind to evils that menace us. We are confronted with glutted markets and idle labor. It is a condition that makes it possible for a few men to become landlords of a proud city like this while God's poor are packed in the slums. Such a condition is not only a menace to Republican institutions, but a travesty upon the gospel of Jesus Christ.

An organized effort is making to deceive the people. There are two great enemies of thought and progress, the aristocracy of royalty and the aristocracy of gold.

Kansas had better stop raising corn and begin raising hell.

Wall Street owns the country. It is no longer a government of the people, by the people and for the people, but a government of Wall Street, by Wall Street, and for Wall Street... Over 100,000 shopgirls are forced to sell their virtue for the bread their niggardly wages deny them.

What you farmers need to do is raise less corn and more hell.

Yet today our splendid theory of government is confronted by a great peril. We have become blind to evils that menace us. We are confronted with glutted markets and idle labor. It is a condition that makes it possible for a few men to become landlords of a proud city like this while God's poor are packed in the slums. Such a condition is not only a menace to Republican institutions, but a travesty upon the gospel of Jesus Christ.

There are two great enemies of thought and progress, the aristocracy of royalty and the aristocracy of gold.

The great common people of this country are slaves, and monopoly is the master. . . . The politicians said we suffered from overproduction. Overproduction, when 10,000 little children, so statistics tell us, starve to death every year in the United States. . . . We will stand by our homes and stay by our fireside by force if necessary, and we will not pay our debts to the loan-shark companies until the government pays its debts to us.

We want the accursed foreclosure system wiped out.... We will stand by our homes and stay by our firesides by force if necessary, and we will not pay our debts to the loan-shark companies until the government pays its debts to us.

Wall Street owns the country. It is no longer a government of the people, for the people and by the people, but a government for Wall Street, by Wall Street, and for Wall Street. The great common people of this country are slaves, and monopoly is the master…Let the bloodhounds of money who have dogged us thus far beware.

A mortgaged home, an empty stomach and a ragged back know no party. We will live to write the epitaphs of the old parties: "Died of general debility, old age, and chronic falsehoods."