"Worse than that--worse than that!" he cried indignantly. "It's like those African fellows that cut a steak out of their live cattle and then turn them out to grow another. Those men there," and he shook his fist at the granite front of the Stock Exchange, "and those men there," and he shook his fist at the El Dorado Bank as the nearest representative of speculative finance, "are vampires that grow by sucking the blood of the people."
"The people appear to be willing victims," I suggested, looking at the eager if apprehensive faces about us.
"By heavens, no!" cried Parks, in his high excited voice. "They are driven into the shambles by their poverty--by the inequalities and injustices in the distribution of wealth--as surely as if they had been driven by whips or bayonets." He glared about him as though he sought contradiction. "They are here in the hope of wresting from knavery and rapacity the share of the earth's products of which they have been despoiled."
"I suspect," was my scoffing reply, "that they are here in the hope of doing exactly what the owners of the El Dorado Bank have done--of taking all they can get and a little more."
"Sir," said Parks, "you lose sight of the mass in looking at the individual. The individual has been corrupted by a false system of society into striving for unjust gains. But the mass calls only for simple justice."
"Well, Parks," I returned, "I admire your optimism, though I can't say as much for your judgment."
"Admire it or not, sir, as you like," said Parks. "That will not alter facts. But this," he added, shaking his fist again at the frowning front of the Exchange, "is one of the iniquities that we shall sweep away."
"If we can judge by the patronage it is getting to-day it won't have to close very soon," was my comment.
"Sir," said Parks, "the day when it will be closed is nearer than you imagine. Our denunciations of the robbers of the stock exchanges excite more applause than anything except our denunciations of the Chinese."
"I should think it quite likely. Men like to hear hard words said of those who succeed where they themselves have failed. But the applause means nothing."