resources of any country in the world, settled
by immigrants who had thrown off all the leading strings of the Old
World and were in the humor for democracy. There was only one thing to
stop them from perfecting the democracy they started, and that thing was
greediness.

"They started gobbling everything in sight like a lot of swine, and
while they gobbled democracy went to smash. Gobbling became gambling. It
was a nation of tin horns. Whenever a man lost his stake, all he had
to do was to chase the frontier west a few miles and get another
stake. They moved over the face of the land like so many locusts. They
destroyed everything--the Indians, the soil, the forests, just as
they destroyed the buffalo and the passenger pigeon. Their morality in
business and politics was gambler morality. Their laws were gambling
laws--how to play the game. Everybody played. Therefore, hurrah for the
game. Nobody objected, because nobody was unable to play. As I said, the
losers chased the frontier for fresh stakes. The winner of to-day,
broke to-morrow, on the day following might be riding his luck to royal
flushes on five-card draws.

"So they gobbled and gambled from the Atlantic to the Pacific, until
they'd swined a whole continent. When they'd finished with the lands
and forests and mines, they turned back, gambling for any little
stakes they'd overlooked, gambling for franchises and monopolies, using
politics to protect their crooked deals and brace games. And democracy
gone clean to smash.

"And then was the funniest time of all. The losers couldn't get any more
stakes, while the winners went on gambling among themselves. The losers
could only stand around with their hands in their pockets and look on.
When they got hungry, they went, hat in hand, and begged the successful
gamblers for a job. The losers went to work for the winners, and they've
been working for them ever since, and democracy side-tracked up Salt
Creek. You, Billy Roberts, have never had a hand in the game in your
life. That's because your people were among the also-rans."

"How about yourself?" Billy asked. "I ain't seen you holdin' any hands."

"I don't have to. I don't count. I am a parasite."

"What's that?"

"A flea, a woodtick, anything that gets something for nothing. I batten
on the mangy hides of the workingmen. I don't have to gamble. I don't
have to work. My father left me enough of his winnings.--Oh, don't preen
yourself, my boy. Your folks were