o be in our section--half plank-road and turnpike, and the rest
mud-hole, and a lot of stores and doggeries strung along with false
fronts a story higher than the back, and here and there a decent
building with the gable end to the public; and a court-house and jail
and two taverns and three or four churches. Well, they're all there in
Moffitt yet, but architecture has struck it hard, and they've got a lot
of new buildings that needn't be ashamed of themselves anywhere; the new
court-house is as big as St. Peter's, and the Grand Opera-house is in
the highest style of the art. You can't buy a lot on that street for
much less than you can buy a lot in New York--or you couldn't when the
boom was on; I saw the place just when the boom was in its prime. I went
out there to work the newspapers in the syndicate business, and I got
one of their men to write me a real bright, snappy account of the gas;
and they just took me in their arms and showed me everything. Well,
it was wonderful, and it was beautiful, too! To see a whole community
stirred up like that was--just like a big boy, all hope and high
spirits, and no discount on the remotest future; nothing but perpetual
boom to the end of time--I tell you it warmed your blood. Why, there
were some things about it that made you think what a nice kind of world
this would be if people ever took hold together, instead of each fellow
fighting it out on his own hook, and devil take the hindmost. They made
up their minds at Moffitt that if they wanted their town to grow
they'd got to keep their gas public property. So they extended their
corporation line so as to take in pretty much the whole gas region round
there; and then the city took possession of every well that was put
down, and held it for the common good. Anybody that's a mind to come to
Moffitt and start any kind of manufacture can have all the gas he wants
free; and for fifteen dollars a year you can have all the gas you want
to heat and light your private house. The people hold on to it for
themselves, and, as I say, it's a grand sight to see a whole community
hanging together and working for the good of all, instead of splitting
up into as many different cut-throats as there are able-bodied citizens.
See that fellow?" Fulkerson broke off, and indicated with a twirl of his
head a short, dark, foreign-looking man going out of the door. "They say
that fellow's a Socialist. I think it's a shame they're allowed to come
here. If