Dismay sat on their faces, and before they could recover, Ernest struck again.
“Do you remember, not so long ago, when our regular army was only fifty thousand? Year by year it has been increased until to-day it is three hundred thousand.”
Again he struck.
“Nor is that all. While you diligently pursued that favorite phantom of yours, called profits, and moralized about that favorite fetich of yours, called competition, even greater and more direful things have been accomplished by combination. There is the militia.”
“It is our strength!” cried Mr. Kowalt. “With it we would repel the invasion of the regular army.”
“You would go into the militia yourself,” was Ernest’s retort, “and be sent to Maine, or Florida, or the Philippines, or anywhere else, to drown in blood your own comrades civil-warring for their liberties. While from Kansas, or Wisconsin, or any other state, your own comrades would go into the militia and come here to California to drown in blood your own civil-warring.”
Now they were really shocked, and they sat wordless, until Mr. Owen murmured:
“We would not go into the militia. That would settle it. We would not be so foolish.”
Ernest laughed outright.
“You do not understand the combination that has been effected. You could not help yourself. You would be drafted into the militia.”