dition was due in greater degree to Daylight's
widespreading battle than even San Francisco ever dreamed. For the
part he had played, the details of which were practically all rumor and
guesswork, quickly leaked out, and in consequence he became a
much-execrated and well-hated man. Nor had Daylight himself dreamed
that his raid on the steamship companies would have grown to such
colossal proportions.

But he had got what he was after. He had played an exciting hand and
won, beating the steamship companies down into the dust and mercilessly
robbing the stockholders by perfectly legal methods before he let go.
Of course, in addition to the large sums of money he had paid over, his
allies had rewarded themselves by gobbling the advantages which later
enabled them to loot the city. His alliance with a gang of cutthroats
had brought about a lot of cutthroating. But his conscience suffered
no twinges. He remembered what he had once heard an old preacher
utter, namely, that they who rose by the sword perished by the sword.
One took his chances when he played with cutting throats, and his,
Daylight's, throat was still intact. That was it! And he had won. It
was all gamble and war between the strong men. The fools did not
count. They were always getting hurt; and that they always had been
getting hurt was the conclusion he drew from what little he knew of
history. San Francisco had wanted war, and he had given it war. It
was the game. All the big fellows did the same, and they did much
worse, too.

"Don't talk to me about morality and civic duty," he replied to a
persistent interviewer. "If you quit your job tomorrow and went to
work on another paper, you would write just what you were told to
write. It's morality and civic duty now with you; on the new job it
would be backing up a thieving railroad with... morality and civic
duty, I suppose. Your price, my son, is just about thirty per week.
That's what you sell for. But your paper would sell for a bit more.
Pay its price to-day, and it would shift its present rotten policy to
some other rotten policy; but it would never let up on morality and
civic duty.

"And all because a sucker is born every minute. So long as the people
stand for it, they'll get it good and plenty, my son. And the
shareholders and business interests might as well shut up squawking
about how much they've been hurt. You never hear ary squeal out of
them when they've got the other fell