"True," retorted Ryder grimly, "and that little speech intended for the benefit of the gallery will cost him the nomination at the next Presidential election. We don't want in the White House a President who stirs up class hatred. Our rich men have a right to what is their own; that is guaranteed them by the Constitution."
"Is it their own?" interrupted Shirley.
Ryder ignored the insinuation and proceeded:
"What of our boasted free institutions if a man is to be restricted in what he may and may not do? If I am clever enough to accumulate millions who can stop me?"
"The people will stop you," said Shirley calmly. "It is only a question of time. Their patience is about exhausted. Put your ear to the ground and listen to the distant rumbling of the tempest which, sooner or later, will be unchained in this land, provoked by the iniquitous practices of organized capital. The people have had enough of the extortions of the Trusts. One day they will rise in their wrath and seize by the throat this knavish plutocracy which, confident in the power of its wealth to procure legal immunity and reckless of its danger, persists in robbing the public daily. But retribution is at hand. The growing discontent of the proletariat, the ever-increasing strikes and labour disputes of all kinds, the clamour against the Railroads and the Trusts, the evidence of collusion between both—all this is the writing on the wall. The capitalistic system is doomed; socialism will succeed it."
"What is socialism?" he demanded scornfully. "What will it give the public that it has not got already?"
Shirley, who never neglected an opportunity to make a convert, no matter how hardened he might be, picked up a little pamphlet printed for propaganda purposes which she had that morning received by mail.
"Here," she said, "is one of the best and clearest definitions of socialism I have ever read:
"Socialism is common ownership of natural resources and public utilities, and the common operation of all industries for the general good. Socialism is opposed to monopoly, that is, to private ownership of land and the instruments of labor, which is indirect ownership of men; to the wages system, by which labor is legally robbed of a large part of the product of labor; to competition with its enormous waste of effort and its opportunities for the spoliation of the weak by the strong. Socialism is industrial democracy. It is the government of the people by the people and for the people, not in the present restricted sense, but as regards all the common interests of men. Socialism is opposed to oligarchy and monarchy, and therefore to the tyrannies of business cliques and money kings. Socialism is for freedom, not only from the fear of force, but from the fear of want. Socialism proposes real liberty, not merely the right to vote, but the liberty to live for something more than meat and drink.
"Socialism is righteousness in the relations of men. It is based on the fundamentals of religion, the Fatherhood of God and the Brotherhood of men. It seeks through association and equality to realize fraternity. Socialism will destroy the motives which make for cheap manufacturers, poor workmanship and adulterations; it will secure the real utility of things. Use, not exchange, will be the object of labour. Things will be made to serve, not to sell. Socialism will banish war, for private ownership is back of strife between men. Socialism will purify politics, for private capitalism is the great source of political corruption. Socialism will make for education, invention and discovery; it will stimulate the moral development of men. Crime will have lost most of its motive and pauperism will have no excuse. That," said Shirley, as she concluded, "is socialism!"