By sheer weight Dickinson's voice boomed out of the medley.
“... just as Henry George says: 'Private ownership of land is the nether mill-stone. Material progress is the upper mill-stone. Between them, with an increasing pressure, the working classes are being ground.' We're just beginning to see the effect of private property in land. Within a few years....”
“What we need is to get back to Democracy. Individualism has run wild....”
“Trouble is we can't get anywhere under the Constitution. Every time we make a move—check. It was adopted by aristocrats to hold back the people and that's what it's done. Law—”
Apparently nobody got a chance to finish his argument. The Polish Jew broke in sharply. “Law! There iss no law.”
“Plenty of it, Sobieski, Go out on the streets and preach your philosophic anarchy if you don't believe it. See what it will do to you. Law's a device to bolster up the strong and to hammer down the weak.”
James had given a polite cynical indulgence to views so lost to reason and propriety. But he couldn't quite stand any more. He made a sign to Jeff and they adjourned to the next room.
“Your friends always so—so enthusiastic?” he asked with the slightest lift of his upper lip.
“Not always. They're a little excited to-night because Harshaw imprisoned those fourteen striking miners for contempt of court.”
“Don't manufacture bombs here, do you?”