deutsche küche modern interpretiert

chapter 29 the man had gone back to a seat upon theplatform, and jurgis realized that his speech was over. the applause continued for several minutes;and then some one started a song, and the crowd took it up, and the place shook withit. jurgis had never heard it, and he could notmake out the words, but the wild and wonderful spirit of it seized upon him--itwas the "marseillaise!" as stanza after stanza of it thunderedforth, he sat with his hands clasped, trembling in every nerve.

he had never been so stirred in his life--it was a miracle that had been wrought in him. he could not think at all, he was stunned;yet he knew that in the mighty upheaval that had taken place in his soul, a new manhad been born. he had been torn out of the jaws ofdestruction, he had been delivered from the thraldom of despair; the whole world hadbeen changed for him--he was free, he was free! even if he were to suffer as he had before,even if he were to beg and starve, nothing would be the same to him; he wouldunderstand it, and bear it.

he would no longer be the sport ofcircumstances, he would be a man, with a will and a purpose; he would have somethingto fight for, something to die for, if need be! here were men who would show him and helphim; and he would have friends and allies, he would dwell in the sight of justice, andwalk arm in arm with power. the audience subsided again, and jurgis satback. the chairman of the meeting came forwardand began to speak. his voice sounded thin and futile after theother's, and to jurgis it seemed a profanation.

why should any one else speak, after thatmiraculous man--why should they not all sit in silence? the chairman was explaining that acollection would now be taken up to defray the expenses of the meeting, and for thebenefit of the campaign fund of the party. jurgis heard; but he had not a penny togive, and so his thoughts went elsewhere again. he kept his eyes fixed on the orator, whosat in an armchair, his head leaning on his hand and his attitude indicatingexhaustion. but suddenly he stood up again, and jurgisheard the chairman of the meeting saying

that the speaker would now answer anyquestions which the audience might care to put to him. the man came forward, and some one--awoman--arose and asked about some opinion the speaker had expressed concerningtolstoy. jurgis had never heard of tolstoy, and didnot care anything about him. why should any one want to ask suchquestions, after an address like that? the thing was not to talk, but to do; thething was to get bold of others and rouse them, to organize them and prepare for thefight! but still the discussion went on, inordinary conversational tones, and it

brought jurgis back to the everyday world. a few minutes ago he had felt like seizingthe hand of the beautiful lady by his side, and kissing it; he had felt like flinginghis arms about the neck of the man on the other side of him. and now he began to realize again that hewas a "hobo," that he was ragged and dirty, and smelled bad, and had no place to sleepthat night! and so, at last, when the meeting broke up,and the audience started to leave, poor jurgis was in an agony of uncertainty. he had not thought of leaving--he hadthought that the vision must last forever,

that he had found comrades and brothers. but now he would go out, and the thingwould fade away, and he would never be able to find it again! he sat in his seat, frightened andwondering; but others in the same row wanted to get out, and so he had to standup and move along. as he was swept down the aisle he lookedfrom one person to another, wistfully; they were all excitedly discussing the address--but there was nobody who offered to discuss it with him. he was near enough to the door to feel thenight air, when desperation seized him.

he knew nothing at all about that speech hehad heard, not even the name of the orator; and he was to go away--no, no, it waspreposterous, he must speak to some one; he must find that man himself and tell him. he would not despise him, tramp as he was!so he stepped into an empty row of seats and watched, and when the crowd had thinnedout, he started toward the platform. the speaker was gone; but there was a stagedoor that stood open, with people passing in and out, and no one on guard. jurgis summoned up his courage and went in,and down a hallway, and to the door of a room where many people were crowded.

no one paid any attention to him, and hepushed in, and in a corner he saw the man he sought. the orator sat in a chair, with hisshoulders sunk together and his eyes half closed; his face was ghastly pale, almostgreenish in hue, and one arm lay limp at his side. a big man with spectacles on stood nearhim, and kept pushing back the crowd, saying, "stand away a little, please; can'tyou see the comrade is worn out?" so jurgis stood watching, while five or tenminutes passed. now and then the man would look up, andaddress a word or two to those who were

near him; and, at last, on one of theseoccasions, his glance rested on jurgis. there seemed to be a slight hint of inquiryabout it, and a sudden impulse seized the other.he stepped forward. "i wanted to thank you, sir!" he began, inbreathless haste. "i could not go away without telling youhow much--how glad i am i heard you. i--i didn't know anything about it all--" the big man with the spectacles, who hadmoved away, came back at this moment. "the comrade is too tired to talk to anyone--" he began; but the other held up his hand.

"wait," he said."he has something to say to me." and then he looked into jurgis's face."you want to know more about socialism?" he asked. jurgis started."i--i--" he stammered. "is it socialism?i didn't know. i want to know about what you spoke of--iwant to help. i have been through all that.""where do you live?" asked the other. "i have no home," said jurgis, "i am out ofwork." "you are a foreigner, are you not?""lithuanian, sir."

the man thought for a moment, and thenturned to his friend. "who is there, walters?" he asked."there is ostrinski--but he is a pole--" "ostrinski speaks lithuanian," said theother. "all right, then; would you mind seeing ifhe has gone yet?" the other started away, and the speakerlooked at jurgis again. he had deep, black eyes, and a face full ofgentleness and pain. "you must excuse me, comrade," he said. "i am just tired out--i have spoken everyday for the last month. i will introduce you to some one who willbe able to help you as well as i could--"

the messenger had had to go no further thanthe door, he came back, followed by a man whom he introduced to jurgis as "comradeostrinski." comrade ostrinski was a little man,scarcely up to jurgis's shoulder, wizened and wrinkled, very ugly, and slightly lame. he had on a long-tailed black coat, worngreen at the seams and the buttonholes; his eyes must have been weak, for he wore greenspectacles that gave him a grotesque appearance. but his handclasp was hearty, and he spokein lithuanian, which warmed jurgis to him. "you want to know about socialism?" hesaid.

"surely. let us go out and take a stroll, where wecan be quiet and talk some." and so jurgis bade farewell to the masterwizard, and went out. ostrinski asked where he lived, offering towalk in that direction; and so he had to explain once more that he was without ahome. at the other's request he told his story;how he had come to america, and what had happened to him in the stockyards, and howhis family had been broken up, and how he had become a wanderer. so much the little man heard, and then hepressed jurgis's arm tightly.

"you have been through the mill, comrade!"he said. "we will make a fighter out of you!" then ostrinski in turn explained hiscircumstances. he would have asked jurgis to his home--buthe had only two rooms, and had no bed to offer. he would have given up his own bed, but hiswife was ill. later on, when he understood that otherwisejurgis would have to sleep in a hallway, he offered him his kitchen floor, a chancewhich the other was only too glad to accept.

"perhaps tomorrow we can do better," saidostrinski. "we try not to let a comrade starve." ostrinski's home was in the ghettodistrict, where he had two rooms in the basement of a tenement. there was a baby crying as they entered,and he closed the door leading into the bedroom.he had three young children, he explained, and a baby had just come. he drew up two chairs near the kitchenstove, adding that jurgis must excuse the disorder of the place, since at such a timeone's domestic arrangements were upset.

half of the kitchen was given up to aworkbench, which was piled with clothing, and ostrinski explained that he was a"pants finisher." he brought great bundles of clothing hereto his home, where he and his wife worked on them. he made a living at it, but it was gettingharder all the time, because his eyes were failing. what would come when they gave out he couldnot tell; there had been no saving anything--a man could barely keep alive bytwelve or fourteen hours' work a day. the finishing of pants did not take muchskill, and anybody could learn it, and so

the pay was forever getting less. that was the competitive wage system; andif jurgis wanted to understand what socialism was, it was there he had bestbegin. the workers were dependent upon a job toexist from day to day, and so they bid against each other, and no man could getmore than the lowest man would consent to work for. and thus the mass of the people were alwaysin a life-and-death struggle with poverty. that was "competition," so far as itconcerned the wage-earner, the man who had only his labor to sell; to those on top,the exploiters, it appeared very

differently, of course--there were few of them, and they could combine and dominate,and their power would be unbreakable. and so all over the world two classes wereforming, with an unbridged chasm between them--the capitalist class, with itsenormous fortunes, and the proletariat, bound into slavery by unseen chains. the latter were a thousand to one innumbers, but they were ignorant and helpless, and they would remain at themercy of their exploiters until they were organized--until they had become "class-conscious." it was a slow and weary process, but itwould go on--it was like the movement of a

glacier, once it was started it could neverbe stopped. every socialist did his share, and livedupon the vision of the "good time coming,"- -when the working class should go to thepolls and seize the powers of government, and put an end to private property in themeans of production. no matter how poor a man was, or how muchhe suffered, he could never be really unhappy while he knew of that future; evenif he did not live to see it himself, his children would, and, to a socialist, thevictory of his class was his victory. also he had always the progress toencourage him; here in chicago, for instance, the movement was growing by leapsand bounds.

