Jane's heart was beating wildly. She continued to say carelessly, "You think so?"
"Davy's got a bad attack of big red eye to-day," said her father. "It's a habit young men have."
"I'm right, Mr. Hastings," cried Hull. "And, furthermore, you know I'm right, Jane; you saw that riot the other night. Joe Wetherbe told me so. You said that it was an absolutely unprovoked assault of the gangs of Kelly and House. Everyone in town knows it was. The middle and the upper class people are pretending to believe what the papers printed—what they'd like to believe. But they KNOW better. The working people are apparently silent. They usually are apparently silent. But they know the truth—they are talking it among themselves. And these indictments will make Victor Dorn a hero."
"What of it? What of it?" said Hastings impatiently. "The working people don't count."
"Not as long as we can keep them divided," retorted Davy. "But if they unite——"
And he went on to explain what he had in mind. He gave them an analysis of Remsen City. About fifty thousand inhabitants, of whom about ten thousand were voters. These voters were divided into three classes—upper class, with not more than three or four hundred votes, and therefore politically of no importance AT THE POLLS, though overwhelmingly the most influential in any other way; the middle class, the big and little merchants, the lawyers and doctors, the agents and firemen and so on, mustering in all about two thousand votes; finally, the working class with no less than eight thousand votes out of a total of ten thousand.
"By bribery and cajolery and browbeating and appeal to religious prejudice and to fear of losing jobs—by all sorts of chicane," said Davy, "about seven of these eight thousand votes are kept divided between the Republican or Kelly party and the Democratic or House party. The other ten or twelve hundred belong to Victor Dorn's League. Now, the seven thousand workingmen voters who follow Kelly and House like Victor Dorn, like his ideas, are with him at heart. But they are afraid of him. They don't trust each other. Workingmen despise the workingman as an ignorant fool."
"So he is," said Hastings.
"So he is," agreed Davy. "But Victor Dorn has about got the workingmen in this town persuaded that they'd fare better with Dorn and the League as their leaders than with Kelly and House as their leaders. And if Kelly goes on to persecute Victor Dorn, the workingmen will be frightened for their rights to free speech and free assembly. And they'll unite. I appeal to you, Jane—isn't that common sense?"
"I don't know anything about politics," said Jane, looking bored. "You must go in and lie down before dinner, father. You look tired."