"The Democratic vanguard is a Falstaff's army. It is led by a knight arrayed in a motley of modified professions and compromised principles, of altered opinions and retracted statements. It is officered by such soldiers of fortune as Sullivan and Hopkins, and Murphy and McClellan, by Tom Taggart, the roulette gambler, and Tom Ryan, the Wall Street gambler, and Belmont, the race track gambler. It is composed of such political mercenaries as Bailey of the Standard Oil and Williams of the Southern Railway and Hinky Dink and Bath House John, and Red Duffy and Nigger Mike — all harmonized at last and all marching together in a rythmic cadence strongly suggestive of the lockstep.”

- William Randolph Hearst, 1908