the pathos of it and the tragedy
is that they are tied by their heartstrings. Their children--always
the young life that it is their instinct to protect. This instinct is
stronger than any ethic they possess. My father! He lied, he stole, he
did all sorts of dishonorable things to put bread into my mouth and into
the mouths of my brothers and sisters. He was a slave to the industrial
machine, and it stamped his life out, worked him to death."

"But you," I interjected. "You are surely a free agent."

"Not wholly," he replied. "I am not tied by my heartstrings. I am often
thankful that I have no children, and I dearly love children. Yet if I
married I should not dare to have any."

"That surely is bad doctrine," I cried.

"I know it is," he said sadly. "But it is expedient doctrine. I am a
revolutionist, and it is a perilous vocation."

I laughed incredulously.

"If I tried to enter your father's house at night to steal his dividends
from the Sierra Mills, what would he do?"

"He sleeps with a revolver on the stand by the bed," I answered. "He
would most probably shoot you."

"And if I and a few others should lead a million and a half of men*
into the houses of all the well-to-do, there would be a great deal of
shooting, wouldn't there?"

* This reference is to the socialist vote cast in the United
States in 1910. The rise of this vote clearly indicates the
swift growth of the party of revolution. Its voting
strength in the United States in 1888 was 2068; in 1902,
127,713; in 1904, 435,040; in 1908, 1,108,427; and in 1910,
1,688,211.

"Yes, but you are not doing that," I objected.

"It is precisely what I am doing. And we intend to take, not the mere
wealth in the houses, but all the sources of that wealth, all the
mines, and railroads, and factories, and banks, and stores. That is
the revolution. It is truly perilous. There will be more shooting, I am
afraid, than even I dream of. But as I was saying, no one to-day is
a free agent. We are all caught up in the wheels and cogs of the
industrial machine. You found that you were, and that the men you talked
with were. Talk with more of them. Go and see Colonel Ingram. Look
up the reporters that kept Jackson's case out of the papers, and the
editors that run the papers. You will find them all slaves of the
machine."

A little later in our conversation I asked him a simple little
question about the liability of workingmen to acc