Outrage over corporate politics reached a high point in 1904. What’s next? In all the hate and worry, there’s very little election reform.
The founders were wary of corporate influence on politics — and their rhetoric sometimes got pretty heated.
In an 1816 letter, Thomas Jefferson declared his hope to “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 our country.”
Jefferson offers encouragement too:
“I have no fear that the result of our experiment will be that men may be trusted to govern themselves without a master.”
But as Senator Dick Durbin once said, “They own the place”.