They paused at the edge of the group to listen.
"Friends and brothers," cried the speaker, in a clear, sad voice, "I presume many of you heard me speak on your public square last evening. Still it is possible that some of you were not there to listen to my words, to hear my warning of the great coming clash of the classes. It is as inevitable as the sinking of yonder sun to-night and its rise again to-morrow. With a prophetic eye I look into the future and behold the day when labor shall have its rights. That day is coming as surely as the sun continues to rise in the east. The iron hand of Capital would hold it back, but that cruel iron hand cannot, Joshua-like, stay the course of the sun nor stem the tide of human progress.
"Every intelligent person within the sound of my voice knows it is true that the rich are growing richer and the poor are becoming poorer. The accumulation of stupendous fortunes in the hands of individuals threatens the very foundations of our government. Time was when a man worth a million was supposed to be immensely rich. To-day the possessor of a single million is looked on with scorn and contempt by our multimillionaires. Ten millions, twenty millions, fifty millions—aye, even a hundred millions are now accumulated by individuals. This money belongs to the masses, the laborers who have earned it by the sweat of their brows."
"Hear! hear!" "That's right!" "Hooray!" cried the crowd.
Mulloy had gripped Ephraim's arm.
"Ivery word av thot has a familiar sound to me," muttered the Irishman. "Oi've heard thot talk before and from the same lips."
"My friends," continued the speaker, "we are all brothers. Justice to one and all of this great human family should be our motto. Unfortunately for me I was not born of the masses, as the royal knights of labor are now called by the American aristocrats of boodle. By birth I was supposed to be exalted above the lower strata of humanity. My parents were wealthy. My father gave me an education to be a slave driver over the common people. His blood runs in my veins, but my heart is not of his heart. In his eyes I have become disgraced because I dared boldly claim the street laborer, the man with the hoe, the man with the pick and shovel, the man with the sweat of honest toil on his brow—I have dared to claim him as a fellow man and brother.
"I have traveled from coast to coast, and I have lived in the poorest quarters of New York, Chicago, and other great cities. My heart has bled at the sufferings of the poor people who are wearing their wretched lives away in toil for a most wretched sustenance. The friends I once knew have turned from me and called me a socialist, an anarchist. They call us anarchists because we sympathize with the downtrodden masses—because we prophesy the coming of the great struggle that shall emancipate these masses. We are not anarchists, but we are proud to be called socialists. Anarchy is disorder and ruin. Socialism is order and equal rights for all. Let them point the finger of scorn at us. What care we? But let them beware, for the great earthquake is coming."
Mulloy and Gallup had forced their way through the crowd, and even as the speaker uttered these words Barney gave him a terrible slap on the back, while Ephraim kicked the box from beneath his feet.
"The earthquake do be come, begorra!" shouted Mulloy. "Greg Carker, ye bloody old socialist raskil, Oi have yez in me hands, and Oi'm going to hug yez till ye holler!"