In the following example from Chapter 34, Selwyn’s Story, Senator Selwyn – like a gangster suddenly turned informant – proudly confesses to his sins of success. Those at the helm of the political machinery are interestingly referred to as ‘bosses’ and is simply fascinating in that, while officially written as fiction, sounds more like an honest account of what life must have been like for young Edward growing up within the cutthroat environment of Texas state politics. It also imparts for the reader incredible insight into the absolute power that House truly sought and why he himself would avoid the bright lights of fame and recognition his entire career – instead preferring the far less public, shadowy existence of an unelected advisor:
“He was my father’s best friend, and there were no secrets between them. They seldom paid attention to me, and I was rarely dismissed even when they had their most confidential talks. In this way, I early learned how our great American cities are looted, not so much by those actually in power, for they are of less consequence than the more powerful men behind them.”pg 109.
In the second example taken from the same chapter, we see Selwyn admit to how the ‘bosses’ are able to milk the system to their advantage by tactfully exploiting the largely naive, trusting, and “selfish attitude” of the citizenry without soliciting any unnecessary public blowback:
“Any measure they desired passed by the legislature was first submitted to him, and he would prune it until he felt he could put it through without doing too great violence to public sentiment. The citizens at large do not scrutinize measures closely; they are too busy in their own vineyards to bother greatly about things which only remotely or indirectly concern them.
This selfish attitude and indifference of our people has made the boss and his methods possible. The “big interests” reciprocate in many and devious ways, ways subtle enough to seem not dishonest even if exposed to public view.” page 110.
As we near the end of the novel, Selwyn divulges to Dru exactly how he built his empire of wealth and influence from a system of loyalty, patronage and the manipulation of others that sounds eerily reminiscent of House’s days back in Texas mingling within the prestige of ‘Our Crowd’ and confirms the dangers of what we more familiarly refer today as quid pro quo, pay-to-play, or insider trading relationships. All of these confidence schemes are openly admitted as self-evident by those in power today and rarely do we witness those guilty of such crimes face anything resembling real consequence or punishment as the corruption continues on unabated today through lobbyists and superpacs. And the repeated failure of our justice system to act also serves as further evidence of a much higher level of corrupted vested interest that ferments beyond the veil of party politics holding no regard for the needs of the public that most of us either fail to see or choose to ignore.
Without doubt, these same schemes and allegiances saturate today’s political landscape and indicate why we see an egregious increase in the personal wealth of politicians in the years in which they hold public office – smashing any previously held belief that their role is considered a sacrosant position of servitude not intended to be used for the acquisition of great personal wealth. And, as the author earlier alluded to and will later illuminate, there exists beyond this veil of political partisanship an even deeper loyal brotherhood of thieves forged from a dark underworld network of loyal fraternal friendships first formed on the academic campuses that presently thrives within the most prestigious universities in America that this author, in later articles will contend, is the true insidious nature of the university system. A secret, second-tier, plutocratic web of peerage and nepotism.
As evidenced even further in the following Selwyn confessional:
“I also demanded and received information in advance of any extension of railroads, standard or interurban, of contemplated improvements of whatsoever character, and I doled out this information to those of my followers in whose jurisdiction lay such territory. My own fortune I augmented by advance information regarding the appreciation of stocks. If an amalgamation of two important institutions was to occur, or if they were to be put upon a dividend basis, or if the dividend rate was to be increased, I was told, not only in advance of the public, but in advance of the stockholders themselves. All such information I held in confidence even from my own followers, for it was given me with such understanding.”
In the next excerpt, House, er, Senator Selwyn discloses how he and his coterie of wealthy millionaires managed to prolong their status quo by assigning men sympathetic to their financial interests to the highest positions of influence within county, state, and federal government. Whether it be the country’s natural resources, public utilities, or finance, Selwyn and his cohorts would control profits through a cohesive trust that proved very lucrative to those same loyal government officials who served to protect them. This patronage scheme reminiscent of how the early industrialists – concomitant with Wilson’s presidency – were able to take control of the mass communication industry by first purchasing the most influential newspapers in America, and then, by placing one of their own as editor-in-chief, were able to distract the public from their corrupt practices while also controlling public opinion. This being the genesis of the profoundly radical, progressive, liberal media that exists today, consisting of six giant corporate conglomerates responsible for all the nations news, television entertainment, and Hollywood movies.
“By the use of all the money that could be spent, by a complete and compact organization and by the most infamous sort of deception regarding his real opinions and intentions, plutocracy had succeeded in electing its creature to the Presidency. There had been formed a league, the membership of which was composed of one thousand multi-million-aires, each one contributing ten thousand dollars. This gave a fund of ten million dollars with which to mislead those that could be misled, and to debauch the weak and uncertain.”
In the chapter entitled, The Making of a President, the similarities between House and Senator Selwyn become so interwoven that it becomes hard to discern whether you are reading a fictional utopian novel or the intimate letters of Colonel House.
“It was a fascinating game to Selwyn. It appealed to his intellectual side far more than it did to his avarice. He wanted to govern the Nation with an absolute hand, and yet not be known as the directing power. He arranged to have his name appear less frequently in the press and he never submitted to interviews, laughingly ridding himself of reporters by asserting that he knew nothing of importance.”pg. 52.
