hen how to use our precious liberty?

Blood-drunk and reeling, the mob turned from the flaming wreckage and
flowed down toward the mills. There were some among them, saner, and
prescient of the dire consequences of their awful work, who counseled
restraint. But they were as chips in a torrent. Down into the creek
bottom rolled the seething tide, with a momentum that carried it up
the far side and crashing into the heavily barred oak doors of the
great mills. A crushing hail of bullets fell upon them, and their
leaders went down; but the mass wavered not. Those within the
buildings knew that they would become carrion in the maws of the
ravening wolves outside, and fought with a courage fed with
desperation.

In the solemn hush of death Socrates said, "The hour of departure has
arrived, and we go our ways, I to die and you to live. Which is
better, God only knows." And mankind through the ages in their last
hours have echoed this sentiment of the gentle philosopher. For all
human philosophy leads to a single end--resignation.

But hunger transforms resignation into madness. And madness is murder.
The frenzied hordes swarming about the Ames mills knew in their heart
of hearts that death was preferable to life in death under the goad of
human exploitation. But such knowledge came only in rational moments.
Now they were crazed and beyond reason.

In the distance, across the swale, the sky glowed red where the souls
of the agent of predatory wealth and his family had gone out in
withering heat. In the stricken town, men huddled their trembling
loved ones about them and stood with loaded muskets. Somewhere on the
steel bands that linked this scene of carnage with the great
metropolis beyond, a train plunged and roared, leaping over the
quivering rails at the rate of a hundred miles an hour, bringing eager
militiamen and their deadly instruments of civilization. For the Ames
mills were private property. And that was a divine institution.

* * * * *

In his luxurious office in the tower of the Ames building the master
sat that black night, surrounded by his laboring cohorts. Though they
strained under the excitement of the hour, Ames himself remained calm
and determined. He was in constant communication with the Governor at
Albany, and with the municipal officers of both New York and Avon. He
had received the tidings of the destruction of the Pillette family
with a grim smile. But