chicago was the industrial center of thecountry, and nowhere else were the unions so strong; but their organizations did theworkers little good, for the employers were organized, also; and so the strikes generally failed, and as fast as the unionswere broken up the men were coming over to the socialists. ostrinski explained the organization of theparty, the machinery by which the proletariat was educating itself. there were "locals" in every big city andtown, and they were being organized rapidly in the smaller places; a local had anywherefrom six to a thousand members, and there

were fourteen hundred of them in all, with a total of about twenty-five thousandmembers, who paid dues to support the organization. "local cook county," as the cityorganization was called, had eighty branch locals, and it alone was spending severalthousand dollars in the campaign. it published a weekly in english, and oneeach in bohemian and german; also there was a monthly published in chicago, and acooperative publishing house, that issued a million and a half of socialist books andpamphlets every year. all this was the growth of the last fewyears--there had been almost nothing of it

when ostrinski first came to chicago. ostrinski was a pole, about fifty years ofage. he had lived in silesia, a member of adespised and persecuted race, and had taken part in the proletarian movement in theearly seventies, when bismarck, having conquered france, had turned his policy ofblood and iron upon the "international." ostrinski himself had twice been in jail,but he had been young then, and had not cared. he had had more of his share of the fight,though, for just when socialism had broken all its barriers and become the greatpolitical force of the empire, he had come

to america, and begun all over again. in america every one had laughed at themere idea of socialism then--in america all men were free.as if political liberty made wage slavery any the more tolerable! said ostrinski. the little tailor sat tilted back in hisstiff kitchen chair, with his feet stretched out upon the empty stove, andspeaking in low whispers, so as not to waken those in the next room. to jurgis he seemed a scarcely lesswonderful person than the speaker at the meeting; he was poor, the lowest of thelow, hunger-driven and miserable--and yet

how much he knew, how much he had dared andachieved, what a hero he had been! there were others like him, too--thousandslike him, and all of them workingmen! that all this wonderful machinery ofprogress had been created by his fellows-- jurgis could not believe it, it seemed toogood to be true. that was always the way, said ostrinski;when a man was first converted to socialism he was like a crazy person--he could not'understand how others could fail to see it, and he expected to convert all the worldthe first week. after a while he would realize how hard atask it was; and then it would be fortunate that other new hands kept coming, to savehim from settling down into a rut.

just now jurgis would have plenty of chanceto vent his excitement, for a presidential campaign was on, and everybody was talkingpolitics. ostrinski would take him to the nextmeeting of the branch local, and introduce him, and he might join the party. the dues were five cents a week, but anyone who could not afford this might be excused from paying. the socialist party was a really democraticpolitical organization--it was controlled absolutely by its own membership, and hadno bosses. all of these things ostrinski explained, asalso the principles of the party.

you might say that there was really but onesocialist principle--that of "no compromise," which was the essence of theproletarian movement all over the world. when a socialist was elected to office hevoted with old party legislators for any measure that was likely to be of help tothe working class, but he never forgot that these concessions, whatever they might be, were trifles compared with the greatpurpose--the organizing of the working class for the revolution. so far, the rule in america had been thatone socialist made another socialist once every two years; and if they shouldmaintain the same rate they would carry the

country in 1912--though not all of themexpected to succeed as quickly as that. the socialists were organized in everycivilized nation; it was an international political party, said ostrinski, thegreatest the world had ever known. it numbered thirty million of adherents,and it cast eight million votes. it had started its first newspaper injapan, and elected its first deputy in argentina; in france it named members ofcabinets, and in italy and australia it held the balance of power and turned outministries. in germany, where its vote was more than athird of the total vote of the empire, all other parties and powers had united tofight it.

it would not do, ostrinski explained, forthe proletariat of one nation to achieve the victory, for that nation would becrushed by the military power of the others; and so the socialist movement was a world movement, an organization of allmankind to establish liberty and fraternity. it was the new religion of humanity--or youmight say it was the fulfillment of the old religion, since it implied but the literalapplication of all the teachings of christ. until long after midnight jurgis sat lostin the conversation of his new acquaintance.it was a most wonderful experience to him--

an almost supernatural experience. it was like encountering an inhabitant ofthe fourth dimension of space, a being who was free from all one's own limitations. for four years, now, jurgis had beenwondering and blundering in the depths of a wilderness; and here, suddenly, a handreached down and seized him, and lifted him out of it, and set him upon a mountain-top, from which he could survey it all--couldsee the paths from which he had wandered, the morasses into which he had stumbled,the hiding places of the beasts of prey that had fallen upon him.

there were his packingtown experiences, forinstance--what was there about packingtown that ostrinski could not explain! to jurgis the packers had been equivalentto fate; ostrinski showed him that they were the beef trust. they were a gigantic combination ofcapital, which had crushed all opposition, and overthrown the laws of the land, andwas preying upon the people. jurgis recollected how, when he had firstcome to packingtown, he had stood and watched the hog-killing, and thought howcruel and savage it was, and come away congratulating himself that he was not a

hog; now his new acquaintance showed himthat a hog was just what he had been--one of the packers' hogs. what they wanted from a hog was all theprofits that could be got out of him; and that was what they wanted from theworkingman, and also that was what they wanted from the public. what the hog thought of it, and what hesuffered, were not considered; and no more was it with labor, and no more with thepurchaser of meat. that was true everywhere in the world, butit was especially true in packingtown; there seemed to be something about the workof slaughtering that tended to ruthlessness

and ferocity--it was literally the fact that in the methods of the packers ahundred human lives did not balance a penny of profit. when jurgis had made himself familiar withthe socialist literature, as he would very quickly, he would get glimpses of the beeftrust from all sorts of aspects, and he would find it everywhere the same; it was the incarnation of blind and insensategreed. it was a monster devouring with a thousandmouths, trampling with a thousand hoofs; it was the great butcher--it was the spirit ofcapitalism made flesh.

upon the ocean of commerce it sailed as apirate ship; it had hoisted the black flag and declared war upon civilization.bribery and corruption were its everyday methods. in chicago the city government was simplyone of its branch offices; it stole billions of gallons of city water openly,it dictated to the courts the sentences of disorderly strikers, it forbade the mayorto enforce the building laws against it. in the national capital it had power toprevent inspection of its product, and to falsify government reports; it violated therebate laws, and when an investigation was threatened it burned its books and sent itscriminal agents out of the country.

in the commercial world it was a juggernautcar; it wiped out thousands of businesses every year, it drove men to madness andsuicide. it had forced the price of cattle so low asto destroy the stock-raising industry, an occupation upon which whole states existed;it had ruined thousands of butchers who had refused to handle its products. it divided the country into districts, andfixed the price of meat in all of them; and it owned all the refrigerator cars, andlevied an enormous tribute upon all poultry and eggs and fruit and vegetables. with the millions of dollars a week thatpoured in upon it, it was reaching out for

the control of other interests, railroadsand trolley lines, gas and electric light franchises--it already owned the leatherand the grain business of the country. the people were tremendously stirred upover its encroachments, but nobody had any remedy to suggest; it was the task ofsocialists to teach and organize them, and prepare them for the time when they were to seize the huge machine called the beeftrust, and use it to produce food for human beings and not to heap up fortunes for aband of pirates. it was long after midnight when jurgis laydown upon the floor of ostrinski's kitchen; and yet it was an hour before he could getto sleep, for the glory of that joyful

vision of the people of packingtown marching in and taking possession of theunion stockyards! > chapter 30 jurgis had breakfast with ostrinski and hisfamily, and then he went home to elzbieta. he was no longer shy about it--when he wentin, instead of saying all the things he had been planning to say, he started to tellelzbieta about the revolution! at first she thought he was out of hismind, and it was hours before she could really feel certain that he was himself.

when, however, she had satisfied herselfthat he was sane upon all subjects except politics, she troubled herself no furtherabout it. jurgis was destined to find that elzbieta'sarmor was absolutely impervious to socialism. her soul had been baked hard in the fire ofadversity, and there was no altering it now; life to her was the hunt for dailybread, and ideas existed for her only as they bore upon that. all that interested her in regard to thisnew frenzy which had seized hold of her son-in-law was whether or not it had atendency to make him sober and industrious;

and when she found he intended to look for work and to contribute his share to thefamily fund, she gave him full rein to convince her of anything. a wonderfully wise little woman waselzbieta; she could think as quickly as a hunted rabbit, and in half an hour she hadchosen her life-attitude to the socialist movement. she agreed in everything with jurgis,except the need of his paying his dues; and she would even go to a meeting with him nowand then, and sit and plan her next day's dinner amid the storm.

for a week after he became a convert jurgiscontinued to wander about all day, looking for work; until at last he met with astrange fortune. he was passing one of chicago's innumerablesmall hotels, and after some hesitation he concluded to go in. a man he took for the proprietor wasstanding in the lobby, and he went up to him and tackled him for a job."what can you do?" the man asked. "anything, sir," said jurgis, and addedquickly: "i've been out of work for a long time, sir.i'm an honest man, and i'm strong and willing--"

the other was eying him narrowly."do you drink?" he asked. "no, sir," said jurgis."well, i've been employing a man as a porter, and he drinks. i've discharged him seven times now, andi've about made up my mind that's enough. would you be a porter?""yes, sir." "it's hard work. you'll have to clean floors and washspittoons and fill lamps and handle trunks- -""i'm willing, sir." "all right.

