“I haven’t your intense admiration for the capitalist. Mr. Hope promised me, almost with tears in his eyes, to look after my future when he found I was working to settle the other strike which so terrorized him. I and my friends succeeded in breaking up the strike, yet you discharged me a week after, and I doubt if Mr. Hope ever gave a thought to his promise from that day to this. Your capitalist is notoriously timid and thoroughly selfish. The workingman has his faults, of course, and he is himself the greatest sufferer from them; but in generosity he is miles ahead of any capitalist that ever lived.” “Then you are determined to fight, Marsten?” “Oh, no! Not if you give in.” “How often shall we have to give in?” “Until such time as the compensation given to the workers is at least equal to the amount taken out by the so-called proprietors of the business.” “Ah, that is Utopian, which is simply another word for nonsense. Now, why not be perfectly frank and say you are resolved to fight us?” “My position is this, Mr. Sartwell: I don’t want to fight for a fight’s sake, and I have no revengeful desire to humiliate you or to defeat the firm for the mere glory of victory; but I am convinced the men will not get the fair share of what they make until there is a fight and a decisive victory. A few years ago the very right to combine was Utopian and nonsensical in the mind of the capitalist, yet that right is one of the undisputed facts of to-day. The capitalist won’t concede anything until he is forced to do so. Therefore there must be a struggle, and I am bound to choose my own time and my own battle-ground. We are ready to fight now, we are going to fight, and I believe we are going to win.”