“ The men who conduct the political machines are a small fraction of the party they pretend to represent, and the men who exercise corrupt influences upon them are only a small fraction of the business men of the country. What we are banded together to fight is not a party, is not a great body of citizens ”
Woodrow Wilson, The New Freedom (1913). copy citation
| Author | Woodrow Wilson |
|---|---|
| Source | The New Freedom |
| Topic | influence business |
| Date | 1913 |
| Language | English |
| Reference | |
| Note | |
| Weblink | http://www.gutenberg.org/files/14811/14811-h/14811-h.htm |
Context
“it was at the moment of the resumption of specie payments for Treasury notes. The Treasury simply resumed,—there was not a ripple of danger or excitement when the day of resumption came around.
It will be precisely so when the people resume control of their own government. The men who conduct the political machines are a small fraction of the party they pretend to represent, and the men who exercise corrupt influences upon them are only a small fraction of the business men of the country. What we are banded together to fight is not a party, is not a great body of citizens; we have to fight only little coteries, groups of men here and there, a few men, who subsist by deceiving us and cannot subsist a moment after they cease to deceive us.
I had occasion to test the power of such a group in the State of New Jersey, and I had the satisfaction of discovering that I had been right in supposing that they did not possess any power at all.”
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