The Doctor’s pipe was out and in filling it again, he jabbed viciously at the bowl with his knife, and in the meantime the Captain was saying:
345“Well, I suppose he found the body of the decisions leaning that way, Doc–you know Judges are bound by the body of the law.”
“The body of the law–yes, damn ’em, I’ve bought ’em to find the body of the law myself.”
The Doctor sputtered along with his pipe and cried out in his high treble–“I never had any more trouble buying a court than a Senator. And lawyers have no shame about hiring themselves to crooks and notorious lawbreakers. And some lawyers hire themselves body and soul to great corporations for life and we all know that those corporations are merely evading the laws and not obeying them; and lawyers–at the very top of the profession–brazenly hire out for life to that kind of business. What if the top of the medical profession was composed of men who devoted themselves to fighting the public welfare for life! We have that kind of doctors–but we call them quacks. We don’t allow ’em in our medical societies. We punish them by ostracism. But the quack lawyers who devote themselves to skinning the public–they are at the head of the bar. They are made judges. They are promoted to supreme courts. A damn nice howdy-do we’re coming to when the quacks run a whole profession. And Tom Van Dorn is a quack–a hair-splitting, owl-eyed, venal quack–who doles out the bread pills of injustice, and the strychnine stimulants of injustice and the deadening laudanum of injustice, and falls back on the body of the decisions to uphold him in his quackery. Justice demands that he take that fake corporation, made solely to evade the law, and shake its guts out and tell the men who put up this job, that he’ll put them all in jail for contempt of court if they try any such shenanigan in his jurisdiction again. That would be justice. This–this decision–is humbug and every one knows it. What’s more–it may be murder. For men can’t work on that slag dump ten hours a day without losing their lives.”
The captain tapped away at his sprocket. He had his own ideas about the sanctity of the courts. They were not to be overthrown so easily. The Doctor snorted: “Burn their bodies, and blear their minds, and then wail about our vicious lower classes–I’m getting to be an anarchist.”
346He prodded his cane among the débris on the floor and then he began to twitch the loose skin of his lower face and smiled. “Thank you, Cap,” he chirped. “How good and beautiful a thing it is to blow off steam in a barn to your old army friend.”
The Captain looked around and smiled and the Doctor asked: “What was that you were saying about Violet Hogan?”
“I said I saw her to-day and she looked faded and old–she’s not so much older than my Emma–eh?”
“Still,” said the Doctor, “Violet’s had a tough time–a mighty tough time; three children in six years. The last one took most of her teeth; young horse doctor gave her some dope that about killed her; she’s done all the cooking, washing, scrubbing and made garden for the family in that time–up every morning at five, seven days in the week to get breakfast for Dennis–Emma would look broken if she’d had that.” The Doctor paused. “Like her mother–weak–vain–puts all of Denny’s wages on the children’s backs–Laura says Violet spends more on frills for those kids than we spend for groceries–and Violet goes around herself looking like the Devil before breakfast.” The Doctor rested his chin on his cane. “Remember her mother–Mrs. Mauling–funny how it breeds that way. The human critter, Cap, is a curious beast–but he does breed true–mostly.” The Doctor loafed, whistling, around the work shop, prodding at things with his cane, and wound up leaning against one end of the bench.
“Last day of the century,” he piped, “makes a fellow pause and study. I’ve seen fifty-three years of the old century–seen the electric light, the telephone, the phonograph, the fast printing press, the transcontinental railroad, the steam thresher, the gasoline engine–and all its wonders clear down to Judge Tom’s devil wagon. That’s a good deal for one short life. I’ve seen industry revolutionized–leaving the homes of the people, and herding into the great factories. I’ve seen steam revolutionize the daily habits of men, and distort their thoughts; one man can’t run a steam engine; it takes more than one man to own one. So have I seen capital rise in the world until it is greater than kings, greater 347than courts, greater than governments–greater than God himself as matters stand, Cap–I’m terribly afraid that’s true.”