honesty.

How had I built up my power? By recognizing the possibilities of publicity,
the chance which the broadcast sowing of newspapers and magazines put
within the reach of the individual man to impress himself upon the whole
country, upon the whole civilized world. The kings of finance relied upon
the assiduity and dexterity of sundry paid agents, operating through the
stealthy, clumsy, old-fashioned channels for the exercise of power. I
relied only upon myself; I had to trust to no fallible, perhaps traitorous,
understrappers; through the megaphone of the press I spoke directly to the
people.

My enemies charge that I always have been unscrupulous and dishonest. So?
Then how have I lived and thrived all these years in the glare and blare of
publicity?

It is true, I have used the "methods of the charlatan" in bringing myself
into wide public notice. The just way to put it would be that I have used
for honest purposes the methods of publicity that charlatans have shrewdly
appropriated, because by those means the public can be most widely and
most quickly reached. Does good become evil because hypocrites use it as a
cloak? It is also true that I have been "undignified." Let the stupid cover
their stupidity with "dignity." Let the swindler hide his schemings under
"dignity." I am a man of the people, not afraid to be seen as the human
being that I am. I laugh when I feel like it. I have no sense of jar
when people call me "Matt." I have a good time, and I shall stay young
as long as I stay alive. Wealth hasn't made me a solemn ass, fenced in
and unapproachable. The custom of receiving obedience and flattery and
admiration has not made me a turkey-cock. Life is a joke; and when the
joke's on me, I laugh as heartily as when it's on the other fellow.