“Oh, cut the guff! The copy-desk is a hired blue pencil, just like you’re a hired pen. You know what I mean. Why did n’t they print your story on the girl at the Federated German Societies meeting? Was n’t it facts? Was n’t it good enough?” Jeremy was silent. “I’ll tell you,” resumed the implacable Socialist. “They were afraid. Afraid of the German crowd. Call their souls their own? Not any more than you can.” “What about yourself, Nick?” put in the proprietor of the place. “You take The Record’s money, the same as this gentleman, only maybe not so much of it.” “Do I sell myself for it? Would I write for The Record? Or any other of the capitalistic press? Eli Wade, you’re honest, you are. A fool, but honest. You don’t know what a reporter’s got to do to hold his job. Why, if you was to get into some mix-up over a pair of shoes with the owner of his paper to-morrow, he’d be sent down here to write you wrong, whether you were right or wrong, and he’d do it. He’d have to do it. That’s what comes of a privately owned press, under our capitalistic system.” Through the gross exaggeration Jeremy felt the point of a half-truth and resented it. “No decent reporter would do it,” he asserted. “Who said anything about ‘decent’ reporters?” countered the other. Jeremy’s face changed; his weight shifted slightly upon his feet. Not so slightly but that the pedal diagnostician noticed the movement. “Want to get your eye punched?” he inquired, of Milliken. “You’re going the right way for it.” The Socialist grinned wickedly and relishingly. “Don’t like that, huh? All right. Come to me a year from now and tell me I’m wrong, and I’ll apologize. That’s fair. Ain’t it?” “That’s fair,” corroborated the Boot & Shoe Surgeon. “Mind you,” continued the Socialist, pursuing his favorite path of self-explication; “I would n’t ha’ printed your story, either. It was a fool story. Ain’t the Germans just as good as we are? Better ’n a lot of us. They believe in the rights o’ men, they do. None of your dirty aristocratic notions about them. Look at Germany! Most Socialistic country in the world to-day. Most civilized, too.” “Let ’em stay in their own country, then,” said Eli Wade. “We don’t want ’em.” “Ah, but we do! We need ’em to help on the Social Revolution.” “My folks fit in one American Revolution,” said the Doctor stoutly. “I don’t reckon none of us is going to fight in another led by Germans and crazy folks.” “You’ll come around,” laughed Milliken. “You’ll live to be ashamed of that silly motto in your window. Take it out! Take it out, Eli Wade, and put the Red Flag of World-Brotherhood in its place.” “Above the American flag, mebbe?” “Along with it. My stock’s as good Yankee as yours, Eli. But I’m ready to fight again for libutty, and you ain’t. You read too much in the capitalistic press. Some day you’ll be reading this young feller’s editorials, all about the rights o’ capital and what the laboring man owes to his employer.”