i'll pay you thirty a month and board, andyou can begin now, if you feel like it. you can put on the other fellow's rig."and so jurgis fell to work, and toiled like a trojan till night. then he went and told elzbieta, and also,late as it was, he paid a visit to ostrinski to let him know of his goodfortune. here he received a great surprise, for whenhe was describing the location of the hotel ostrinski interrupted suddenly, "nothinds's!" "yes," said jurgis, "that's the name." to which the other replied, "then you'vegot the best boss in chicago--he's a state

organizer of our party, and one of ourbest-known speakers!" so the next morning jurgis went to hisemployer and told him; and the man seized him by the hand and shook it."by jove!" he cried, "that lets me out. i didn't sleep all last night because i haddischarged a good socialist!" so, after that, jurgis was known to his"boss" as "comrade jurgis," and in return he was expected to call him "comradehinds." "tommy" hinds, as he was known to hisintimates, was a squat little man, with broad shoulders and a florid face,decorated with gray side whiskers. he was the kindest-hearted man that everlived, and the liveliest--inexhaustible in

his enthusiasm, and talking socialism allday and all night. he was a great fellow to jolly along acrowd, and would keep a meeting in an uproar; when once he got really waked up,the torrent of his eloquence could be compared with nothing save niagara. tommy hinds had begun life as ablacksmith's helper, and had run away to join the union army, where he had made hisfirst acquaintance with "graft," in the shape of rotten muskets and shoddyblankets. to a musket that broke in a crisis healways attributed the death of his only brother, and upon worthless blankets heblamed all the agonies of his own old age.

whenever it rained, the rheumatism wouldget into his joints, and then he would screw up his face and mutter: "capitalism,my boy, capitalism! 'ecrasez l'infame!'" he had one unfailing remedy for all theevils of this world, and he preached it to every one; no matter whether the person'strouble was failure in business, or dyspepsia, or a quarrelsome mother-in-law, a twinkle would come into his eyes and hewould say, "you know what to do about it-- vote the socialist ticket!"tommy hinds had set out upon the trail of the octopus as soon as the war was over.

he had gone into business, and foundhimself in competition with the fortunes of those who had been stealing while he hadbeen fighting. the city government was in their hands andthe railroads were in league with them, and honest business was driven to the wall; andso hinds had put all his savings into chicago real estate, and set outsinglehanded to dam the river of graft. he had been a reform member of the citycouncil, he had been a greenbacker, a labor unionist, a populist, a bryanite--and afterthirty years of fighting, the year 1896 had served to convince him that the power of concentrated wealth could never becontrolled, but could only be destroyed.

he had published a pamphlet about it, andset out to organize a party of his own, when a stray socialist leaflet had revealedto him that others had been ahead of him. now for eight years he had been fightingfor the party, anywhere, everywhere-- whether it was a g.a.r. reunion, or ahotel-keepers' convention, or an afro- american business-men's banquet, or a bible society picnic, tommy hinds would manage toget himself invited to explain the relations of socialism to the subject inhand. after that he would start off upon a tourof his own, ending at some place between new york and oregon; and when he came backfrom there, he would go out to organize new

locals for the state committee; and finally he would come home to rest--and talksocialism in chicago. hinds's hotel was a very hot-bed of thepropaganda; all the employees were party men, and if they were not when they came,they were quite certain to be before they went away. the proprietor would get into a discussionwith some one in the lobby, and as the conversation grew animated, others wouldgather about to listen, until finally every one in the place would be crowded into a group, and a regular debate would be underway.

this went on every night--when tommy hindswas not there to do it, his clerk did it; and when his clerk was away campaigning,the assistant attended to it, while mrs. hinds sat behind the desk and did the work. the clerk was an old crony of theproprietor's, an awkward, rawboned giant of a man, with a lean, sallow face, a broadmouth, and whiskers under his chin, the very type and body of a prairie farmer. he had been that all his life--he hadfought the railroads in kansas for fifty years, a granger, a farmers' alliance man,a "middle-of-the-road" populist. finally, tommy hinds had revealed to himthe wonderful idea of using the trusts

instead of destroying them, and he had soldhis farm and come to chicago. that was amos struver; and then there washarry adams, the assistant clerk, a pale, scholarly-looking man, who came frommassachusetts, of pilgrim stock. adams had been a cotton operative in fallriver, and the continued depression in the industry had worn him and his family out,and he had emigrated to south carolina. in massachusetts the percentage of whiteilliteracy is eight-tenths of one per cent, while in south carolina it is thirteen andsix-tenths per cent; also in south carolina there is a property qualification for voters--and for these and other reasonschild labor is the rule, and so the cotton

mills were driving those of massachusettsout of the business. adams did not know this, he only knew thatthe southern mills were running; but when he got there he found that if he was tolive, all his family would have to work, and from six o'clock at night to sixo'clock in the morning. so he had set to work to organize the millhands, after the fashion in massachusetts, and had been discharged; but he had gottenother work, and stuck at it, and at last there had been a strike for shorter hours, and harry adams had attempted to address astreet meeting, which was the end of him. in the states of the far south the labor ofconvicts is leased to contractors, and when

there are not convicts enough they have tobe supplied. harry adams was sent up by a judge who wasa cousin of the mill owner with whose business he had interfered; and though thelife had nearly killed him, he had been wise enough not to murmur, and at the end of his term he and his family had left thestate of south carolina--hell's back yard, as he called it. he had no money for carfare, but it washarvest-time, and they walked one day and worked the next; and so adams got at lastto chicago, and joined the socialist party. he was a studious man, reserved, andnothing of an orator; but he always had a

pile of books under his desk in the hotel,and articles from his pen were beginning to attract attention in the party press. contrary to what one would have expected,all this radicalism did not hurt the hotel business; the radicals flocked to it, andthe commercial travelers all found it diverting. of late, also, the hotel had become afavorite stopping place for western cattlemen. now that the beef trust had adopted thetrick of raising prices to induce enormous shipments of cattle, and then dropping themagain and scooping in all they needed, a

stock raiser was very apt to find himself in chicago without money enough to pay hisfreight bill; and so he had to go to a cheap hotel, and it was no drawback to himif there was an agitator talking in the lobby. these western fellows were just "meat" fortommy hinds--he would get a dozen of them around him and paint little pictures of"the system." of course, it was not a week before he hadheard jurgis's story, and after that he would not have let his new porter go forthe world. "see here," he would say, in the middle ofan argument, "i've got a fellow right here

in my place who's worked there and seenevery bit of it!" and then jurgis would drop his work,whatever it was, and come, and the other would say, "comrade jurgis, just tell thesegentlemen what you saw on the killing- beds." at first this request caused poor jurgisthe most acute agony, and it was like pulling teeth to get him to talk; butgradually he found out what was wanted, and in the end he learned to stand up and speakhis piece with enthusiasm. his employer would sit by and encourage himwith exclamations and shakes of the head; when jurgis would give the formula for"potted ham," or tell about the condemned

hogs that were dropped into the "destructors" at the top and immediatelytaken out again at the bottom, to be shipped into another state and made intolard, tommy hinds would bang his knee and cry, "do you think a man could make up athing like that out of his head?" and then the hotel-keeper would go on toshow how the socialists had the only real remedy for such evils, how they alone"meant business" with the beef trust. and when, in answer to this, the victimwould say that the whole country was getting stirred up, that the newspaperswere full of denunciations of it, and the government taking action against it, tommyhinds had a knock-out blow all ready.

