The Dogs and the Fleas by Frederic Scrimshaw

Henry Ward Beecher, in a sermon shortly before his death, said America was going through a period of disgrace. This was true; for there had come to pass, what the prophetic Lincoln had foretold, that, as the result of the war, monopolies had been enthroned, that had filled the land with corruption and imperilled the liberties of the people.
To-day the period of disgrace is worse than then, for the corrupt tree which was then bearing so luxuriant a crop has had several years more in which to develop its fruit-bearing capacity.