Still it is possible that some of you were not there to listen to my words, to hear my warning of the great coming clash of the cla.s.ses. It is as inevitable as the sinking of yonder sun to-night and its rise again to-morrow. With a prophetic eye I look into the future and behold the day when labor shall have its rights. That day is coming as surely as the sun continues to rise in the east. The iron hand of Capital would hold it back, but that cruel iron hand cannot, Joshua-like, stay the course of the sun nor stem the tide of human progress.

"Every intelligent person within the sound of my voice knows it is true that the rich are growing richer and the poor are becoming poorer. The acc.u.mulation of stupendous fortunes in the hands of individuals threatens the very foundations of our government. Time was when a man worth a million was supposed to be immensely rich. To-day the possessor of a single million is looked on with scorn and contempt by our multimillionaires. Ten millions, twenty millions, fifty millions--aye, even a hundred millions are now acc.u.mulated by individuals. This money belongs to the ma.s.ses, the laborers who have earned it by the sweat of their brows."

"Hear! hear!" "That's right!" "Hooray!" cried the crowd.

Mulloy had gripped Ephraim's arm.

"Ivery word av thot has a familiar sound to me," muttered the Irishman.

"Oi've heard thot talk before and from the same lips."

"My friends," continued the speaker, "we are all brothers. Justice to one and all of this great human family should be our motto.

Unfortunately for me I was not born of the ma.s.ses, as the royal knights of labor are now called by the American aristocrats of boodle. By birth I was supposed to be exalted above the lower strata of humanity. My parents were wealthy. My father gave me an education to be a slave driver over the common people. His blood runs in my veins, but my heart is not of his heart. In his eyes I have become disgraced because I dared boldly claim the street laborer, the man with the hoe, the man with the pick and shovel, the man with the sweat of honest toil on his brow--I have dared to claim him as a fellow man and brother.

"I have traveled from coast to coast, and I have lived in the poorest quarters of New York, Chicago, and other great cities. My heart has bled at the sufferings of the poor people who are wearing their wretched lives away in toil for a most wretched sustenance. The friends I once knew have turned from me and called me a socialist, an anarchist. They call us anarchists because we sympathize with the downtrodden ma.s.ses--because we prophesy the coming of the great struggle that shall emanc.i.p.ate these ma.s.ses. We are not anarchists, but we are proud to be called socialists. Anarchy is disorder and ruin. Socialism is order and equal rights for all. Let them point the finger of scorn at us. What care we? But let them beware, for the great earthquake is coming."

Mulloy and Gallup had forced their way through the crowd, and even as the speaker uttered these words Barney gave him a terrible slap on the back, while Ephraim kicked the box from beneath his feet.

"The earthquake do be come, begorra!" shouted Mulloy. "Greg Carker, ye b.l.o.o.d.y old socialist raskil, Oi have yez in me hands, and Oi'm going to hug yez till ye holler!"

CHAPTER XVIII.

A MAN OF THE PEOPLE.

Carker was almost smothered in the powerful arms of the delighted Irish youth.

To the crowd, however, it seemed that a violent a.s.sault had been made on the orator. In that crowd were many who sympathized with the socialistic speaker or were p.r.o.nounced socialists themselves. These persons grew excited immediately, and a dozen of them sought to push forward to Carker's a.s.sistance. They reached for Mulloy and Gallup with savage hands or sought to smite the two young men with clenched fists.

"Great hemlock!" exclaimed Ephraim, as he thrust aside the outstretched hands or warded off blows. "What in thutteration's the matter with this bunch of lunatics!"

"Down with them--down with the aristocrats!" snarled the angry crowd.

"Whoop! Hooroo!" shouted Barney Mulloy, releasing Carker. "Is it a schrap thot do be on our hands, Oi dunno? Begorra, it's so long since Oi've been consarned in a real fight that me blood tingles with pleasure at the thought av it."

By this time Carker recognized the sun-tanned young man who had interrupted his speech. As quickly as possible he flung himself in front of the excited crowd, threw up his hands, and shouted:

"Stand back! stand back! They're my friends!"

"Gott in Himmel!" gurgled a German. "Did not they you attackt? Dit ve not see them py our eyes as they didid it?"

"I tell you they're my friends," persisted Carker.

