Socialist Progressives

"Who are the oppressors? The few: the king, the capitalist, and a handful of other overseers and superintendents. Who the oppressed? The many: The nations of the earth; the valuable personages; the workers; they that MAKE the bread that the soft-handed and idle eat. Why is it right that there is not a fairer division of the spoil all around? BECAUSE LAWS AND CONSTITUTIONS HAVE ORDERED OTHERWISE. Then it follows that if the laws and constitutions should change around and say there SHALL be a more nearly equal division, THAT would have to be recognized as right."

-- Mark Twain, "The New Dynasty" speech delivered to the Monday Evening Club in Hartford, CT; March 22 1866. Published in The New England Quarterly; Vol. 30, No. 3 (Sep., 1957), pp. 383-388 (http://www.jstor.org/stable/362995)