"yes," he would say, "all that is true--butwhat do you suppose is the reason for it? are you foolish enough to believe that it'sdone for the public? there are other trusts in the country justas illegal and extortionate as the beef trust: there is the coal trust, thatfreezes the poor in winter--there is the steel trust, that doubles the price of every nail in your shoes--there is the oiltrust, that keeps you from reading at night--and why do you suppose it is thatall the fury of the press and the government is directed against the beeftrust?" and when to this the victim would replythat there was clamor enough over the oil

trust, the other would continue: "ten yearsago henry d. lloyd told all the truth about the standard oil company in his wealth versus commonwealth; and the book wasallowed to die, and you hardly ever hear of it. and now, at last, two magazines have thecourage to tackle 'standard oil' again, and what happens? the newspapers ridicule the authors, thechurches defend the criminals, and the government--does nothing.and now, why is it all so different with the beef trust?"

here the other would generally admit thathe was "stuck"; and tommy hinds would explain to him, and it was fun to see hiseyes open. "if you were a socialist," the hotel-keeperwould say, "you would understand that the power which really governs the unitedstates today is the railroad trust. it is the railroad trust that runs yourstate government, wherever you live, and that runs the united states senate.and all of the trusts that i have named are railroad trusts--save only the beef trust! the beef trust has defied the railroads--itis plundering them day by day through the private car; and so the public is roused tofury, and the papers clamor for action, and

the government goes on the war-path! and you poor common people watch andapplaud the job, and think it's all done for you, and never dream that it is reallythe grand climax of the century-long battle of commercial competition--the final death grapple between the chiefs of the beeftrust and 'standard oil,' for the prize of the mastery and ownership of the unitedstates of america!" such was the new home in which jurgis livedand worked, and in which his education was completed. perhaps you would imagine that he did notdo much work there, but that would be a

great mistake. he would have cut off one hand for tommyhinds; and to keep hinds's hotel a thing of beauty was his joy in life. that he had a score of socialist argumentschasing through his brain in the meantime did not interfere with this; on thecontrary, jurgis scrubbed the spittoons and polished the banisters all the more vehemently because at the same time he waswrestling inwardly with an imaginary recalcitrant. it would be pleasant to record that heswore off drinking immediately, and all the

rest of his bad habits with it; but thatwould hardly be exact. these revolutionists were not angels; theywere men, and men who had come up from the social pit, and with the mire of it smearedover them. some of them drank, and some of them swore,and some of them ate pie with their knives; there was only one difference between themand all the rest of the populace--that they were men with a hope, with a cause to fightfor and suffer for. there came times to jurgis when the visionseemed far-off and pale, and a glass of beer loomed large in comparison; but if theglass led to another glass, and to too many glasses, he had something to spur him toremorse and resolution on the morrow.

it was so evidently a wicked thing to spendone's pennies for drink, when the working class was wandering in darkness, andwaiting to be delivered; the price of a glass of beer would buy fifty copies of a leaflet, and one could hand these out tothe unregenerate, and then get drunk upon the thought of the good that was beingaccomplished. that was the way the movement had beenmade, and it was the only way it would progress; it availed nothing to know of it,without fighting for it--it was a thing for all, not for a few! a corollary of this proposition of coursewas, that any one who refused to receive

the new gospel was personally responsiblefor keeping jurgis from his heart's desire; and this, alas, made him uncomfortable asan acquaintance. he met some neighbors with whom elzbietahad made friends in her neighborhood, and he set out to make socialists of them bywholesale, and several times he all but got into a fight. it was all so painfully obvious to jurgis!it was so incomprehensible how a man could fail to see it! here were all the opportunities of thecountry, the land, and the buildings upon the land, the railroads, the mines, thefactories, and the stores, all in the hands

of a few private individuals, called capitalists, for whom the people wereobliged to work for wages. the whole balance of what the peopleproduced went to heap up the fortunes of these capitalists, to heap, and heap again,and yet again--and that in spite of the fact that they, and every one about them,lived in unthinkable luxury! and was it not plain that if the people cutoff the share of those who merely "owned," the share of those who worked would be muchgreater? that was as plain as two and two makesfour; and it was the whole of it, absolutely the whole of it; and yet therewere people who could not see it, who would

argue about everything else in the world. they would tell you that governments couldnot manage things as economically as private individuals; they would repeat andrepeat that, and think they were saying something! they could not see that "economical"management by masters meant simply that they, the people, were worked harder andground closer and paid less! they were wage-earners and servants, at themercy of exploiters whose one thought was to get as much out of them as possible; andthey were taking an interest in the process, were anxious lest it should not bedone thoroughly enough!

was it not honestly a trial to listen to anargument such as that? and yet there were things even worse. you would begin talking to some poor devilwho had worked in one shop for the last thirty years, and had never been able tosave a penny; who left home every morning at six o'clock, to go and tend a machine, and come back at night too tired to takehis clothes off; who had never had a week's vacation in his life, had never traveled,never had an adventure, never learned anything, never hoped anything--and when you started to tell him about socialism hewould sniff and say, "i'm not interested in

that--i'm an individualist!" and then he would go on to tell you thatsocialism was "paternalism," and that if it ever had its way the world would stopprogressing. it was enough to make a mule laugh, to heararguments like that; and yet it was no laughing matter, as you found out--for howmany millions of such poor deluded wretches there were, whose lives had been so stunted by capitalism that they no longer knew whatfreedom was! and they really thought that it was"individualism" for tens of thousands of them to herd together and obey the ordersof a steel magnate, and produce hundreds of

millions of dollars of wealth for him, and then let him give them libraries; while forthem to take the industry, and run it to suit themselves, and build their ownlibraries--that would have been "paternalism"! sometimes the agony of such things as thiswas almost more than jurgis could bear; yet there was no way of escape from it, therewas nothing to do but to dig away at the base of this mountain of ignorance andprejudice. you must keep at the poor fellow; you musthold your temper, and argue with him, and watch for your chance to stick an idea ortwo into his head.

and the rest of the time you must sharpenup your weapons--you must think out new replies to his objections, and provideyourself with new facts to prove to him the folly of his ways. so jurgis acquired the reading habit. he would carry in his pocket a tract or apamphlet which some one had loaned him, and whenever he had an idle moment during theday he would plod through a paragraph, and then think about it while he worked. also he read the newspapers, and askedquestions about them. one of the other porters at hinds's was asharp little irishman, who knew everything

that jurgis wanted to know; and while theywere busy he would explain to him the geography of america, and its history, its constitution and its laws; also he gave himan idea of the business system of the country, the great railroads andcorporations, and who owned them, and the labor unions, and the big strikes, and themen who had led them. then at night, when he could get off,jurgis would attend the socialist meetings. during the campaign one was not dependentupon the street corner affairs, where the weather and the quality of the orator wereequally uncertain; there were hall meetings every night, and one could hear speakers ofnational prominence.

these discussed the political situationfrom every point of view, and all that troubled jurgis was the impossibility ofcarrying off but a small part of the treasures they offered him. there was a man who was known in the partyas the "little giant." the lord had used up so much material inthe making of his head that there had not been enough to complete his legs; but hegot about on the platform, and when he shook his raven whiskers the pillars ofcapitalism rocked. he had written a veritable encyclopediaupon the subject, a book that was nearly as big as himself--and then there was a youngauthor, who came from california, and had

been a salmon fisher, an oyster-pirate, a longshoreman, a sailor; who had tramped thecountry and been sent to jail, had lived in the whitechapel slums, and been to theklondike in search of gold. all these things he pictured in his books,and because he was a man of genius he forced the world to hear him.now he was famous, but wherever he went he still preached the gospel of the poor. and then there was one who was known at the"millionaire socialist." he had made a fortune in business, andspent nearly all of it in building up a magazine, which the post office departmenthad tried to suppress, and had driven to

canada. he was a quiet-mannered man, whom you wouldhave taken for anything in the world but a socialist agitator. his speech was simple and informal--hecould not understand why any one should get excited about these things. it was a process of economic evolution, hesaid, and he exhibited its laws and life was a struggle for existence, and thestrong overcame the weak, and in turn were overcome by the strongest. those who lost in the struggle weregenerally exterminated; but now and then

they had been known to save themselves bycombination--which was a new and higher kind of strength. it was so that the gregarious animals hadovercome the predaceous; it was so, in human history, that the people had masteredthe kings. the workers were simply the citizens ofindustry, and the socialist movement was the expression of their will to survive. the inevitability of the revolutiondepended upon this fact, that they had no choice but to unite or be exterminated;this fact, grim and inexorable, depended upon no human will, it was the law of the

economic process, of which the editorshowed the details with the most marvelous precision. and later on came the evening of the greatmeeting of the campaign, when jurgis heard the two standard-bearers of his party. ten years before there had been in chicagoa strike of a hundred and fifty thousand railroad employees, and thugs had beenhired by the railroads to commit violence, and the president of the united states had sent in troops to break the strike, byflinging the officers of the union into jail without trial.

the president of the union came out of hiscell a ruined man; but also he came out a socialist; and now for just ten years hehad been traveling up and down the country, standing face to face with the people, andpleading with them for justice. he was a man of electric presence, tall andgaunt, with a face worn thin by struggle and suffering. the fury of outraged manhood gleamed in it--and the tears of suffering little children pleaded in his voice.when he spoke he paced the stage, lithe and eager, like a panther. he leaned over, reaching out for hisaudience; he pointed into their souls with

an insistent finger. his voice was husky from much speaking, butthe great auditorium was as still as death, and every one heard him. and then, as jurgis came out from thismeeting, some one handed him a paper which he carried home with him and read; and sohe became acquainted with the "appeal to reason." about twelve years previously a coloradoreal-estate speculator had made up his mind that it was wrong to gamble in thenecessities of life of human beings: and so he had retired and begun the publication ofa socialist weekly.

there had come a time when he had to sethis own type, but he had held on and won out, and now his publication was aninstitution. it used a carload of paper every week, andthe mail trains would be hours loading up at the depot of the little kansas town. it was a four-page weekly, which sold forless than half a cent a copy; its regular subscription list was a quarter of amillion, and it went to every crossroads post office in america. the "appeal" was a "propaganda" paper. it had a manner all its own--it was full ofginger and spice, of western slang and

hustle: it collected news of the doings ofthe "plutes," and served it up for the benefit of the "american working-mule." it would have columns of the deadlyparallel--the million dollars' worth of diamonds, or the fancy pet-poodleestablishment of a society dame, beside the fate of mrs. murphy of san francisco, who had starved to death on the streets, or ofjohn robinson, just out of the hospital, who had hanged himself in new york becausehe could not find work. it collected the stories of graft andmisery from the daily press, and made a little pungent paragraphs out of them.

