"... realized I was rather too notoriously a 'rich man' to stand much chance of election, but I was at least a man who could _afford_ to be defeated, and yet go on doing his level best to serve his country. I started in, believing that the way to serve her best was by being a Republican and a Sound Money man. It was all very well to say my own private interests lay along that line; I believed the public interest did as well. But I was not satisfied to be 'run' in blinders by an agent or a committee, pledged to see nothing but party advantages, pledged to controvert opposing opinions, however sound or unforeseen. I couldn't help seeing the other side. That's my special curse, by the way, and will stand forever between me and effective action. I have been about among the working-classes and the idle poor. I took nobody's word. I investigated for myself the trades-unions, the various political and industrial organizations. I looked into Pullman patriarchal tyranny and into Carnegie despotism, and recalled the more humane, more _democratic_, attitude of masters to men in the effete monarchies abroad. Here, in free America, tyranny stalks naked and unashamed. The employment of politics for mere private gain, the abuse of patronage, and in business the war of extermination waged by trusts and combines--everywhere the right of moneyed might, the rich playing into the hands of the rich while pretending to serve the people--all this opened my eyes. I have just come from Ironville. The strike is not going to be settled so easily, although the suffering is appalling. The masters mean to starve the men to death; the men mean to blow the masters to atoms. This is the _union_ I find in my native land--this the new free brotherhood of men. Sharks devouring little fishes! "What with lawless greed on one side and lawless need on the other, the outlook frowns. The question of the future isn't silver versus gold, it isn't Republican against Democrat, nor North against South, nor East against West, but human dignity and decency against capitalist slave-drivers and despoilers of the poor. _You_ know the spirit of fervor and of patriotism that carried me into the campaign. I tell you I'm sick with disillusionment. "I am far more afraid of being elected than of facing defeat. I have learned that these measures I proposed in such good faith are half-measures foredoomed to failure. Give me, if you can, some good reason to believe that this great and prosperous America is not like to become the devil's drill-ground. Yours very sincerely, "ETHAN GANO." "Well, of all the funny letters for a man to write a girl!"