become poor. I know that often the poor
man becomes rich. But when Esau throws off the yoke of Jacob, when the
poor shall rise and come into their own, the rise shall not be as
individuals, but as a class. The glass workers are better paid than the
teamsters; but their interests are common, and the better paid workers
cannot rise except their poorly paid fellow workmen rise with them. It
is a class problem and it must have a class solution."

Grant Adams stood staring at the crowd. Then he spread out his two gaunt
arms and closed his eyes and cried: "Oh, Esau, Esau, you were faint and
hungry in that elder day when you drank the red pottage and sold your
birthright. But did you know when you bartered it away, that in that
bargain went your children's souls? Down here in the Valley, five babies
die in infancy where one dies up there on the hill. Ninety per cent. of
the boys in jail come from the homes in the Valley and ten per cent.
from the homes on the hill. And the girls who go out in the night, never
to come home--poor girls always. Crime and shame and death were in that
red pottage, and its bitterness still burns our hearts. And why--why in
the name of our loving Christ who knew the wicked bargain Jacob
made--why is our birthright gone? Why does Esau still serve his brother
unrequited?" Then he opened his eyes and cried stridently--"I'll tell
you why. The poor are poor because the rich are rich. We have been
working a decade and a half in this Valley, and profits, not new
capital, have developed it. Profits that should have been divided with
labor in wages have gone to buy new machines--miles and miles of new
machines have come here, bought and paid for with the money that labor
earned, and because we have not the machines which our labor has bought,
we are poor--we are working long hours amid squalor surrounded with
death and crime and shame. Oh, Esau, Esau, what a pottage it was that
you drank in the elder day! Oh, Jacob, Jacob, wrestle, wrestle with thy
conscience; wrestle with thy accusing Lord; wrestle, Jacob, wrestle, for
the day is breaking and we will not let thee go! How long, O Lord, how
long will you hold us to that cruel bargain!"

He paused as one looking for an answer--hesitant, eager, expectant. Then
he drew a long breath, turned slowly and sadly and walked away.

No cheer followed him. The crowd was stirred too deeply for cheers. But
the seed he had sown quickened in a thousand hearts even if in some