talked about ruin,--and I really believe they did think they would be
somewhat injured. But they have not been. And I hear I cannot tell you how
many men in New Jersey say: "Governor, we were opposed to you; we did not
believe in the things you wanted to do, but now that you have done them,
we take off our hats. That was the thing to do, it did not hurt us a bit;
it just put us on a normal footing; it took away suspicion from our
business." New Jersey, having taken the cold plunge, cries out to the rest
of the states, "Come on in! The water's fine!" I wonder whether these men
who are controlling the government of the United States realize how they
are creating every year a thickening atmosphere of suspicion, in which
presently they will find that business cannot breathe?

So I take it to be a necessity of the hour to open up all the processes of
politics and of public business,--open them wide to public view; to make
them accessible to every force that moves, every opinion that prevails in
the thought of the people; to give society command of its own economic
life again, not by revolutionary measures, but by a steady application of
the principle that the people have a right to look into such matters and
to control them; to cut all privileges and patronage and private advantage
and secret enjoyment out of legislation.

Wherever any public business is transacted, wherever plans affecting the
public are laid, or enterprises touching the public welfare, comfort, or
convenience go forward, wherever political programs are formulated, or
candidates agreed on,--over that place a voice must speak, with the divine
prerogative of a people's will, the words: "Let there be light!"