At the trial of Sheriff Marlin and his lieutenants, Trueman distinguishes himself by the searching line of questions he puts to the sheriff's deputies and two lieutenants, who are placed on the witness stand. In cross-examination he succeeds in eliciting the fact that the only "weapons" carried by the miners were the two flag staffs.

He brings to court as witnesses men who had been shot in the back as they had run to escape the deadly fire of the deputies.

One of these men, carried to the court room on a cot, testifies that he ran up the embankment and had fallen at the feet of one of the deputies.

"I begged of him to spare my life; that I had a wife and six children. He stepped back a pace and pointing his rifle at my head, fired. The bullet grazed my temple. I rolled over. He thought I was dead. I lay there motionless for several minutes. Then I was struck in the shoulder by another bullet."

This testimony causes a tremendous sensation.

The defendants counsel asks for the recall of the witness the following day. He is brought to court and answers two questions. Then with a groan he turns on his side and dies in the presence of the crowded court and before the very eyes of his assassin.

The trial is a travesty on justice. The jury is composed of men known to be in sympathy with the prisoners. The deputies are in court each day fully armed. They make no pretext to conceal their pistols. This is done to influence the jury to believe that the deputies had shot in self-defense. Both Sheriff Marlin and Captain Grout are acquitted; but they are not vindicated in the eyes of the people of the United States or of Wilkes-Barre.

Trueman emerges from the trial as the recognized champion of the people.

It has taken twelve weeks to try the case. The cost of this victory for the Coal Barons is one hundred and twenty thousand dollars.

Sister Martha and Harvey meet frequently. She is a great aid to him in getting information from the miners. She is inspired by the grand results that Trueman realizes for the poor miners whose cases he handles. She hears him mentioned as the candidate for some office, and asks him if he would accept it.

"I do not wish to mix in local politics," Trueman tells her. "I might accept the office of Congressman; but it is impossible to elect a candidate of the miners in Pennsylvania."

Early in May a call is sent out through the several States for delegates to attend an Anti-Trust Conference in Chicago. This Conference is deemed urgent as the outgrowth of an atrocious move on the part of the Magnates who seek to vitiate the laws of the United States as applied to capital.

Martha asks Trueman if he will accept the appointment as a delegate from the State of Pennsylvania. He signifies his willingness to do so; but doubts if the miners outside of Wilkes-Barre hold him in high enough esteem to so honor him.

"I have not done enough yet to redeem myself for the years that I stood as the barrier to the poor getting their deserts," he declares.

But the election shows that he is recognized as a faithful friend of the people. At the Conference it is believed he will win recognition for the claims of the miners, for justice, and for the Federal enforcement of the laws of common safety in the mines.

The ten months that have passed since the afternoon he won the case against the Magyar's widow, have been the most momentous in his life. They have taken him out of the service of a soulless Company and put him in the position of leader of a million miners.



BOOK II.

The Syndicate Incorporates.



CHAPTER VII.

AN ANTI-TRUST CONFERENCE.

From the hour that Trueman was selected as a delegate to the great Anti-Trust Conference to convene in the city of Chicago, he has devoted his hours, day and night, to study. In making his advent in the conference, he enters the arena of national politics; he means to go prepared. Martha has prevailed upon him to accept the nomination as a candidate for the State of Pennsylvania, and he has been elected by the unanimous vote of the Unions. This exhibition of confidence on the part of the toilers of the state has made a deep impression on him, and has fixed his resolve to do something that will be worthy of his constituents.

The sudden transition he has undergone from being the staunch supporter of the coal barons, to becoming their bitterest opponent, has left many of the opinion that he is working some deep scheme for the undoing of the unionists. Nor is this opinion confined to any small number. "He changed his views too quickly," is the general sentiment in the ranks of the small unions where Trueman is not personally known. This lurking suspicion was what had operated strongly at first against securing Trueman's consent to be a candidate. Martha has worked quietly, assiduously, among the men she knew, and who placed absolute faith in her advice. She has been the direct means of bringing about his election.

Now he is to leave her, and must face the supreme opportunity of his life.

It is not without a pang that he bids her farewell. She has come to be a source of great comfort to him since his enlistment in the ranks of the humble. The schoolday acquaintance has been renewed. He has learned to appreciate the fact that he was the cause of her having donned the dress of the sisterhood. His ambition to rise in the world made it impossible for him to yield to the dictates of his heart and the mental vista that opened before him at the close of his college course, did not have her in it. The woman he saw there must be the favorite of fortune. He had selfishly abandoned certain love for possible fortune and in the active life to which he was at once introduced, all thoughts of Martha had been driven from his mind.

