As long as they are in it we might have our
misgivings, but if they were once out of it we should have none. And what
would they gain? They would not be allowed to arm and organize as an
inimical force. _That_ was settled once for all in Chicago, in the case of
the International Groups. A few squads of policemen would break them up.
Why," the banker exclaimed, with his good-humored laugh, "how preposterous
they are when you come to look at it! They are in the majority, the
immense majority, if you count the farmers, and they prefer to behave as
if they were the hopeless minority. They say they want an eight-hour law,
and every now and then they strike and try to fight it. Why don't they
_vote_ it? They could _make_ it the law in six months by such overwhelming
numbers that no one would dare to evade or defy it. They can make any law
they want, but they prefer to break such laws as we have. That 'alienates
public sympathy,' the newspapers say; but the spectacle of their stupidity
and helpless wilfulness is so lamentable that I could almost pity them. If
they chose, it would take only a few years to transform our government
into the likeness of anything they wanted.
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