commercial world it was a Juggernaut car; it wiped out
thousands of businesses every year, it drove men to madness and suicide.
It had forced the price of cattle so low as to destroy the stock-raising
industry, an occupation upon which whole states existed; it had ruined
thousands of butchers who had refused to handle its products. It divided
the country into districts, and fixed the price of meat in all of them;
and it owned all the refrigerator cars, and levied an enormous tribute
upon all poultry and eggs and fruit and vegetables. With the millions
of dollars a week that poured in upon it, it was reaching out for
the control of other interests, railroads and trolley lines, gas and
electric light franchises--it already owned the leather and the grain
business of the country. The people were tremendously stirred up over
its encroachments, but nobody had any remedy to suggest; it was the task
of Socialists to teach and organize them, and prepare them for the time
when they were to seize the huge machine called the Beef Trust, and use
it to produce food for human beings and not to heap up fortunes for a
band of pirates. It was long after midnight when Jurgis lay down upon
the floor of Ostrinski's kitchen; and yet it was an hour before he
could get to sleep, for the glory of that joyful vision of the people of
Packingtown marching in and taking possession of the Union Stockyards!

Chapter 30

Jurgis had breakfast with Ostrinski and his family, and then he went
home to Elzbieta. He was no longer shy about it--when he went in,
instead of saying all the things he had been planning to say, he started
to tell Elzbieta about the revolution! At first she thought he was out
of his mind, and it was hours before she could really feel certain that
he was himself. When, however, she had satisfied herself that he was
sane upon all subjects except politics, she troubled herself no
further about it. Jurgis was destined to find that Elzbieta's armor was
absolutely impervious to Socialism. Her soul had been baked hard in the
fire of adversity, and there was no altering it now; life to her was the
hunt for daily bread, and ideas existed for her only as they bore upon
that. All that interested her in regard to this new frenzy which had
seized hold of her son-in-law was whether or not it had a tendency to
make him sober and industrious; and when she found he intended to look
for work and to contribute his share to the family fund, she ga