But Martha had had no counteractant to soften or obliterate the thoughts of her blasted hopes. The refuge of the convent appealed to her as the one remaining avenue by which she might escape from her youth and its recollections.

It is impossible for Trueman and Martha Densmore to ever again be lovers; the inexorable ban of the church is between them. Yet they can be friends. And Trueman feels that in Martha he has found his firmest friend and advisor.

"You will hear from me from time to time," she says as they part. "I am confident that you will do your duty; that you will awaken the finer instincts in the delegates. With the scenes that have surrounded you in Wilkes-Barre, you cannot be an advocate of violence as a means of settling the struggle for the restoration of the rights of the people."

"It shall be my untiring labor to avert the adoption of any measure that entails an appeal to force," Trueman assures her.

On his arrival at Chicago he finds the convention already in session. An hour in the hall convinces him that the result will be nugatory. The radicals are in the majority and the proposals they make are temporary expedients that look only to appeasing the demand of the masses for action against the usurpers of the public rights.

With a view to defeating the objects of the conference, the Magnates have contrived to send a number of their hirelings as delegates. These are among the loudest in demanding impossible remedies. It is not long before Trueman discovers who these spies are, and he loses no time in exposing them in open conference.

This action brings him into prominence.

"Who is this delegate from Pennsylvania?" asks Professor Talbot, a venerable scholar sent by the Governor of Missouri to represent that state, of Nevins, a neighboring delegate.

"He is a convert to the cause of the people," comes the quick reply.

"A tool of the Coal Barons, you mean," observes a New Yorker. "I knew him three years ago when he was the attorney for the Paradise Coal Company," he continues, "and a more relentless man to the miners never was known in Pennsylvania."

"Yes, I know. He was once a counsel for the Paradise Company," assents the champion of Trueman. "I know his record from A to Z. You can't find a straighter man in this conference. He has come out for the people and I believe he is sincere."

"Whoever he is, or whatever he has been," says the Professor, "it is evident that he has the power of reading character. He was not here two hours before he detected the presence of the goats in our fold."

"Would you like to meet him?" asks Nevins.

"Indeed, I should be pleased to do so."

Professor Talbot and the friendly delegate approach Trueman.

For an hour or more the three are engrossed in animated conversation. Professor Talbot is delighted to find that Trueman is conversant with the most complex questions of the hour.

"I shall make it a point to have the chairman call upon you for an address," he assures Trueman at parting.

For three days the sessions of the conference are devoted to partisan discourses. There seems to be no hope of reaching middle ground. The newspapers ridicule the utterances of the speakers as the vaporings of demagogues. And they are little else.

On the fourth day, true to his promise, Professor Talbot gets the chairman to call upon Trueman for a fifteen-minute speech.

From his first words Trueman wins the attention of the audience. His voice is full and far-reaching; his language simple, and it is possible for every one to grasp his meaning instantly. He chooses to win the delegates to his way of reasoning by force of the truth he utters rather than by appealing to their senses by a display of forensic and oratorical ability.

In the few minutes allotted to him, he reviews the industrial conditions of a decade and shows where the insidious principle of class legislation has undermined the prosperity of the people to bestow it upon the few. In an unanswerable argument he pleads for the restoration of the rights of the majority; by a rapid review of the causes that have led to the downfall of the nations of the past, he shows that the unjust distribution of the fruits of labor must inevitably lead to the disintegration of the state.

His peroration is a fervent appeal to the delegates to reaffirm the equality of man; it calls upon them to adopt resolutions advocating the government control of all avenues of transportation and communication, and for the strict regulation of all industries that affect the common necessities of life.

"There is no law above that of the Creator. He did not fashion some of his children to be damned with the brand of perpetual servitude; He did not anoint some with omnipotence to place them as rulers over the many. When He made mankind in His image, it was to have them live in fraternal relationship. There should be no competition for the mere right to live. Until God's design is declared to be wrong, I shall never cease to counsel my brothers to live true to the Divine principles of liberty, equality and fraternity."

With these words he closes his address.

There is no means for measuring the exact effect of his words. The plaudits of an audience are an uncertain criterion.

In the final vote that is taken, after three other delegates have spoken, a resolution is adopted calling for the appointment of a standing committee of three to continue the investigation of the Trust question until another year.

This result is not satisfactory to the radicals, yet they make no open objection. To Trueman it is a source of gratification to know that the heretical proposals of some of the delegates have been voted down.

