The Interpreter answered, "I mean, child, that wealth which comes
unearned from the industries of life--that wealth for which no service
is rendered--for which no equivalent in human strength, mental or
physical, is returned. Are not the children of such conditions being
educated in lawlessness when the influence of their money so often
permits them to break our laws with impunity? Are they not a menace to
our government when they coerce and bribe our public servants to enact
laws and enforce measures that are for the advantage of a few favored
ones and against the welfare of our people as a whole? Are they not a
menace to society when they would limit the meaning of the very word to
their own select circles and cliques? Are they not a menace to our
homes by the standards of morals that too often govern their daily
living? For that hatred of class taught the Bobbies and Maggies of the
Flats, Helen, these other children are taught an intolerance and
contempt for everything that is not of their class--an intolerance and
contempt that breed class hatred as surely as blow flies breed
maggots."
For some time the silence was broken only by the dull, droning voice of
the Mill. They listened as they would have listened to the first low
moaning of the wind that might rise later into a destructive storm.
The Interpreter spoke again. "Helen, this nation cannot tolerate one
standard of citizenship for one class and a totally different standard
for another. Whatever is right for the children of the hill, yonder, is
right for the children of the Flats, down there."
Helen asked, abruptly, "Is there any truth in all this talk about
coming trouble with the labor unions?"
The man in the wheel chair did not answer immediately. Then he replied,
gravely, with another question, "And who is it that says there is going
to be trouble again, Helen?"
"John says everybody is expecting it. And Mr. McIver is so sure that he
is already preparing for it at his factory. _He_ says it will be the
worst industrial war that Millsburgh has ever experienced--that it must
be a fight to the finish this time--that nothing but starvation will
bring the working classes to their senses."
"Yes," agreed the Interpreter, thoughtfully, "McIver would say just
that. And many of our labor agitators would declare, in exactly the
same spirit, that nothing but the final and absolute downfall of the
employer class can ever end the struggle. I wonder what little Bobby
and Maggie Whaley and their mother would say if they could have their
way about it, Helen?"
Helen Ward's face flushed as she said in a low, deliberate voice,
"Father agrees with Mr. McIver--you know how bitter he is against the
unions?"
"Yes, I know."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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