"three banks of bungtown, south dakota,failed, and more savings of the workers swallowed up!""the mayor of sandy creek, oklahoma, has skipped with a hundred thousand dollars. that's the kind of rulers the old partyitesgive you!" "the president of the florida flyingmachine company is in jail for bigamy. he was a prominent opponent of socialism,which he said would break up the home!" the "appeal" had what it called its "army,"about thirty thousand of the faithful, who did things for it; and it was alwaysexhorting the "army" to keep its dander up, and occasionally encouraging it with a

prize competition, for anything from a goldwatch to a private yacht or an eighty-acre farm. its office helpers were all known to the"army" by quaint titles--"inky ike," "the bald-headed man," "the redheaded girl,""the bulldog," "the office goat," and "the one hoss." but sometimes, again, the "appeal" would bedesperately serious. it sent a correspondent to colorado, andprinted pages describing the overthrow of american institutions in that state. in a certain city of the country it hadover forty of its "army" in the

headquarters of the telegraph trust, and nomessage of importance to socialists ever went through that a copy of it did not goto the "appeal." it would print great broadsides during thecampaign; one copy that came to jurgis was a manifesto addressed to strikingworkingmen, of which nearly a million copies had been distributed in the industrial centers, wherever the employers'associations had been carrying out their "open shop" program."you have lost the strike!" it was headed. "and now what are you going to do aboutit?" it was what is called an "incendiary"appeal--it was written by a man into whose

soul the iron had entered. when this edition appeared, twenty thousandcopies were sent to the stockyards district; and they were taken out andstowed away in the rear of a little cigar store, and every evening, and on sundays, the members of the packingtown locals wouldget armfuls and distribute them on the streets and in the houses. the people of packingtown had lost theirstrike, if ever a people had, and so they read these papers gladly, and twentythousand were hardly enough to go round. jurgis had resolved not to go near his oldhome again, but when he heard of this it

was too much for him, and every night for aweek he would get on the car and ride out to the stockyards, and help to undo his work of the previous year, when he had sentmike scully's ten-pin setter to the city board of aldermen. it was quite marvelous to see what adifference twelve months had made in packingtown--the eyes of the people weregetting opened! the socialists were literally sweepingeverything before them that election, and scully and the cook county machine were attheir wits' end for an "issue." at the very close of the campaign theybethought themselves of the fact that the

strike had been broken by negroes, and sothey sent for a south carolina fire-eater, the "pitchfork senator," as he was called, a man who took off his coat when he talkedto workingmen, and damned and swore like a hessian. this meeting they advertised extensively,and the socialists advertised it too--with the result that about a thousand of themwere on hand that evening. the "pitchfork senator" stood theirfusillade of questions for about an hour, and then went home in disgust, and thebalance of the meeting was a strictly party affair.

jurgis, who had insisted upon coming, hadthe time of his life that night; he danced about and waved his arms in his excitement--and at the very climax he broke loose from his friends, and got out into the aisle,and proceeded to make a speech himself! the senator had been denying that thedemocratic party was corrupt; it was always the republicans who bought the votes, hesaid--and here was jurgis shouting furiously, "it's a lie! it's a lie!"after which he went on to tell them how he knew it--that he knew it because he hadbought them himself! and he would have told the "pitchforksenator" all his experiences, had not harry

adams and a friend grabbed him about theneck and shoved him into a seat. chapter 31 one of the first things that jurgis haddone after he got a job was to go and see marija. she came down into the basement of thehouse to meet him, and he stood by the door with his hat in his hand, saying, "i've gotwork now, and so you can leave here." but marija only shook her head. there was nothing else for her to do, shesaid, and nobody to employ her. she could not keep her past a secret--girlshad tried it, and they were always found

out. there were thousands of men who came tothis place, and sooner or later she would meet one of them."and besides," marija added, "i can't do anything. i'm no good--i take dope.what could you do with me?" "can't you stop?"jurgis cried. "no," she answered, "i'll never stop. what's the use of talking about it--i'llstay here till i die, i guess. it's all i'm fit for."and that was all that he could get her to

say--there was no use trying. when he told her he would not let elzbietatake her money, she answered indifferently: "then it'll be wasted here--that's all." her eyelids looked heavy and her face wasred and swollen; he saw that he was annoying her, that she only wanted him togo away. so he went, disappointed and sad. poor jurgis was not very happy in his home-life. elzbieta was sick a good deal now, and theboys were wild and unruly, and very much the worse for their life upon the streets.

but he stuck by the family nevertheless,for they reminded him of his old happiness; and when things went wrong he could solacehimself with a plunge into the socialist since his life had been caught up into thecurrent of this great stream, things which had before been the whole of life to himcame to seem of relatively slight importance; his interests were elsewhere,in the world of ideas. his outward life was commonplace anduninteresting; he was just a hotel-porter, and expected to remain one while he lived;but meantime, in the realm of thought, his life was a perpetual adventure. there was so much to know--so many wondersto be discovered!

never in all his life did jurgis forget theday before election, when there came a telephone message from a friend of harryadams, asking him to bring jurgis to see him that night; and jurgis went, and metone of the minds of the movement. the invitation was from a man named fisher,a chicago millionaire who had given up his life to settlement work, and had a littlehome in the heart of the city's slums. he did not belong to the party, but he wasin sympathy with it; and he said that he was to have as his guest that night theeditor of a big eastern magazine, who wrote against socialism, but really did not knowwhat it was. the millionaire suggested that adams bringjurgis along, and then start up the subject

of "pure food," in which the editor wasinterested. young fisher's home was a little two-storybrick house, dingy and weather-beaten outside, but attractive within. the room that jurgis saw was half linedwith books, and upon the walls were many pictures, dimly visible in the soft, yellowlight; it was a cold, rainy night, so a log fire was crackling in the open hearth. seven or eight people were gathered aboutit when adams and his friend arrived, and jurgis saw to his dismay that three of themwere ladies. he had never talked to people of this sortbefore, and he fell into an agony of

embarrassment. he stood in the doorway clutching his hattightly in his hands, and made a deep bow to each of the persons as he wasintroduced; then, when he was asked to have a seat, he took a chair in a dark corner, and sat down upon the edge of it, and wipedthe perspiration off his forehead with his sleeve.he was terrified lest they should expect him to talk. there was the host himself, a tall,athletic young man, clad in evening dress, as also was the editor, a dyspeptic-lookinggentleman named maynard.

there was the former's frail young wife,and also an elderly lady, who taught kindergarten in the settlement, and a youngcollege student, a beautiful girl with an intense and earnest face. she only spoke once or twice while jurgiswas there--the rest of the time she sat by the table in the center of the room,resting her chin in her hands and drinking in the conversation. there were two other men, whom young fisherhad introduced to jurgis as mr. lucas and mr. schliemann; he heard them address adamsas "comrade," and so he knew that they were socialists.

the one called lucas was a mild and meek-looking little gentleman of clerical aspect; he had been an itinerantevangelist, it transpired, and had seen the light and become a prophet of the newdispensation. he traveled all over the country, livinglike the apostles of old, upon hospitality, and preaching upon street-corners whenthere was no hall. the other man had been in the midst of adiscussion with the editor when adams and jurgis came in; and at the suggestion ofthe host they resumed it after the interruption. jurgis was soon sitting spellbound,thinking that here was surely the strangest

man that had ever lived in the world. nicholas schliemann was a swede, a tall,gaunt person, with hairy hands and bristling yellow beard; he was a universityman, and had been a professor of philosophy--until, as he said, he had found that he was selling his character as wellas his time. instead he had come to america, where helived in a garret room in this slum district, and made volcanic energy take theplace of fire. he studied the composition of food-stuffs,and knew exactly how many proteids and carbohydrates his body needed; and byscientific chewing he said that he tripled

the value of all he ate, so that it costhim eleven cents a day. about the first of july he would leavechicago for his vacation, on foot; and when he struck the harvest fields he would setto work for two dollars and a half a day, and come home when he had another year'ssupply--a hundred and twenty-five dollars. that was the nearest approach toindependence a man could make "under capitalism," he explained; he would nevermarry, for no sane man would allow himself to fall in love until after the revolution. he sat in a big arm-chair, with his legscrossed, and his head so far in the shadow that one saw only two glowing lights,reflected from the fire on the hearth.

he spoke simply, and utterly withoutemotion; with the manner of a teacher setting forth to a group of scholars anaxiom in geometry, he would enunciate such propositions as made the hair of anordinary person rise on end. and when the auditor had asserted his non-comprehension, he would proceed to elucidate by some new proposition, yet moreappalling. to jurgis the herr dr. schliemann assumedthe proportions of a thunderstorm or an earthquake. and yet, strange as it might seem, therewas a subtle bond between them, and he could follow the argument nearly all thetime.

