Mary Elizabeth Lease, born on this day in 1850, was an orator, author, and activist associated with the "People's Party". Of the government, she said "Our laws are the output of a system which clothes rascals in robes and honesty in rags".

Lease was also a Georgist and an advocate of the suffrage movement, but was perhaps best known for her work with the People's Party (Populists, associated with the Farmers' Alliance).

Lease was a renowned speaker within the Populist movement and a polarizing political figure. While popular with the working class, she was slandered with misogynist rhetoric in the press. One newspaper described her "a miserable character of womanhood and hideously ugly of features and foul of tongue" and another called her "an old harpy".

One of Lease's most famous speeches began like this:

"Wall Street owns the country. It is no longer a government of the people, by the people, and for the people, but a government of Wall Street, by Wall Street, and for Wall Street...Our laws are the output of a system which clothes rascals in robes and honesty in rags..."