". . . Democratic institutions must either decay or become revitalized. . . .To hell with such courts. They're no better than anarchy. . . .In Verden there are only two classes: those who don't get as much as they earn and those who get more. . . . Tell you we've got to get back to the land, got to make it free as air. You can't be saved from economic slavery till you have socialism. . . ."Suddenly the hubbub subsided and Marchant had the floor. "All of life's a compromise, a horrible unholy giving up as unpractical all the best things. It's a denial of love, of Christ, of God."A young preacher who was conducting a mission for sailors on the water front cut in. "Exactly. The church is radically wrong because--""Because it hasn't been converted to Christianity yet. Mr. Moneybags in the front pew has got a strangle hold on the parson. Begging your pardon, Mifflin. We know you're not that kind."Marchant won the floor again. "Here's the nub of it. A man's a slave so long as his means of livelihood is dependent on some other man. I don't care whether it's lands or railroads or mines. Abolish private property and you abolish poverty."They were all at it again, like dogs at a bone. Across the Babel James caught Jeff's gay grin at him.
By sheer weight Dickinson's voice boomed out of the medley.
". . . just as Henry George says: 'Private ownership of land is the nether mill-stone. Material progress is the upper mill-stone. Between them, with an increasing pressure, the working classes are being ground.' We're just beginning to see the effect of private property in land. Within a few years. . . .""What we need is to get back to Democracy. Individualism has run wild. . . .""Trouble is we can't get anywhere under the Constitution. Every time we make a move--check. It was adopted by aristocrats to hold back the people and that's what it's done. Law--"Apparently nobody got a chance to finish his argument. The Polish Jew broke in sharply. "Law! There iss no law.""Plenty of it, Sobieski, Go out on the streets and preach your philosophic anarchy if you don't believe it. See what it will do to you. Law's a device to bolster up the strong and to hammer down the weak."James had given a polite cynical indulgence to views so lost to reason and propriety. But he couldn't quite stand any more. He made a sign to Jeff and they adjourned to the next room.
"Your friends always so--so enthusiastic?" he asked with the slightest lift of his upper lip.
"Not always. They're a little excited to-night because Harshaw imprisoned those fourteen striking miners for contempt of court.""Don't manufacture bombs here, do you?" Jeff laughed. "We're warranted harmless."James offered him good advice. "That sort of talk doesn't lead to anything--except trouble. Men who get on don't question the fundamentals of our social system. It doesn't do, you know. Take the constitution. Now I've studied it. A wonderful document. Gladstone said.""Yes, I know what Gladstone said. I don't agree with him. The constitution was devised by men with property as a protection against those who had none.""Why shouldn't it have been?"
"It should, if vested interests are the first thing to consider. In there"-- with a smiling wave of his hand--"they think people are more important than things. A most unsettling notion!""Mean to say you believe all that rant they talk?" "Not quite," Jeff laughed.
"Well, I'd cut that bunch of anarchists if I were you," his cousin suggested. "Say, Jeff, can you let me have fifty dollars?"Jeff considered. He had been thinking of a new spring overcoat, but his winter one would do well enough. From the office he could get an advance of the balance he needed to make up the fifty.
"Sure. I'll bring it to your rooms to-morrow night.""Much obliged. Hate to trouble you," James said lightly. "Well, I won't keep you longer from your anarchist friends. Good-night."
