“Well, that is what we have contrived in our life at home. I should have to say, in the first place, that—”
“Excuse me just one moment, Mr. Homos,” said Mrs. Makely. This perverse woman was as anxious to hear about Altruria as any of us, but she was a woman who would rather hear the sound of her own voice than any other, even if she were dying, as she would call it, to hear the other. The Altrurian stopped politely, and Mrs. Makely went on: “I have been thinking of what Mr. Camp was saying about the blacklisted men, and their all turning into tramps—”
“But I didn’t say that, Mrs. Makely,” the young fellow protested, in astonishment.
“Well, it stands to reason that if the tramps have all been blacklisted men—”
“But I didn’t say that, either.”
“No matter! What I am trying to get at is this: if a workman has made himself a nuisance to the employers, haven’t they a right to punish him in any way they can?”
“I believe there’s no law yet against blacklisting,” said Camp.
“Very well, then, I don’t see what they’ve got to complain of. The employers surely know their own business.”
“They claim to know the men’s, too. That’s what they’re always saying; they will manage their own affairs in their own way. But no man, or company, that does business on a large scale has any affairs that are not partly other folks’ affairs, too. All the saying in the world won’t make it different.”
“Very well, then,” said Mrs. Makely, with a force of argument which she seemed to think was irresistible, “I think the workmen had better leave things to the employers, and then they won’t get blacklisted. It’s as broad as it’s long.”