“I don’t know about that,” came from Reuben Camp, with shocking promptness. “I don’t believe we all have the same country. America is one thing for you, and it’s quite another thing for us. America means ease and comfort and amusement for you, year in and year out, and if it means work, it’s work that you _wish_ to do. For us, America means work that we _have_ to do, and hard work all the time if we’re going to make both ends meet. It means liberty for you; but what liberty has a man got who doesn’t know where his next meal is coming from? Once I was in a strike, when I was working on the railroad, and I’ve seen men come and give up their liberty for a chance to earn their family’s living. They knew they were right, and that they ought to have stood up for their rights; but they had to lie down and lick the hand that fed them. Yes, we are all Americans, but I guess we haven’t all got the same country, Mrs. Makely. What sort of a country has a blacklisted man got?” “A blacklisted man?” she repeated. “I don’t know what you mean.” “Well, a kind of man I’ve seen in the mill towns, that the bosses have all got on their books as a man that isn’t to be given work on any account; that’s to be punished with hunger and cold, and turned into the street, for having offended them; and that’s to be made to suffer through his helpless family for having offended them.” “Excuse me, Mr. Camp,” I interposed, “but isn’t a blacklisted man usually a man who has made himself prominent in some labor trouble?” “Yes,” the young fellow answered, without seeming sensible of the point I had made. “Ah!” I returned. “Then you can hardly blame the employers for taking it out of him in any way they can. That’s human nature.” “Good heavens!” the Altrurian cried out. “Is it possible that in America it is human nature to take away the bread of a man’s family because he has gone counter to your interest or pleasure on some economical question?” “Well, Mr. Twelvemough seems to think so,” sneered the young man. “But whether it’s human nature or not, it’s a fact that they do it, and you can guess how much a blacklisted man must love the country where such a thing can happen to him. What should you call such a thing as blacklisting in Altruria?” “Oh yes,” Mrs. Makely pleaded, “do let us get him to talking about Altruria on any terms. I think all this about the labor question is so tiresome; don’t you, Mrs. Camp?” Mrs. Camp did not answer; but the Altrurian said, in reply to her son: “We should have no name for such a thing, for with us such a thing would be impossible. There is no crime so heinous with us that the punishment would take away the criminal’s chance of earning his living.” “Oh, if he was a criminal,” said young Camp, “he would be all right _here_. The state would give him a chance to earn his living then.” “But if he had no other chance of earning his living, and had committed no offence against the laws--”