gardener waits, there is none whose blood is so life-giving to these
noxious plants as that type of the materially rich who, like Ames,
have waxed gross upon the flesh of their own brothers.

Ames was a gambler in human lives. They were his chips, by which he
gained or lost, and of themselves were void of intrinsic value. The
world was the table whereon he played; the game _rouge et noir_, with
the whirl of predatory commercialism as the wheel, and the ball
weighted to drop where he might direct. He carried millions on margin,
and with them carried the destinies, for weal or for woe, of millions
of his fellow-men, with not one thought that he did so at the cost of
their honor and morality, not less than their life-blood.

It had been his custom to close his mills for several months each
year, in order to save expense when times were dull. And he did this
as casually as he closed the doors of his stables, and with much less
thought for the welfare of those concerned. It is doubtful if he had
ever really considered the fact that these four thousand human beings
were wholly dependent upon him for their very existence. For he was a
business man, and gold was far weightier in the scale of values than
human flesh, and much less easily obtained. Cain's comforting
philosophy was quite correct, else would the business world not have
been so firmly established upon it. Besides, he was terribly busy; and
his life was lived upon a plane high, high above that upon which these
swarming toilers groveled with their snouts in the dust.

And now, with the doors of his mills barred against the hungry hordes,
he would frame the terms upon which they should be reopened. The
eight-hour law must not be enforced. Perhaps he could influence the
Supreme Court to declare it unconstitutional, as depriving the mill
hands of the right to labor as long as they pleased. Wages should not
be raised. And the right to organize and band together for their
common good would be contemptuously denied the ignorant rats who
should be permitted to toil for him once more. If they offered
violence, there was the state militia, armed and impatient to slay.
Also, this was an excellent opportunity to stamp out trade-unionism
within the confines of his activities. He would win the plaudits of
the whole industrial world by so doing. He therefore immediately got
in touch with the Governor, a Tammany puppet, and received that loyal
henchman's warm assurances of heart