The conference is on the point of closing when Delegate William Nevins moves that the chairman of the special committee be empowered to increase the number of the committee to forty at his own discretion. This motion is adopted.

The conference ends. It has exemplified the old adage of the convention of the mice to discuss the advisability of putting a bell on the cat. All agreed that it would be for the good of micedom; yet no mouse had a feasible method to advance for affixing the bell. The papers in every city tell of the failure of the Anti-Trust conference to agree upon a plan of action.

The millions of toilers bend lower under their burdens; the Magnates tighten their grasp on the throat of labor.

In all the United States there is but one man who holds a solution of the problem of emancipating mankind from commercial servitude. This man has been a delegate. He has spoken but a few words; he has been present as an auditor.

His hour for action is soon to come.



CHAPTER VIII.

A STARTLING PROPOSAL.

The special committee has been directed to hold meetings at intervals of a month and to have a report ready by the first of the following January. Thirty-seven of the most intelligent and earnest of the Anti-Trust members have been placed on this committee by its chairman. The meetings are now secret.

The first meeting is held in the hall that had been used for the big meetings of the conference. After this the meetings are clandestine.

The comment that was provoked by the conference of the radical leaders of the Trust opposition died out in the usual way, and then the interest in the efforts of the special committee was confined to the few people who realized the earnestness of the men who had decided to take the Trust problem up and bring it to a speedy settlement.

Day by day the members of the committee met to discuss the phases of the all absorbing question.

The managers of some of the largest corporations are warned of these secret deliberations and institute a vigorous investigation. The aid of the police is secured, and the officers of a dozen of the shrewdest private detective bureaus are put in possession of the few facts that have been ascertained. In a hundred directions public and private sleuths are set in motion. But their untiring efforts are unavailing. They have to combat a more adroit, more nervy and more intelligent force than they have ever before been brought in contact with.

The Committee of Forty has its ever watchful sentinels on guard, and every move of the detectives is anticipated and provided against.

Thus matters progress until on the night of June tenth a startling climax is brought about by the report of the secretary of the committee.

At this memorable meeting there is a full attendance. The chairman, in his call for the meeting, has intimated that very important business will be transacted. He has in mind the discussion of a plan for awakening the interest of the wage-earners in the effete Eastern States, and the reading of a report.

What actually transpires is a surprise to him, as it is to all but three of the committee.

When the routine of business has been gone through with, the chairman announces that the meeting will proceed to the consideration of new business, if there is any.

William Nevins, the man who had carried the Stars and Stripes at Hazleton, now a committeeman who has always taken a subordinate part in the work, asks to be heard.

Supposing that he is to speak on the one subject uppermost in the minds of the committee, the chair recognizes him. Rising from his seat in the back of the room Nevins walks to the front of the hall, and standing before the chairman, half turns so as to face the men in the assembly.

From his first words it is apparent that he has a matter of grave concern to impart. The attention of all is engaged.

"Mr. Chairman," he begins, "I am unaccustomed to speech-making; yet on this occasion I feel that I am capable of expressing myself in a manner that will be clear and forceful. I am to tell you a few truths, and in uttering the truth there is no need of depending on rhetoric or oratory.

"As you all know, I am a poor man. How I came to be reduced to a position little better than beggary is not known by any of you, for I have studiously avoided airing my troubles to any one. To-day I intend to tell the story. It will cast some light on the subject that we will be called upon to discuss later.

"We have no time to hear the life-story of any one," sententiously observes a man in the front seat.

"But you will have to take time to hear me," retorts Nevins, and he continues.

"I was a graduate of Yale, in the class of 1884. My name was not Nevins, then. After a year spent in travel in Europe I returned to the United States and began to practice my profession of a civil engineer, in the city of New York. My father had died when I was a child and had left my mother a fortune of about $40,000. From this sum she derived an income of $2000 a year. She gave me an allowance of $800 up to the time that I began to work as an engineer.

"Two years after I had entered the office of a leading railroad I planned an extensive change in the working of the road and submitted it to the president. He approved of the suggested changes and put the matter before the board of directors. Shortly afterward I was informed that I could proceed with the work. The work was accomplished and the officials were more than pleased. They made me chief engineer of the road and a stockholder. I soon had a considerable block of stock. Then a great Magnate looked at the road with covetous eyes, and ruin came upon us.

"The stock of the road was depreciated and borne down on the Exchange until the road became insolvent. All my money was in the road, and when the crisis came I found myself stranded. The King of the Rail Road Trust, Jacob L. Vosbeck, bought up the stock and then raised it to even a higher figure than it had ever before attained.

