"Now then," he went on in his monologue, "we're up to the wait while the laws are being made, and while all the plans for financing the proposition are going through. We'll have to pro-rate this stuff with the big railway companies, of course, and with the oil and steel industries, and some of the other leading combinations--Standley and Ackerman'll have no trouble, with their acquaintance among the big men of the East. You can't stop such men. Give them this idea of mine and you can't keep them from controlling this country. These are things that can't be altered." "But it will alter the world!" exclaimed young Halsey, at last beginning to arouse. "Who knows how much power there is in the water of even one big river? You can use it over and over again. Why, on that one river--" "Our river," said John Rawn, smiling. "The people's river!" retorted Halsey fiercely. "Their river! God made that river, and all the rest of them, for something, I don't know what. But it wasn't for this." "It'll have to work," answered John Rawn. "That river'll have to work to earn its keep--they'll all have to!" "And the country--the republic--what will become of it?" "The republic? That was a compromise. We perhaps had to live through that. Conditions in government change." Mr. Rawn spoke largely, finely, with a nice appreciation of all values. "My God!" whispered Halsey. "What do you mean?" IX Rawn paid small attention to him, and he broke out yet more vehemently. "But it is an enormous thing--you are dealing with the power of powers! The great force of the world is gravitation. It makes the world move, keeps the sun in its place. Water running down hill never tires. _It_ doesn't know any eight-hour day." "That term will cease to exist within two years," said John Rawn grimly. "It is a detestable thing. It has hampered business long enough." "What do you mean?" "There's no such thing as an arbitrary length for a day's work. The agreed day has lasted long enough. Money is made by setting other men to work for you, and then seeing that they do work. When you have something every man must use, when you've got the final whip-hand, it's you who set the working day, and not those who work for you." "You're talking of using what God gave to human beings, and talking of making worse slaves of them to that gift. That's monstrous, Mr. Rawn!" "Is it, then? To our notion it has been monstrous what these labor combinations have tried to do. Our great industrial leaders have been used unjustly. Yet labor is only mechanical power, that has to eat, and sleep, and wear clothes. _Our_ kind of power doesn't have to do those things." "But, Mr. Rawn! if that were true--of course it can't be true--what would there be left for the average man? I say that a man has a right to work when he likes, and a right to stop when he likes."