Following a violent Civil War initiated by Dru that successfully overthrows the Selwyn controlled monolithic government, Dru formulates a new “Code of Laws” and a new Constitution, of which he would be the sole Administrator in order to curb any further exploitation of the American people by a corrupt corporatocracy. Dru appoints himself – to the roaring applause of the masses – as Dictator who is given the responsibility of guiding America through a temporary time of turmoil that will ultimately lead to a unified utopia. Here, Dru invokes the same kind of atavism that would allow Lenin to create his Communist Soviet regime just a mere five years after Philip Dru’s publication. An event in which House and his close confidente’s had intimate involvement. Ultimately, Dru, fueled by his belief in ‘equality of opportunity’, and through an appeal to the plight of the poor, imposes a socialist system of government to be laid over top of the original Constitutional concept of the American Republic to be ruled by an absolute dictator – or, as is repeated several times both throughout the novel and during Wilson’s presidency, a new order.
“The president [Woodrow Wilson] did not in those brief months achieve the “new world,” the “new order,” he so nobly phrased, so ardently desired, and so continuously fought for, but he chose the battleground and set forth the issues which will engage the thought of the world for many years to come.” New York Times, January 21, 1922.
As evidenced by the above passage, Wilson himself would use the terms “new order” and “new world” repeatedly throughout his two terms – especially when hammering out the future of international order while at the Paris Peace conference in 1919. This phrase implies a replacement of the old, rapacious capitalist system of Western society with a more homogenous socially conscious global community. And, as one reads the book, one is struck by the many allusions to Communism. From the basic socialist tenet of wealth inequality to the concept of class struggle; from the character named Marx, to the real life authors that are cited in the novel ( Sir Oliver Lodge), we see a penchant for socialism. Lodge was an active member of the socialist organization, the Fabian Society and frequent lecturer at the London School of Economics, co-authoring two publications with none other than it’s two co-founders, Sidney Webb and George Bernard Shaw. Lodge was also one of Colonel House’s favourite writers.
Amazingly, what Dru institutes is in many ways mirrored in both the progressive platform policies of Roosevelt during the 1912 election campaign and the actual policies put in place by Wilson in the immediate years following it. It should also be noted that the changes initiated by Wilson were the largest progressive reform measures up until that point in American history and Philip Dru seemed to be nothing less than an internal memorandum issued to the president by his advisers that laid out the future of American domestic and foreign policy. Little wonder then, that some one hundred years later, the measures imposed by Wilson have done little to curb the corporate corruption perpetrated by the very same men who not only funded Wilson’s campaign but the campaign of both Taft and Roosevelt. Wilson, like Roosevelt and Taft before him, participated in a sort of Kubuki theatre ritual of special investigative committees (Pujo) that resulted in an even more oppressive centralized governance of the people while conveniently doing very little to restrict the corrupt activities of those actually responsible. The striking similarities between Dru’s dictatorial proposals and those actually imposed by Wilson in real life were so similar in fact to prompt fellow ‘Inquiry’ member Walter Lippmann to write in The New York Times:
“…if the author is really a man of affairs, this is an extraordinarily interesting book”.(22)
The list of similarities is extensive and those I offer below, while the most considerable and most worthy of the reader’s contemplation, is not exhaustive. Where Dru proposes Federal oversight of business practices, Wilson creates the Federal Trade Commission; where Dru recommends a crackdown on monopolies, Wilson passes the Clayton Antitrust Act; where Dru advances the idea of government sponsored financial reform, Wilson creates the Federal Reserve; where Dru tables government ownership of telegraph and telephone companies, Wilson hires one of House’s “Our Crowd”, Albert Sidney Burleson to Post Master General to acquire, “at a fair valuation”, the early telecommunications industry (23); where Dru proposes a graduated income tax scheme, Wilson passes it into law; where Dru suggests an eight hour work week and a farm relief program, Wilson makes both a reality. From worker’s compensation to old age pension to social insurance, wherever Dru makes a suggestion, Wilson implements it into reality as if under hypnotic control. And while the reader may or may not agree to some or all of these policies on the surface, the author’s main point herein is not to dispute their validity or efficacy, it is only to have the reader regard the repugnancy of a secret underworld of unelected officials and ministers without portfolio who operate within an allegedly free and open, transparent democratic society.
“Certain of the public service corporations, Dru insisted, should be taken over bodily by the National Government and accordingly the Postmaster General was instructed to negotiate with the telegraph and telephone companies for their properties at a fair valuation. They were to be under the absolute control of the Postoffice Department…” Philip Dru, pg 107.
In Chapter 48, An International Coalition, Dru turns his attention from domestic issues to U.S. foreign policy. Acting in his official role as dictator, Dru proposes an international plan based on an anglophile solidarity to end all wars that sounds identical to what Cecil Rhodes had set out in his Last Will and Testament decades earlier and echoed by the very Anglo-centric Pilgrims Society that was largely accomplished through the concerted efforts of both the Milner Group and the Inquiry – two key organizations of which House had intimate knowledge and influence(!) It was, in fact – as proven with primary citations in my previous article, How Secret Societies Rule The World – during the Paris Peace Conference in 1919, that House directed the Inquiry to work with British delegates headed by key Milner Round Table insider, Lionel Curtis, to create both the Council on Foreign Relations and the Institute of International Affairs.
These two think tanks, the former to be located in New York and funded by J.P. Morgan, Rockefeller, Carnegie and Ford; the latter, to be centered in London and funded by the Lazar’s, Warburg’s and Rothschild’s would form the key institution and information nucleus of what Georgetown history professor Carroll Quigley would later coin, an Anglo-American Establishment. In fact, as I will discuss at length in following articles, many of the members of the Inquiry were also tapped Phi Beta Kappa and, along with the Milner Round Table members, were all members of the very influential Pilgrims Society. Interesting to say the least when it is discovered that from this nucleus of not-for-profit organizations emerged our present day system of both public diplomacy and foreign policy as well as the intelligence communities of both the United States and Britain.
