"Precisely; but the labor unions say that he must stop when they like. Why don't you use your brains, Charles? The old war was between capital, that is to say, concentrated power, and labor, which is unconcentrated power. That war has held back business in this country for years. Now, when I told these men, Standley and Ackerman, that I had something which would wipe out every labor union within a few years--well, they _had_ to come in with me, that was all. They _had_ to. X "The trouble with you," contended Rawn, himself now speaking fiercely as he loomed and lowered above Halsey, "the trouble with all you dreamers is that you have no real imagination. What's the use talking about the rights of the average man? When did the average man ever start or stop a revolutionary idea? When these things come, they come, and you can't help them. They had machinery riots in Great Britain a generation or two ago, but the spinning jennies stuck. It's always been so--progress sticks. The people have to adjust. But why should capital keep on fighting labor, or truckling to it, or treating with it, when we can take labor for nothing, as you just said, out of the power of gravitation--send it where we like, practically for nothing--labor that is power, labor that doesn't have to eat and doesn't have to be paid wages? I say if you had any imagination in your soul, my son, you'd _rise_ to a thought like that." "But that average man still must eat," said Halsey bitterly. "Let him eat from our hands, then!" croaked John Rawn harshly. "I tell you, when I explained this thing--when I showed them what we had in our hands, those big men broke into a sweat. They could see it, if you can't. "But as for me," he continued, standing erect and spreading apart his hands, his voice softened almost to tremulousness, "when I saw where this thing really was going to put us all--in control of the labor question--beyond the attacks of the muckraking brigade--beyond the Supreme Court, if the time ever came for that--when I saw what perfect political, legislative, and industrial control we'd have in all this country--I say, when I realized what all this meant, I felt small and _humble_--I did indeed. I saw that I was only an instrument of Providence, that's all. The people? Why, we'll be the custodians of their welfare, that's all. Some men are set apart, devoted to that duty--humble agents of Providence, my son." XI A frown of consecrated unselfishness sat upon the brow of John Rawn. The younger man sat looking at him, wondering whether there were not here really some Homeric jest. "I didn't know it was in you," said he, rather unfortunately, at last, and hastened to cover: "That's right--it _is_ imagination!"