At this juncture, when it looks as though he is to be ruled out of the committee and his plan repudiated, Hendrick Stahl asks to be heard.

As Stahl is a member of high standing and the leader of a strong labor party in Minnesota, he is permitted to speak. In a few forceful words he denounces the men for their ungenerous suspicion; he tells them that he has known Nevins as a friend and co-worker for years.

Not without a visible degree of dissatisfaction the objecting members accept the situation and agree to attend the meeting to hear the reading of the list of proscribed. The men present do not know that Nevins had planned the seeming rebellion to test the sincerity of the men whom he is to take into his full confidence; that he has Professor Talbot and Hendrick Stahl working as his lieutenants.

Nothing now standing in the way of the plan, the men await the hour for the night session. They are eager to hear the reading of the list.

CHAPTER XIII.

THE LIST OF TRANSGRESSORS.

At length the hour arrives in which the men are to be given the names of the transgressors. It would be disastrous to have any knowledge of the affair fall into the possession of the sleuths of the Trusts; so every precaution for secrecy is observed. The loft of the deserted mill is again chosen as the place of meeting. A thorough search of the storehouse is made, and then the committee a.s.sembles in the narrow semi-circle.

After the meeting is called to order, there is an apparent apathy on the part of a number of the Eastern members. When questioned they freely admit that they do not believe their const.i.tuents would sanction the drastic measure.

Nevins is absent on his visit to Trueman. He has arranged with Professor Talbot and Stahl to delay the meeting and put the members through another test.

The proposition is argued anew.

It is explained that each man is called upon to make an equal sacrifice; that there is no difference in declaring one's patriotism by enlisting in the army or navy to fight a common foe, or in being one of a numerically small and intrinsically strong army of forty. The Trusts and Monopolies have proven a menace to the people, and can consequently be looked upon as a foe to the government, to be dealt with accordingly.

A unanimous decision to carry out the plan is reached.

At this juncture Nevins appears.

He asks permission to proceed with the reading of the list of the proscribed. He is recognized and begins his startling speech.

"In the lapse of years one is apt to forget the springs from which the wells of human action are fed; it is commonly the lot of man to sink into a state of mind that is at once unreceptive and unretentive. The result is that at the age of thirty he finds himself incapable of grasping new and difficult conceptions. This is the reason why so many injustices are permitted to exist in the world. Men in their youth are thoughtless; in their mature and old age they are neglectful or willingly negligent.

"A degree of success or a degree of failure has a like tendency to blunt the finer qualities of the mind. A man with a competency will not take the troubles of his fellow man to heart. The unfortunate man who has not the wherewithal to support his family is in no position to take the initiative in a labor movement or in a political revolution.

"So the work devolves upon the few men who have the means and the inclination to strive for the betterment of humanity.

"Yet even these men are not always capable of judging events by their true proportions and relations.

"Advancement is the one thing that reformers fear. The ends they would attain are almost always reconstructive; they are never creative."

Nevins utters these words with impressive emphasis.

"These remarks I have made by way of prelude to the matter I shall now proceed to discuss directly and earnestly.

"We are each and all convinced that the pernicious system of fostering monopolies that has been inst.i.tuted in this country can have but one result, the undermining of our popular inst.i.tutions, and in their place the subst.i.tution of moneyed Plutocracy. This result is abhorrent to every true American.

"Now, there is no way to put an end to monopolies except by the people rising in their might and rea.s.suming their own.

"The hypocritical advice of the leaders of the great universities, that the people ostracize the Magnates, has now ceased to satisfy the exigencies of the case. What sort of ostracism would the President of a University endowed by the millions of a Magnate, propose to have enforced against his master?

"Another of the proposals emanating from the hireling counsels of the Trusts, is that the methods of the Trusts be placed under the searchlight of publicity. A pretty programme, indeed, were it not for the fact that the very men who propose this method of dealing with monopolies would be engaged by the Magnates to defend them from exposure.

"To invoke the aid of the courts is to be brought face to face with the servants of the Trusts. Where is the Attorney-General who can successfully prosecute a Trust? The only one who was ever sincere in his attempt met an insurmountable barrier in the courts before which he arraigned the guilty.

"And the votes of the people, do they avail?

"The executives and legislators whom they elect are false to their pledges.

"The great sin of this country is the worship of gold. Human life is held as secondary to the dollar.

"Who then shall deliver the people from the bondage that has come upon them?

"Unguided, they are as a flock of sheep without a shepherd. False prophets, mercenary leaders, are an abomination. They have been and are to this day, the clogs in the wheels of progress.

"The work of rejuvenation must be done by an intrepid few. It cannot be entrusted to visionary men, to fanatics, to men who detest government of any form or to men who are willing to suffer present ills rather than face temporary discomfiture.

"To carry on a crusade one must surrender self.

"If our plan did not embrace more than the annihilation of forty of the Transgressors it would not be raised to a higher plane than wholesale homicide.

"But we are to follow the course which the Plutocrats have traversed.

They have destroyed individual liberty; they have entrenched themselves in our halls of legislature by bribery; our executives are their puppets; our courts are their final b.u.t.tress. To reclaim the rights of the people we must reach the powers in control; the actual men who engineer the scheme of public loot. These men have sacrificed human lives to attain their ascendency. We must demand, we must enforce an atonement.

"Because we are to deal with the chief transgressors, who represent a small number, our deed will be regarded in the light of murder.

"Were the magnates in the field as an open foe our a.s.sault upon them would be hailed as an act of heroism. Shall we be deterred by consideration of a difference in mere words?

"I propose to vindicate these so-called murders, which we are to commit.

The atonement will be frightful. Will it be more so than the conditions which necessitate it?

"Are the lives of forty soulless men to be compared with those of thousands who are yearly sacrificed to sordid commercialism?

"Are we to extend our commerce at the price of a life for every dollar of foreign trade?

"Men prospered in this country before the reign of the Trust Magnates; men grew rich through ordinate profits, and the prosperity of the country was the prosperity of all. To-day men seek to enrich themselves by preying on the necessities of their fellowmen.

"Can the cry of tyrants and sycophants drown the wail of the innocent children and women who have been chained to the wildcat car of Modern Commercialism?

"In compiling the list of Transgressors, I have selected no man merely because he is possessed of great wealth. There are many millionaires who have earned their fortunes by honest endeavor and in strict conformity with the laws of the land. I have discriminated against those who have prost.i.tuted the laws of G.o.d and man; not a man whom I shall declare proscribed but he is known to all men as stained with the blood of innocents.

"'The voice of the people is the voice of G.o.d.' This voice cries to us from four million mothers' mouths for deliverance from tyrants who compel them to work for a living even in the hours of their pregnancy.

The child laborers of this land of freedom raise a piteous plea.

"Do you wait for an actual rain of h.e.l.l-fire as a sign that G.o.d's will is not being done?

"It is our duty to strike a blow at Plutocracy that shall destroy it for all time. We will act as sovereigns of the land. In us resides the supreme rights of mankind. Our edict cannot be enforced by the courts, so we will act for ourselves.

"The names I read are not given in any fixed order; each man is equally guilty."