"In America we don't ask how a man makes his money; we ask if he has got any."
"You are mistaken," replied Shirley earnestly. "America is waking up. The conscience of the nation is being aroused. We are coming to realize that the scandals of the last few years were only the fruit of public indifference to sharp business practice. The people will soon ask the dishonest rich man where he got it, and there will have to be an accounting. What account will you be able to give?"
He bit his lip and looked at her for a moment without replying. Then, with a faint suspicion of a sneer, he said:
"You are a socialist—perhaps an anarchist!"
"Only the ignorant commit the blunder of confounding the two," she retorted. "Anarchy is a disease; socialism is a science."
"Indeed!" he exclaimed mockingly, "I thought the terms were synonymous.
The world regards them both as insane."
Herself an enthusiastic convert to the new political faith that was rising like a flood tide all over the world, the contemptuous tone in which this plutocrat spoke of the coming reorganization of society which was destined to destroy him and his kind spurred her on to renewed argument.
"I imagine," she said sarcastically, "that you would hardly approve any social reform which threatened to interfere with your own business methods. But no matter how you disapprove of socialism on general principles, as a leader of the capitalist class you should understand what socialism is, and not confuse one of the most important movements in modern world-history with the crazy theories of irresponsible cranks. The anarchists are the natural enemies of the entire human family, and would destroy it were their dangerous doctrines permitted to prevail; the socialists, on the contrary, are seeking to save mankind from the degradation, the crime and the folly into which such men as you have driven it."
She spoke impetuously, with the inspired exaltation of a prophet delivering a message to the people. Ryder listened, concealing his impatience with uneasy little coughs.
"Yes," she went on, "I am a socialist and I am proud of it. The whole world is slowly drifting toward socialism as the only remedy for the actual intolerable conditions. It may not come in our time, but it will come as surely as the sun will rise and set tomorrow. Has not the flag of socialism waved recently from the White House? Has not a President of the United States declared that the State must eventually curb the great fortunes? What is that but socialism?"