"They hit-a you! They grab-a you!" shouted an Italian. "They stop-a you from making the speech!"

"It's all right," persisted the young socialist. "I had finished my speech. I tell you to keep back! Stand off! The man who touches them is not friendly toward me. He's not friendly toward socialism."

"Vale," said the German, "uf you put it to us up dot vay, it vill a settlement make."

Then he turned and faced the crowd, pushing many of them back with his pudgy hands as he shouted:

"Stood avay nearer off! Don't push up so far close! Dit you not hear our prother say they vas his friendts alretty?"

The excitement of the crowd rapidly subsided. Carker spoke to them calmly, explaining that the two young men who had brought his speech to such a sudden termination were his bosom comrades of old times, even thought they might not be thoroughbred socialists.

"Where the d.i.c.kens did you two boys come from?" he finally demanded, as he once more turned toward Ephraim and Barney, grasping their hands.

"Oh, it's good to see you again, fellows!"

"Begorra, to see yez is a soight for sore eyes and to hear yez is music to deaf ears!" chuckled Barney Mulloy. "You're the same old rabid champeen av the downtrodden ma.s.ses. You're still pratin' away about the coming of the great earthquake."

"That's right, by gum!" grinned Gallup. "But, say, why didn't yeou warn the people of Fris...o...b..fore they gut shook up?"

"When I speak of the great coming earthquake," said Carker, "you know I'm talking figuratively. But you haven't answered my question. Where did you chaps come from?"

"Right up from old Mexico," replied Ephraim. "We've been down there, me and Barney, a-helpin' put through the new Central Sonora Railroad. The old road's finished, and we're takin' a vacation now, with a big bank account to our credit and plenty of the long green in our pants pockets."

"Tainted money! tainted money!" exclaimed Greg dramatically. "You've been laboring for a heartless corporation. These great railroad companies have made their wealth by robbing the downtrodden ma.s.ses."

"Ye don't say!" grinned Barney. "The money we have made may be tainted, but the only taint I've discovered about it is 'tain't enough."

"Oh, you're still frivolous and thoughtless, both of you," a.s.serted Greg, with a shake of his bushy head. "You can't seem to realize the fact that in these degenerate days there are no longer opportunities for men to rise from the lower ranks to positions of competence, independence, and power. The great corporations and trusts are killing compet.i.tion and holding the ma.s.ses down. A boy born in the lower walks no longer has a chance to get out of that strata of existence."

"It's rot ye still talk, me fri'nd," declared Barney. "Oi think th'

chances are as good as they iver were, and a lot betther, av anything."

"If yeou're right," put in Ephraim, "'tain't the great corporations and trusts alone that are to blame. It's the labor organizations that say every workingman, no matter whether he's capable of great things or is just an ordinary dub, shall take a sartain scale of wages. That kills ambition and keeps young fellers of ability and genius from risin'. Yes, siree, it sartinly does."

"Oh, your mind is too narrow to grasp all the phases of this great question," a.s.serted the young socialist, with a sweep of his hand. "I wish you'd prove to me that young men still have a chance to rise in these days. Show me an example."

"Me bhoy, ye moight take a look at Barney Mulloy," suggested the smiling Irishman. "It's something loike tin thousand clane dollars he's made in th' last year. Thot he's done in Mexico."

"And when yeou git through lookin' at him," suggested Gallup, "yeou might cast an eye round in my direction. Me and Barney have been partners, and, by jinks! I've cleaned up ten thousand, too."

For a moment Carker seemed a bit staggered, but he quickly recovered.

"What's ten thousand in these days? What's that but a drop in the bucket when your big magnates acc.u.mulate millions upon millions?"

"Well, me bhoy," laughed Barney, with a comical twist of his mug, "tin thousand will do for a nist egg. Wid thot for a nist egg, we ought to hatch out enough to kape us from becomin' objects of charity in our ould age."

"A man is foolish to waste his time in argument with such chaps as you,"

said Greg, with a shrug of his shoulders. "Are you on this train?"

When they replied that they were, he explained that he was there to take the same train. Within the station he secured his battered old suit case, which he had left there.

"Have yeou a seat?" asked Gallup.

"Why, I expect to get a seat on the regular pa.s.senger coach," answered Carker.