Jeff Davis Quotes

As we view the achievements of aggregated capital, we discover the existence of trusts, combinations, and monopolies, while the citizen is struggling far in the rear or is trampled to death beneath an iron heel. Corporations, which should be the restrained creatures of the law and the servants of the people, are fast becoming the nation's masters.

Combinations [large corporate conglomerates], governed entirely by the law of greed … threaten the integrity of our institutions.

They will stop at nothing to enrich the power of Corporations

One aspect of modern life which has gone far to stifle men is the rapid growth of tremendous corporations ... The disappearance of free enterprise has led to a submergence of the individual in the impersonal corporation.

the leaders of the business community with few exceptions, have chosen to wage a one-sided class war in this country

Historians, studying us, will say that we allowed corporations to become the government.

...it is a government by the corporations, for the corporations.

But thanks to my invention, my capitalist friends and I were able to bring the government to its knees.

War is an attempt of one group to impose its will upon another group by armed violence.

Industrial contests take on all the attitudes and psychology of war, and both parties do many things that they should never dream of doing in times of peace…. all parties in interest must be judged from that standpoint.

Corporations gorged with profit ... menace the stability of society.

Selfish men, and this country is not without them, men whose mounting bankrolls loom larger than your happiness, corporations without souls and without virtue, those fearful that this government might impinge on what they have grown to regard as its immemorial right of exploitation will whisper against us. They will call us radicals. They will say that this is the first step on the road to socialism.

The most dreaded of all wars, the war of the poor against the rich … will come and come with all its horrors.

The power of groups of men organized by incorporation ... or of small knots of rich men acting in combination has developed with unexpected strength in unexpected ways, overshadowing individuals and even communities, and showing that the very freedom of association which men sought to secure by law when they were threatened by the violence of the potentates may, under the shelter of law, ripen into a new form of tyranny.

The only way to save our empires from the encroaching of the people is to engage in war, and thus substitute national passions for social aspirations.

The weak are always at war with the stronger; that is the source of eternal hatreds.

I hope we shall crush in its birth the aristocracy of our moneyed corporations, which dare already to challenge our government to a trial of strength and bid defiance to the laws of the country.

War is about killing on both sides until one side says I will do what you want me to do.

We’d be crazy to let corporations get anywhere near our government. The only reason they want to influence government is to plunder—to steal from children.

There are persons who constantly clamor. They complain of oppression, speculation, and pernicious influence of wealth. They cry out loudly against all banks and corporations, and a means by which small capitalists become united in order to produce important and beneficial results. They carry on mad hostility against all established institutions. They would choke the fountain of industry and dry all streams.

We, the people of the United States, and nobody else, must cure whatever is wrong with the industrial situation, typified by this narrative of the Standard Oil Company.

Anti-capitalism is nothing new in Hollywood. From 'Wall-E' to 'Avatar,' corporations are routinely depicted as evil. The contradiction of corporate-funded films denouncing corporations is an irony capitalism cannot just absorb, but thrive on. Yet this anti-capitalism is only allowed within limits.

When old men decided to barter young men for pride and profit, the transaction was called war.

War is a crime perpetrated by hearts hardened like weapons

All Indian men of that tribe are to be killed whenever and wherever you can find them…. If the Indians send in a flag of truce say to the bearer ... that you have been sent to punish them for their treachery and their crimes. That you have no power to make peace, that you are there to kill them wherever you can find them.