cratic institutions must either decay or become
revitalized....To hell with such courts. They're no better than
anarchy....In Verden there are only two classes: those who don't get as
much as they earn and those who get more.... Tell you we've got to get
back to the land, got to make it free as air. You can't be saved from
economic slavery till you have socialism. ..."

Suddenly the hubbub subsided and Marchant had the floor. "All of life's
a compromise, a horrible unholy giving up as unpractical all the best
things. It's a denial of love, of Christ, of God."

A young preacher who was conducting a mission for sailors on the water
front cut in. "Exactly. The church is radically wrong because--"

"Because it hasn't been converted to Christianity yet. Mr. Moneybags
in the front pew has got a strangle hold on the parson. Begging your
pardon, Mifflin. We know you're not that kind."

Marchant won the floor again. "Here's the nub of it. A man's a slave so
long as his means of livelihood is dependent on some other man. I don't
care whether it's lands or railroads or mines. Abolish private property
and you abolish poverty."

They were all at it again, like dogs at a bone. Across the Babel James
caught Jeff's gay grin at him.

By sheer weight Dickinson's voice boomed out of the medley.

"... just as Henry George says: 'Private ownership of land is the nether
mill-stone. Material progress is the upper mill-stone. Between them,
with an increasing pressure, the working classes are being ground.'
We're just beginning to see the effect of private property in land.
Within a few years...."

"What we need is to get back to Democracy. Individualism has run
wild...."

"Trouble is we can't get anywhere under the Constitution. Every time
we make a move--check. It was adopted by aristocrats to hold back the
people and that's what it's done. Law--"

Apparently nobody got a chance to finish his argument. The Polish Jew
broke in sharply. "Law! There iss no law."

"Plenty of it, Sobieski, Go out on the streets and preach your
philosophic anarchy if you don't believe it. See what it will do to you.
Law's a device to bolster up the strong and to hammer down the weak."

James had given a polite cynical indulgence to views so lost to reason
and propriety. But he couldn't quite stand any more. He made a sign to
Jeff and they adjourned to the next room.

"Your friends always so--so enthusiastic?" he asked with the slightest
lift of his