But this city is run for
the benefit of its industries, not for the comfort of its
inhabitants. Street railway, gas, electric corporations are
organized, ostensibly to serve the community, actually enabling a
greedy group to make more money. Again, what cannot be gained by
request is won by force and guile.
Over and over again the various processes are repeated, until you
have built up a sort of City Monstrous, dedicated to machinery,
in which all the men and many of the women are just machines, and
there is no ideal save that of feverish industrial adventure and
accomplishment. Power--blind, ruthless, marvel-working, bending
backs and bodies to its will--is Pittsburg's god, and Success its
divine attribute Success that spells Gold, the instrument of
exploitation and sensation. What wonder that weaker men,
confronted by the colossal rewards of industrial conquest, are
frenzied with the gold fever? In the absence of communal
patriotism, graft becomes an incident. Graft and greed are the
minor watchwords of success. Get money, anyway--but get it. Is it
surprising that cashiers graft, that aldermen graft, that city
officials graft, that there's a very pandemonium of graft? Isn't
it the way the other fellows get rich?
All of a sudden the poison clogs the pores, and the infection
blotches the surface--and every one is horrified.
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