Ellen Glasgow Quotes
I ain't never seen no head so level that it could bear the lettin' in of politics.
Glasgow, Ellen. The Voice of the People. Doubleday, Page & Co., 1900, p. 177.
The three richest men in America—John D, Rockefeller, Andrew Carnegie, and Morgan, usually major rivals—had gathered together to decide what to do about William Jennings Bryan, who they viewed as very hostile to business and capitalism. (See {641037} and {641038} for Bryan quotation examples that concerned them.) They agreed to combine their efforts and back William McKinley who was running for the Republican Presidential nomination. In those days, the nominee was chosen by a small group of party leaders and their resources guaranteed McKinley the post. They then put large amounts of money to campaigning against Bryan and for McKinley including dirty tricks, many of which are illegal today. It is not known for certain whether McKinley knew the extent of the involvement of the monopolists, but shortly after assuming the Presidency he cut back on many of the relatively few regulations that then existed to control unbridled capitalism. Their effort went for naught when McKinley was assassinated and Theodore Roosevelt became President. Roosevelt would not be bribed or intimidated, and he did more to control monopolies than even Bryan would likely have.
Ellen Anderson Gholson Glasgow was an American novelist who won the Pulitzer Prize for the Novel in 1942. A lifelong Virginian who published 20 books including seven novels which sold well (five reaching best-seller lists) as well as gained critical acclaim, Glasgow portrayed the changing world of the contemporary South, differing from the idealistic escapism that characterized Southern literature after Reconstruction.
