Mary Elizabeth Lease

“The people are at bay, let the bloodhounds of money who have dogged us thus far beware.”

“The farmers of Kansas have been terrorized by the bankers and corporations until they have not the courage to say that their souls are their own.”

“What you farmers need to do is to 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.”

“The great common people of this country are slaves, and monopoly is the master.”

“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.”

“We want the accursed foreclosure system wiped out.”

“It is a struggle between the robbers and the robbed.”

“The government, at the bid of Wall Street, repudiated its contracts with the people.”

“The parties lie to us and the political speakers mislead us.”

“The West and South are bound and prostrate before the manufacturing East.”

“We are living in a grand and wonderful time. A time when old ideas, traditions, and customs have broken loose from their moorings and are hopelessly adrift on the great shoreless, boundless sea of human thought.”

“The victory of the people is near at hand.”