Hearst is revolutionary in spirit, because the principle of equal rights
itself, in the hand either of a fanatic or a demagogue, can be converted
into a revolutionary principle. He considers, as do all reformers, the
prevalent inequalities of economic and political power to be violations
of that principle. He also believes in the truth of American political
individualism, and in the adequacy, except in certain minor respects, of
our systems of inherited institutions. How, then, did these inequalities
come about? How did the Democratic political system of Jefferson and
Jackson issue in undemocratic inequalities? The answer is obviously (and
it is an answer drawn by other reformers) that these inequalities are
the work of wicked and unscrupulous men. Financial or political pirates
of one kind or another have been preying on the guileless public, and by
means of their aggressions have perversely violated the supreme law of
equal rights. These men must be exposed; they must be denounced as
enemies of the people; they must be held up to public execration and
scorn; they must become the objects of a righteous popular vengeance.
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