If a fellow won’t work, he has no right to anything--we agree to that, and we will shed no tears over shirkers and loafers. We are defending the real workers, and we say that such are entitled to the fruits of their own labor. Let us set that down for the corner-stone of our thinking; let us make it our test of a sensible and decent world. I ask you: Are the workers getting what they produce today? Or is some other fellow getting part of it? Put it the other way about, and ask: Are there any people in our country getting wealth without producing it, without doing any useful work? It is obvious that if any man gets a thing he hasn’t produced, some other man must have produced that thing and not got it. I choose a case which lies nearest to your own heart, Judd--those three houses that are the security for your old age! You paid your good money for materials, and you put them together with your own hands, and you say those houses belong to you. If a fellow came with skids and a truck and tried to cart one of them off, you would surely stop him. If a fellow moved into one of them, and refused to move out, you would surely put him out. The law would back you--and so you believe in the law! But suppose I were to tell you, Judd, there are ways by which some fellow might take your houses away from you, and the law would not move a finger to help you, but on the contrary, would come and turn you out for the other fellow’s benefit? Watch your step, now! Suppose that some man had the power to fix the prices of the things you have to buy day by day, your food and clothing and gasoline; and suppose he boosted the prices, so that you found yourself running short; then you’d have to put a mortgage on one of the houses; and when the mortgage fell due, if you were still short, your house would be sold by an auctioneer at a foreclosure sale, and the law would turn you out. Or let us suppose this man had the power to dilute the currency of the country, so that every dollar of yours became worth only half as much as it was before; don’t you see that he might deprive you of your three houses, one after another? There are a dozen different ways in which the trick might be worked; and strange and startling as the idea may seem to you, I assure you that it has been done many times, and will be done many times more. The world you live in is full of devices by which your pockets are emptied, without your ever feeling the touch of the thief’s fingers. If a fellow comes along and tries to sell you a gold brick, you laugh at him; that’s an old one, and you are “on.” If he tries to sell you a gold mine in Kamchatka, or shares of stock in an oil well--come to think of it, Judd, I believe you told me you did take some shares in the Somebody-or-Other Oil Syndicate--twelve hundred dollars, you said it was! But you’ve learned your lesson now, and nobody can play you for a sucker again.