a "Millionaire's Club", for admission to which the members paid in
cash; but in England the same men came to the same position as their
birth-right. Political corruption is not an end in itself, it is
merely a means to exploitation; and of exploitation England has even
more than America. When I explained this, my popularity with the
British ruling classes vanished quickly.

As a matter of fact, England is more like America than she realizes;
her British reticence has kept her ignorant about herself. I could not
carry on my business in England, because of the libel laws, which have
as their first principle "the greater the truth, the greater the
libel". Englishmen read with satisfaction what I write about America;
but if I should turn my attention to their own country, they would
send me to jail as they sent Frank Harris. The fact is that the new
men in England, the lords of coal and iron and shipping and beer, have
bought their way into the landed aristocracy for cash, just as our
American senators have done; they have bought the political parties
with campaign gifts, precisely as in America; they have taken over the
press, whether by outright purchase like Northcliffe, or by
advertising subsidy--both of which methods we Americans know. Within
the last decade or two another group has been coming into control; and
not merely is this the same class of men as in America, it frequently
consists of the same individuals. These are the big money-lenders, the
international financiers who are the fine and final flower of the
capitalist system. These gentlemen make the world their home--or, as
Shakespeare puts it, their oyster. They know how to fit themselves to
all environments; they are Catholics in Rome and Vienna, country
gentlemen in London, bons vivants in Paris, democrats in Chicago,
Socialists in Petrograd, and Hebrews wherever they are.