he was carried over the difficult places inspite of himself; and he went plunging away in mad career--a very mazeppa-ride upon thewild horse speculation. nicholas schliemann was familiar with allthe universe, and with man as a small part of it.he understood human institutions, and blew them about like soap bubbles. it was surprising that so muchdestructiveness could be contained in one human mind.was it government? the purpose of government was the guardingof property-rights, the perpetuation of ancient force and modern fraud.or was it marriage?

marriage and prostitution were two sides ofone shield, the predatory man's exploitation of the sex-pleasure.the difference between them was a difference of class. if a woman had money she might dictate herown terms: equality, a life contract, and the legitimacy--that is, the property-rights--of her children. if she had no money, she was a proletarian,and sold herself for an existence. and then the subject became religion, whichwas the archfiend's deadliest weapon. government oppressed the body of the wage-slave, but religion oppressed his mind, and poisoned the stream of progress at itssource.

the working-man was to fix his hopes upon afuture life, while his pockets were picked in this one; he was brought up tofrugality, humility, obedience--in short to all the pseudo-virtues of capitalism. the destiny of civilization would bedecided in one final death struggle between the red international and the black,between socialism and the roman catholic church; while here at home, "the stygianmidnight of american evangelicalism--" and here the ex-preacher entered the field,and there was a lively tussle. "comrade" lucas was not what is called aneducated man; he knew only the bible, but it was the bible interpreted by realexperience.

and what was the use, he asked, ofconfusing religion with men's perversions of it? that the church was in the hands of themerchants at the moment was obvious enough; but already there were signs of rebellion,and if comrade schliemann could come back a few years from now-- "ah, yes," said the other, "of course, ihave no doubt that in a hundred years the vatican will be denying that it everopposed socialism, just as at present it denies that it ever tortured galileo." "i am not defending the vatican," exclaimedlucas, vehemently.

"i am defending the word of god--which isone long cry of the human spirit for deliverance from the sway of oppression. take the twenty-fourth chapter of the bookof job, which i am accustomed to quote in my addresses as 'the bible upon the beeftrust'; or take the words of isaiah--or of the master himself! not the elegant prince of our debauched andvicious art, not the jeweled idol of our society churches--but the jesus of theawful reality, the man of sorrow and pain, the outcast, despised of the world, who hadnowhere to lay his head--" "i will grant you jesus," interrupted theother.

"well, then," cried lucas, "and why shouldjesus have nothing to do with his church-- why should his words and his life be of noauthority among those who profess to adore him? here is a man who was the world's firstrevolutionist, the true founder of the socialist movement; a man whose whole beingwas one flame of hatred for wealth, and all that wealth stands for,--for the pride of wealth, and the luxury of wealth, and thetyranny of wealth; who was himself a beggar and a tramp, a man of the people, anassociate of saloon-keepers and women of the town; who again and again, in the most

explicit language, denounced wealth and theholding of wealth: 'lay not up for yourselves treasures on earth!'--'sell thatye have and give alms!'--'blessed are ye poor, for yours is the kingdom of heaven!'- -'woe unto you that are rich, for ye havereceived your consolation!'--'verily, i say unto you, that a rich man shall hardlyenter into the kingdom of heaven!' who denounced in unmeasured terms theexploiters of his own time: 'woe unto you, scribes and pharisees, hypocrites!'--'woeunto you also, you lawyers!'--'ye serpents, ye generation of vipers, how can ye escapethe damnation of hell?' who drove out the business men and brokersfrom the temple with a whip!

who was crucified--think of it--for anincendiary and a disturber of the social order! and this man they have made into the highpriest of property and smug respectability, a divine sanction of all the horrors andabominations of modern commercial civilization! jeweled images are made of him, sensualpriests burn incense to him, and modern pirates of industry bring their dollars,wrung from the toil of helpless women and children, and build temples to him, and sit in cushioned seats and listen to histeachings expounded by doctors of dusty

divinity--""bravo!" cried schliemann, laughing. but the other was in full career--he hadtalked this subject every day for five years, and had never yet let himself bestopped. "this jesus of nazareth!" he cried. "this class-conscious working-man!this union carpenter! this agitator, law-breaker, firebrand,anarchist! he, the sovereign lord and master of aworld which grinds the bodies and souls of human beings into dollars--if he could comeinto the world this day and see the things that men have made in his name, would itnot blast his soul with horror?

would he not go mad at the sight of it, hethe prince of mercy and love! that dreadful night when he lay in thegarden of gethsemane and writhed in agony until he sweat blood--do you think that hesaw anything worse than he might see tonight upon the plains of manchuria, where men march out with a jeweled image of himbefore them, to do wholesale murder for the benefit of foul monsters of sensuality andcruelty? do you not know that if he were in st.petersburg now, he would take the whip with which he drove out the bankers from histemple--" here the speaker paused an instant forbreath.

"no, comrade," said the other, dryly, "forhe was a practical man. he would take pretty little imitationlemons, such as are now being shipped into russia, handy for carrying in the pockets,and strong enough to blow a whole temple out of sight." lucas waited until the company had stoppedlaughing over this; then he began again: "but look at it from the point of view ofpractical politics, comrade. here is an historical figure whom all menreverence and love, whom some regard as divine; and who was one of us--who livedour life, and taught our doctrine. and now shall we leave him in the hands ofhis enemies--shall we allow them to stifle

and stultify his example? we have his words, which no one can deny;and shall we not quote them to the people, and prove to them what he was, and what hetaught, and what he did? no, no, a thousand times no!--we shall usehis authority to turn out the knaves and sluggards from his ministry, and we shallyet rouse the people to action!--" lucas halted again; and the other stretchedout his hand to a paper on the table. "here, comrade," he said, with a laugh,"here is a place for you to begin. a bishop whose wife has just been robbed offifty thousand dollars' worth of diamonds! and a most unctuous and oily of bishops!an eminent and scholarly bishop!

a philanthropist and friend of laborbishop--a civic federation decoy duck for the chloroforming of the wage-working-man!"to this little passage of arms the rest of the company sat as spectators. but now mr. maynard, the editor, tookoccasion to remark, somewhat naively, that he had always understood that socialistshad a cut-and-dried program for the future of civilization; whereas here were two active members of the party, who, from whathe could make out, were agreed about nothing at all. would the two, for his enlightenment, tryto ascertain just what they had in common,

and why they belonged to the same party? this resulted, after much debating, in theformulating of two carefully worded propositions: first, that a socialistbelieves in the common ownership and democratic management of the means of producing the necessities of life; and,second, that a socialist believes that the means by which this is to be brought aboutis the class conscious political organization of the wage-earners. thus far they were at one; but no farther.to lucas, the religious zealot, the co- operative commonwealth was the newjerusalem, the kingdom of heaven, which is

"within you." to the other, socialism was simply anecessary step toward a far-distant goal, a step to be tolerated with impatience. schliemann called himself a "philosophicanarchist"; and he explained that an anarchist was one who believed that the endof human existence was the free development of every personality, unrestricted by lawssave those of its own being. since the same kind of match would lightevery one's fire and the same-shaped loaf of bread would fill every one's stomach, itwould be perfectly feasible to submit industry to the control of a majority vote.

there was only one earth, and the quantityof material things was limited. of intellectual and moral things, on theother hand, there was no limit, and one could have more without another's havingless; hence "communism in material production, anarchism in intellectual," wasthe formula of modern proletarian thought. as soon as the birth agony was over, andthe wounds of society had been healed, there would be established a simple systemwhereby each man was credited with his labor and debited with his purchases; and after that the processes of production,exchange, and consumption would go on automatically, and without our beingconscious of them, any more than a man is

conscious of the beating of his heart. and then, explained schliemann, societywould break up into independent, self- governing communities of mutually congenialpersons; examples of which at present were clubs, churches, and political parties. after the revolution, all the intellectual,artistic, and spiritual activities of men would be cared for by such "freeassociations"; romantic novelists would be supported by those who liked to read romantic novels, and impressionist painterswould be supported by those who liked to look at impressionist pictures--and thesame with preachers and scientists, editors

and actors and musicians. if any one wanted to work or paint or pray,and could find no one to maintain him, he could support himself by working part ofthe time. that was the case at present, the onlydifference being that the competitive wage system compelled a man to work all the timeto live, while, after the abolition of privilege and exploitation, any one would be able to support himself by an hour'swork a day. also the artist's audience of the presentwas a small minority of people, all debased and vulgarized by the effort it had costthem to win in the commercial battle, of

the intellectual and artistic activities which would result when the whole ofmankind was set free from the nightmare of competition, we could at present form noconception whatever. and then the editor wanted to know uponwhat ground dr. schliemann asserted that it might be possible for a society to existupon an hour's toil by each of its members. "just what," answered the other, "would bethe productive capacity of society if the present resources of science were utilized,we have no means of ascertaining; but we may be sure it would exceed anything that would sound reasonable to minds inured tothe ferocious barbarities of capitalism.

after the triumph of the internationalproletariat, war would of course be inconceivable; and who can figure the costof war to humanity--not merely the value of the lives and the material that it destroys, not merely the cost of keepingmillions of men in idleness, of arming and equipping them for battle and parade, butthe drain upon the vital energies of society by the war attitude and the war terror, the brutality and ignorance, thedrunkenness, prostitution, and crime it entails, the industrial impotence and themoral deadness? do you think that it would be too much tosay that two hours of the working time of

every efficient member of a community goesto feed the red fiend of war?" and then schliemann went on to outline someof the wastes of competition: the losses of industrial warfare; the ceaseless worry andfriction; the vices--such as drink, for instance, the use of which had nearly doubled in twenty years, as a consequenceof the intensification of the economic struggle; the idle and unproductive membersof the community, the frivolous rich and the pauperized poor; the law and the whole machinery of repression; the wastes ofsocial ostentation, the milliners and tailors, the hairdressers, dancing masters,chefs and lackeys.

