Then he faltered out, "I guess it's all right," and dropped out of sight
in the group he had risen from. I fancied his wife scolding him there, and
all but shaking him in public.
"I should be very sorry," the Altrurian proceeded, "to have any one
believe that I have not been giving you a _bona fide_ account of
conditions in my country before the Evolution, when we first took the name
of Altruria in our great, peaceful campaign against the Accumulation. As
for offering you any allegory or travesty of your own conditions, I will
simply say that I do not know them well enough to do so intelligently.
But, whatever they are, God forbid that the likeness which you seem to
recognize should ever go so far as the desperate state of things which we
finally reached. I will not trouble you with details; in fact, I have been
afraid that I had already treated of our affairs too abstractly; but,
since your own experience furnishes you the means of seizing my meaning, I
will go on as before.
"You will understand me when I explain that the Accumulation had not
erected itself into the sovereignty with us unopposed. The working-men,
who suffered most from its oppression had early begun to band themselves
against it, with the instinct of self-preservation, first trade by trade
and art by art, and then in congresses and federations of the trades and
arts, until finally they enrolled themselves in one vast union, which
included all the working-men, whom their necessity or their interest did
not leave on the side of the Accumulation.
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