Warren Draws Record Crowd of 20,000 in New York as She Vows to Combat Corporate Power

An estimated 20,000 people packed New York City’s Washington Square Park Monday night as Sen. Elizabeth Warren delivered a searing speech about the corporate corruption that dominates the nation’s political system. 

Addressing the Manhattan crowd near the site of the 1911 Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire, the Massachusetts Democrat urged voters to support her plan to “fundamentally transform our government” by creating a system beholden to people’s needs, not Wall Street interests.

Warren argued that the fire which killed 146 factory workers in less than 20 minutes in the days before federal workplace safety regulations is mirrored in the cozy relationships corporations keep with lawmakers in Washington, to the detriment of workers’ rights.

Factory owners in the early 20th century “made campaign contributions and talked with their friends in the legislature,” Warren told the crowd. “They greased the state government so thoroughly that nothing changed. Business owners got richer, politicians got more powerful, and working people paid the price.”

“Does any of that sound familiar?” the senator asked, drawing cheers. “Take any big problem we have in America today and you don’t have to dig very deep to see the same system at work.”