"you understand," he said, "that in asociety dominated by the fact of commercial competition, money is necessarily the testof prowess, and wastefulness the sole criterion of power. so we have, at the present moment, asociety with, say, thirty per cent of the population occupied in producing uselessarticles, and one per cent occupied in destroying them. and this is not all; for the servants andpanders of the parasites are also parasites, the milliners and the jewelersand the lackeys have also to be supported by the useful members of the community.

and bear in mind also that this monstrousdisease affects not merely the idlers and their menials, its poison penetrates thewhole social body. beneath the hundred thousand women of theelite are a million middle-class women, miserable because they are not of theelite, and trying to appear of it in public; and beneath them, in turn, are five million farmers' wives reading 'fashionpapers' and trimming bonnets, and shop- girls and serving-maids selling themselvesinto brothels for cheap jewelry and imitation seal-skin robes. and then consider that, added to thiscompetition in display, you have, like oil

on the flames, a whole system ofcompetition in selling! you have manufacturers contriving tens ofthousands of catchpenny devices, storekeepers displaying them, andnewspapers and magazines filled up with advertisements of them!" "and don't forget the wastes of fraud," putin young fisher. "when one comes to the ultra-modernprofession of advertising," responded schliemann--"the science of persuadingpeople to buy what they do not want--he is in the very center of the ghastly charnel house of capitalist destructiveness, and hescarcely knows which of a dozen horrors to

point out first. but consider the waste in time and energyincidental to making ten thousand varieties of a thing for purposes of ostentation andsnobbishness, where one variety would do for use! consider all the waste incidental to themanufacture of cheap qualities of goods, of goods made to sell and deceive theignorant; consider the wastes of adulteration,--the shoddy clothing, the cotton blankets, the unstable tenements,the ground-cork life-preservers, the adulterated milk, the aniline soda water,the potato-flour sausages--"

"and consider the moral aspects of thething," put in the ex-preacher. "precisely," said schliemann; "the lowknavery and the ferocious cruelty incidental to them, the plotting and thelying and the bribing, the blustering and bragging, the screaming egotism, thehurrying and worrying. of course, imitation and adulteration arethe essence of competition--they are but another form of the phrase 'to buy in thecheapest market and sell in the dearest.' a government official has stated that thenation suffers a loss of a billion and a quarter dollars a year through adulteratedfoods; which means, of course, not only materials wasted that might have been

useful outside of the human stomach, butdoctors and nurses for people who would otherwise have been well, and undertakersfor the whole human race ten or twenty years before the proper time. then again, consider the waste of time andenergy required to sell these things in a dozen stores, where one would do. there are a million or two of businessfirms in the country, and five or ten times as many clerks; and consider the handlingand rehandling, the accounting and reaccounting, the planning and worrying,the balancing of petty profit and loss. consider the whole machinery of the civillaw made necessary by these processes; the

libraries of ponderous tomes, the courtsand juries to interpret them, the lawyers studying to circumvent them, the pettifogging and chicanery, the hatreds andlies! consider the wastes incidental to the blindand haphazard production of commodities-- the factories closed, the workers idle, thegoods spoiling in storage; consider the activities of the stock manipulator, the paralyzing of whole industries, theoverstimulation of others, for speculative purposes; the assignments and bankfailures, the crises and panics, the deserted towns and the starvingpopulations!

consider the energies wasted in the seekingof markets, the sterile trades, such as drummer, solicitor, bill-poster,advertising agent. consider the wastes incidental to thecrowding into cities, made necessary by competition and by monopoly railroad rates;consider the slums, the bad air, the disease and the waste of vital energies; consider the office buildings, the waste oftime and material in the piling of story upon story, and the burrowing underground! then take the whole business of insurance,the enormous mass of administrative and clerical labor it involves, and all utterwaste--"

"i do not follow that," said the editor. "the cooperative commonwealth is auniversal automatic insurance company and savings bank for all its members.capital being the property of all, injury to it is shared by all and made up by all. the bank is the universal governmentcredit-account, the ledger in which every individual's earnings and spendings arebalanced. there is also a universal governmentbulletin, in which are listed and precisely described everything which the commonwealthhas for sale. as no one makes any profit by the sale,there is no longer any stimulus to

extravagance, and no misrepresentation; nocheating, no adulteration or imitation, no bribery or 'grafting.'" "how is the price of an articledetermined?" "the price is the labor it has cost to makeand deliver it, and it is determined by the first principles of arithmetic. the million workers in the nation's wheatfields have worked a hundred days each, and the total product of the labor is a billionbushels, so the value of a bushel of wheat is the tenth part of a farm labor-day. if we employ an arbitrary symbol, and pay,say, five dollars a day for farm work, then

the cost of a bushel of wheat is fiftycents." "you say 'for farm work,'" said mr.maynard. "then labor is not to be paid alike?" "manifestly not, since some work is easyand some hard, and we should have millions of rural mail carriers, and no coal miners. of course the wages may be left the same,and the hours varied; one or the other will have to be varied continually, according asa greater or less number of workers is needed in any particular industry. that is precisely what is done at present,except that the transfer of the workers is

accomplished blindly and imperfectly, byrumors and advertisements, instead of instantly and completely, by a universalgovernment bulletin." "how about those occupations in which timeis difficult to calculate? what is the labor cost of a book?" "obviously it is the labor cost of thepaper, printing, and binding of it--about a fifth of its present cost.""and the author?" "i have already said that the state couldnot control intellectual production. the state might say that it had taken ayear to write the book, and the author might say it had taken thirty.

goethe said that every bon mot of his hadcost a purse of gold. what i outline here is a national, orrather international, system for the providing of the material needs of men. since a man has intellectual needs also, hewill work longer, earn more, and provide for them to his own taste and in his ownway. i live on the same earth as the majority, iwear the same kind of shoes and sleep in the same kind of bed; but i do not thinkthe same kind of thoughts, and i do not wish to pay for such thinkers as themajority selects. i wish such things to be left to freeeffort, as at present.

if people want to listen to a certainpreacher, they get together and contribute what they please, and pay for a church andsupport the preacher, and then listen to him; i, who do not want to listen to him,stay away, and it costs me nothing. in the same way there are magazines aboutegyptian coins, and catholic saints, and flying machines, and athletic records, andi know nothing about any of them. on the other hand, if wage slavery wereabolished, and i could earn some spare money without paying tribute to anexploiting capitalist, then there would be a magazine for the purpose of interpreting and popularizing the gospel of friedrichnietzsche, the prophet of evolution, and

also of horace fletcher, the inventor ofthe noble science of clean eating; and incidentally, perhaps, for the discouraging of long skirts, and the scientific breedingof men and women, and the establishing of divorce by mutual consent."dr. schliemann paused for a moment. "that was a lecture," he said with a laugh,"and yet i am only begun!" "what else is there?" asked maynard."i have pointed out some of the negative wastes of competition," answered the other. "i have hardly mentioned the positiveeconomies of co-operation. allowing five to a family, there arefifteen million families in this country;

and at least ten million of these liveseparately, the domestic drudge being either the wife or a wage slave. now set aside the modern system ofpneumatic house-cleaning, and the economies of co-operative cooking; and consider onesingle item, the washing of dishes. surely it is moderate to say that the dish-washing for a family of five takes half an hour a day; with ten hours as a day's work,it takes, therefore, half a million able- bodied persons--mostly women to do thedish-washing of the country. and note that this is most filthy anddeadening and brutalizing work; that it is a cause of anemia, nervousness, ugliness,and ill-temper; of prostitution, suicide,

and insanity; of drunken husbands and degenerate children--for all of whichthings the community has naturally to pay. and now consider that in each of my littlefree communities there would be a machine which would wash and dry the dishes, and doit, not merely to the eye and the touch, but scientifically--sterilizing them--and do it at a saving of all the drudgery andnine-tenths of the time! all of these things you may find in thebooks of mrs. gilman; and then take kropotkin's fields, factories, andworkshops, and read about the new science of agriculture, which has been built up in

the last ten years; by which, with madesoils and intensive culture, a gardener can raise ten or twelve crops in a season, andtwo hundred tons of vegetables upon a single acre; by which the population of the whole globe could be supported on the soilnow cultivated in the united states alone! it is impossible to apply such methods now,owing to the ignorance and poverty of our scattered farming population; but imaginethe problem of providing the food supply of our nation once taken in hand systematically and rationally, byscientists! all the poor and rocky land set apart for anational timber reserve, in which our

children play, and our young men hunt, andour poets dwell! the most favorable climate and soil foreach product selected; the exact requirements of the community known, andthe acreage figured accordingly; the most improved machinery employed, under thedirection of expert agricultural chemists! i was brought up on a farm, and i know theawful deadliness of farm work; and i like to picture it all as it will be after therevolution. to picture the great potato-plantingmachine, drawn by four horses, or an electric motor, ploughing the furrow,cutting and dropping and covering the potatoes, and planting a score of acres aday!

