Obviously, there are many improvements in the condition of such men which could only be brought about by legislation, and John Burns therefore became a political agitator. His voice was heard from the platforms of great popular meetings held in and around London and in many other parts of the country, and he was one of the leaders of the great agitation which secured for the public the right of holding open-air meetings in Trafalgar Square. John Burns was meant by nature to be a popular orator. He has a physical frame which can stand any amount of exertion, and his voice, at once powerful and musical, can make itself heard to the farthest limit of the largest outdoor meeting in Hyde Park or Trafalgar Square. But he is in no sense whatever a mere declaimer. He argues every question out in a practical and reasonable way, and although he has some views on political and industrial subjects which many of his opponents would condemn as socialistic, there is nothing in him of the revolutionist or the anarchist. His object is to bring about by free and lawful public debate those reforms in the political and industrial systems which he regards as essential to the well-being of the whole community. The Conservative party in this country used to have for a long time one particular phrase which was understood to embody the heaviest accusation that could be brought against a public man. To say that this or that public speaker was endeavoring to "set class against class" was understood to mean his utter condemnation in the minds of all well-behaved citizens. We do not hear so much of this accusation in later days, partly because some of the very measures demanded by those setters of class against class have been adopted by Conservative Governments and carried into law by Conservative votes. But there was a period in the life of John Burns when he must have found himself denounced almost every day in speech or newspaper article as one whose main endeavor was to set class against class. John Burns does not seem to have troubled himself much about the accusation. Perhaps he reasoned within himself that if the endeavor to obtain for workingmen the right of voting at elections and the right to form themselves into trades-unions for the purpose of bettering their lives were the endeavor to set class against class, then there is nothing for it but to go on setting class against class until the beneficent result be obtained. So John Burns went on setting class against class, with the result that he became recognized all over the country as one of the most eloquent, capable, and judicious leaders whom the workingmen could show, and his unselfishness and integrity were never disparaged even by his most extreme political opponents.