this great commonwealth, to prevent it.
We have good laws on our statute books, but we need more of 'em; laws for
control, with plain, honest men at the capital, in the judiciary, in every
root and branch of the executive, to enforce 'em. With such laws, and such
men to see that they are executed, there wouldn't be any more extortion,
any more raising of the rates of transportation on the produce of our
ranches and farms merely because the eastern market for that particular
product happened to jump a few cents on the dollar.

"No, my friends; plain, hard-handed farmer though I be, I can see what
will follow an honest election of the people, by the people, and for the
people. The State can be--it ought to be--sovereign within its own
boundaries. If we rise up as one man next Tuesday and put a ticket into
the ballot-box that says we are going to make it so, and keep it so,
you'll see a new commodity tariff put into effect on the Western Pacific
Railroad the day after."

The speaker paused, and into the little gap of silence barked a voice from
the gallery.

"That's what you say. But supposin' they don't do it?"

Loring was gazing steadfastly at the blank, heavy face, so utterly devoid
of the enthusiasm the man was evoking in others. For one flitting instant
he thought he saw behind the mask. The immobile face, the awkward
gestures, the slipshod English became suddenly transparent, revealing the
real man; a man of titanic strength, of tremendous possibilities for good
or evil. Loring put up his glasses and looked again; but the figure of the
flash-light inner vision had vanished, and the speaker was answering his
objector as calmly as though the house held only the single critic to be
set right.

"I'm always glad to hear a man speak right out in meeting," he said,
dropping still deeper into the colloquialisms. "Supposing the corporations
don't see the handwriting on the wall--won't see it, you say? Then, my
friend, it will become the manifest duty of the legislature and the
executive to make 'em see it: always lawfully, you understand; always with
a just and equitable respect for the rights of property in which our free
and glorious institutions are founded, but with level-handed justice, and
without fear or favor."

A thunderous uproar of applause clamored on the heels of the answer, and
the Honorable Jasper mopped his face with a colored handkerchief and took
a swallow of water from the glass on the desk.

"Mind