to picture the great potato-diggingmachine, run by electricity, perhaps, and moving across a thousand-acre field,scooping up earth and potatoes, and dropping the latter into sacks! to every other kind of vegetable and fruithandled in the same way--apples and oranges picked by machinery, cows milked byelectricity--things which are already done, as you may know. to picture the harvest fields of thefuture, to which millions of happy men and women come for a summer holiday, brought byspecial trains, the exactly needful number to each place!

and to contrast all this with our presentagonizing system of independent small farming,--a stunted, haggard, ignorant man,mated with a yellow, lean, and sad-eyed drudge, and toiling from four o'clock in the morning until nine at night, workingthe children as soon as they are able to walk, scratching the soil with itsprimitive tools, and shut out from all knowledge and hope, from all their benefits of science and invention, and all the joysof the spirit--held to a bare existence by competition in labor, and boasting of hisfreedom because he is too blind to see his chains!"

dr. schliemann paused a moment. "and then," he continued, "place besidethis fact of an unlimited food supply, the newest discovery of physiologists, thatmost of the ills of the human system are due to overfeeding! and then again, it has been proven thatmeat is unnecessary as a food; and meat is obviously more difficult to produce thanvegetable food, less pleasant to prepare and handle, and more likely to be unclean. but what of that, so long as it tickles thepalate more strongly?" "how would socialism change that?" askedthe girl-student, quickly.

it was the first time she had spoken. "so long as we have wage slavery," answeredschliemann, "it matters not in the least how debasing and repulsive a task may be,it is easy to find people to perform it. but just as soon as labor is set free, thenthe price of such work will begin to rise. so one by one the old, dingy, andunsanitary factories will come down--it will be cheaper to build new; and so thesteamships will be provided with stoking machinery, and so the dangerous trades will be made safe, or substitutes will be foundfor their products. in exactly the same way, as the citizens ofour industrial republic become refined,

year by year the cost of slaughterhouseproducts will increase; until eventually those who want to eat meat will have to do their own killing--and how long do youthink the custom would survive then?--to go on to another item--one of the necessaryaccompaniments of capitalism in a democracy is political corruption; and one of the consequences of civic administration byignorant and vicious politicians, is that preventable diseases kill off half ourpopulation. and even if science were allowed to try, itcould do little, because the majority of human beings are not yet human beings atall, but simply machines for the creating

of wealth for others. they are penned up in filthy houses andleft to rot and stew in misery, and the conditions of their life make them illfaster than all the doctors in the world could heal them; and so, of course, they remain as centers of contagion, poisoningthe lives of all of us, and making happiness impossible for even the mostselfish. for this reason i would seriously maintainthat all the medical and surgical discoveries that science can make in thefuture will be of less importance than the application of the knowledge we already

possess, when the disinherited of the earthhave established their right to a human existence."and here the herr doctor relapsed into silence again. jurgis had noticed that the beautiful younggirl who sat by the center-table was listening with something of the same lookthat he himself had worn, the time when he had first discovered socialism. jurgis would have liked to talk to her, hefelt sure that she would have understood later on in the evening, when the groupbroke up, he heard mrs. fisher say to her, in a low voice, "i wonder if mr. maynardwill still write the same things about

socialism"; to which she answered, "i don't know--but if he does we shall know that heis a knave!" and only a few hours after this cameelection day--when the long campaign was over, and the whole country seemed to standstill and hold its breath, awaiting the issue. jurgis and the rest of the staff of hinds'shotel could hardly stop to finish their dinner, before they hurried off to the bighall which the party had hired for that evening. but already there were people waiting, andalready the telegraph instrument on the

stage had begun clicking off the returns. when the final accounts were made up, thesocialist vote proved to be over four hundred thousand--an increase of somethinglike three hundred and fifty per cent in four years. and that was doing well; but the party wasdependent for its early returns upon messages from the locals, and naturallythose locals which had been most successful were the ones which felt most like reporting; and so that night every one inthe hall believed that the vote was going to be six, or seven, or even eight hundredthousand.

just such an incredible increase hadactually been made in chicago, and in the state; the vote of the city had been 6,700in 1900, and now it was 47,000; that of illinois had been 9,600, and now it was69,000! so, as the evening waxed, and the crowdpiled in, the meeting was a sight to be seen. bulletins would be read, and the peoplewould shout themselves hoarse--and then some one would make a speech, and therewould be more shouting; and then a brief silence, and more bulletins. there would come messages from thesecretaries of neighboring states,

reporting their achievements; the vote ofindiana had gone from 2,300 to 12,000, of wisconsin from 7,000 to 28,000; of ohiofrom 4,800 to 36,000! there were telegrams to the national officefrom enthusiastic individuals in little towns which had made amazing andunprecedented increases in a single year: benedict, kansas, from 26 to 260; henderson, kentucky, from 19 to 111;holland, michigan, from 14 to 208; cleo, oklahoma, from 0 to 104; martin's ferry,ohio, from 0 to 296--and many more of the same kind. there were literally hundreds of suchtowns; there would be reports from half a

dozen of them in a single batch oftelegrams. and the men who read the despatches off tothe audience were old campaigners, who had been to the places and helped to make thevote, and could make appropriate comments: quincy, illinois, from 189 to 831--that was where the mayor had arrested a socialistspeaker! crawford county, kansas, from 285 to 1,975;that was the home of the "appeal to reason"! battle creek, michigan, from 4,261 to10,184; that was the answer of labor to the citizens' alliance movement!

and then there were official returns fromthe various precincts and wards of the city itself! whether it was a factory district or one ofthe "silk-stocking" wards seemed to make no particular difference in the increase; butone of the things which surprised the party leaders most was the tremendous vote thatcame rolling in from the stockyards. packingtown comprised three wards of thecity, and the vote in the spring of 1903 had been 500, and in the fall of the sameyear, 1,600. now, only one year later, it was over6,300--and the democratic vote only 8,800! there were other wards in which thedemocratic vote had been actually

surpassed, and in two districts, members ofthe state legislature had been elected. thus chicago now led the country; it hadset a new standard for the party, it had shown the workingmen the way! --so spoke an orator upon the platform; andtwo thousand pairs of eyes were fixed upon him, and two thousand voices were cheeringhis every sentence. the orator had been the head of the city'srelief bureau in the stockyards, until the sight of misery and corruption had made himsick. he was young, hungry-looking, full of fire;and as he swung his long arms and beat up the crowd, to jurgis he seemed the veryspirit of the revolution.

"organize! organize!organize!"--that was his cry. he was afraid of this tremendous vote,which his party had not expected, and which it had not earned. "these men are not socialists!" he cried. "this election will pass, and theexcitement will die, and people will forget about it; and if you forget about it, too,if you sink back and rest upon your oars, we shall lose this vote that we have polled to-day, and our enemies will laugh us toscorn!

it rests with you to take your resolution--now, in the flush of victory, to find these men who have voted for us, and bring themto our meetings, and organize them and bind them to us! we shall not find all our campaigns as easyas this one. everywhere in the country tonight the oldparty politicians are studying this vote, and setting their sails by it; and nowherewill they be quicker or more cunning than here in our own city. fifty thousand socialist votes in chicagomeans a municipal-ownership democracy in the spring!

and then they will fool the voters oncemore, and all the powers of plunder and corruption will be swept into office again! but whatever they may do when they get in,there is one thing they will not do, and that will be the thing for which they wereelected! they will not give the people of our citymunicipal ownership--they will not mean to do it, they will not try to do it; all thatthey will do is give our party in chicago the greatest opportunity that has ever cometo socialism in america! we shall have the sham reformers self-stultified and self-convicted; we shall have the radical democracy left without alie with which to cover its nakedness!

and then will begin the rush that willnever be checked, the tide that will never turn till it has reached its flood--thatwill be irresistible, overwhelming--the rallying of the outraged workingmen ofchicago to our standard! and we shall organize them, we shall drillthem, we shall marshal them for the victory! we shall bear down the opposition, we shallsweep if before us--and chicago will be ours!chicago will be ours! chicago will be ours!"

Subscribe to receive free email updates: