for revolution," he said.

Briefly, in reply to my questions, he explained how he and his friends
had already induced some twelve thousand stokers and dockers to leave
their old trade unions and enroll themselves as members of this new
international body, which was to embrace not only one trade but all the
labor connected with ships--ships of all nations. He was here doing the
advance work. As soon as the ground was made ready, he said, some of the
bigger leaders would come. Then there would be mass meetings here and
presently a general strike. And as the years went on there would be
similar strikes in all trades and in all countries, until at some time
not many years off there would be such labor rebellions as would
paralyze the industrial world. And out of this catastrophe the workers
would emerge into power to build up a strange new world of their own.

This was what Joe saw ahead. He seemed to be seeing it while he spoke,
with a hard, clear intensity that struck me rather cold. Here was no
mere parlor talk, here was a man who lived what he said.

"You comfortable people," he said, "are so damn comfortable you're
blind. You see nothing ahead but peace on earth and a nice smooth
evolution--with a lot of steady little reforms. You've got so you
honestly can't believe there's any violence left in the world. You're as
blind as most folks were five years before the Civil War. But what's the
use talking?" he ended. "You can't understand all this." Again my
irritation rose.

"No, I can't say I do," I replied. "To stir up millions of men of that
kind and then let 'em loose upon the world strikes me as absolutely
mad!"

"I knew it would."

"Look here, Joe, how are _you_ so sure about all this? Hasn't it ever
struck you that you're getting damnably narrow?" He smiled.

"I don't care much if I'm narrow," he said.

"You think it's good for you, being like this?"

"I don't care if it's good for me."

"Don't you want to see anything else?"

"Not in your successful world."

"Well, J. K., I'm sorry," I retorted hotly. "Because I'd like to see
your world, I honestly would! I'm not like you, I'm always ready to be
shown!"

"All right, come and see it. Why don't you write up Jim Marsh?" He
smiled as he named the notorious leader of the whole organization.
"He'll be here soon, and in his line he has been a mighty successful
man. All up and down the U. S. A. Jim's name has been in headlines and
Jim himself has been in j