The Mind of the South by W.J. Cash

“In practice, on any frontier which holds out large prospects, and where, accordingly, men congregate in numbers, where events move swiftly and competition is intense, there invariably arises the schemer—the creator and manipulator of fictitious values, the adept in spurring on the already overheated imaginations of his fellows—and, in his train, a whole horde of lesser swindlers and cheats.”

-W.J. Cash, 1941