"Ill-luck followed me and I have gone down, down, until I can scarce make a living as a draughtsman in a shop. The curse of monopoly has caused my ruin. I did not succumb to fair competition. I am now enlisted in a fight against the usurpers of the free rights of the people, and I declare to you all, that I am in this fight in dead earnest. By an appeal to justice we can gain nothing.

"I was one of the sixty miners who were attacked on the highway at Hazleton by the High Sheriff of Luzerne County. I witnessed the mock trial in Wilkes-Barre. I have thought of all the possible means the Trusts have left to us, and find that there is but one available.

"They have all the money and all the agencies of the law; they have intimidated the humble and ignorant workingmen until these poor creatures are no better than serfs, and to be assured of bread, they work as voluntary slaves.

"What is there for us to do but to fight the magnates with their own weapons? Intimidation is their deadliest method. The horrible picture of a starving family is held up before the wage-earner, and he is asked if he will vote to put his wife and children on the street. He is told that if he will accept starvation wages, the Trust will let him make such wages. In desperation he accepts the terms.

"What I propose is to intimidate the criminal aggressors so that they will fear to make their fortunes at the expense of the honest, hard working and credulous people.

"How shall it be done? Ah! it is a simple matter."

Here the voice of the speaker becomes husky, and he turns to face the chairman of the committee. In almost a whisper he exclaims: "I propose to give them an object lesson. They have given many to us." Again he resumes his normal voice.

"Have you not seen mills closed before election time so as to coerce men to vote as the mill owners directed? Has not this suspension of work brought distress, starvation, death, to thousands of homes? Is it not murder for men of wealth to resort to such means to win an election in a free country?

"Well, I now propose to form a syndicate—a Syndicate of Annihilation!"

"Mr. Chairman," cry half a dozen voices. "Mr. Chairman, Point of order! Point of order!"

Before the chair can recognize any of the speakers a general commotion ensues. Men begin discussing with one another excitedly; there is a perfect bedlam.

All the while Nevins remains standing as if awaiting an opportunity to resume his speech.

At the expiration of some minutes order is restored so that his voice can be heard. "Permit me to explain," he cries.

The committeemen, as if acting by a common impulse, cease to squabble, and are attentive again.

"I propose to hear the circumstances under which each of you has been brought to the condition that leads you to combine against the Trust; and if there is sufficient ground for belief that you will be zealous workers in my syndicate, I will admit you to membership. No man who has not had a more serious grievance against the Robber Barons than I have outlined, will be eligible. I have told you but one incident of my case.

"The work that I shall outline to you after hearing your stories, will require stout hearts to carry it into execution.

"It cannot be accomplished by fanatics. It requires the concerted efforts of men of sound judgment; men of courage. The assassin is a coward at heart—the political martyr must be valiant."

The novelty of the suggestion that has just been made is the first thing that appeals to the minds of the committee. They begin to realize the horrid character of the proposition. Much discussion follows. Men want to know what Nevins means by a Syndicate of Annihilation. Whom does he intend to murder? Annihilation and murder are considered synonymous.

To all questions Nevins replies that the details will be given as soon as the men recite their grievances.

Professor Talbot and Hendrick Stahl, the two men who are in the secret with Nevins, advise the members of the committee to comply with the demands.

Then begins the strange, startling recital of the stories of human distress. Of the forty men of varying professions and trades, there are those who tell of their efforts to stand up under the weight of the yoke of commercial despotism. Each man is of impressing character and strong individuality.

The chairman, Albert Chadwick, is the first to tell his story. It is the prelude to the concerted cry of the oppressed—the cry which has sounded through the ages as the one never varying note in the music of the universe; the dread inharmonic monotone that marks the limitation of humanity, exhibiting man's inability to convert the world into a paradise.



CHAPTER IX.

ARRAIGNMENT OF THE TRANSGRESSORS.

Standing upon the little platform which serves as a rostrum, Chadwick, a man of fifty, seared and bent, lifts his hand to command the attention of the committee.

He is a figure that would do credit to the brush of a great artist. His appearance is that of a man who has been deprived of the power of looking at the world as a place of rest; he is a bundle of nerves, and at the slightest provocation bursts into a storm of irascibility. A tortured spirit lurks in his soul and is visible in his stern, tense features.

As he begins the recital of his grievances against the Trust, it is apparent that he means to give the audience an embittered story. So the attention of all is centered upon him.

"Human liberty is the boon which man has sought since the dawn of creation; it has furnished the incentive for his struggle to reclaim the earth from the domination of brute force; it is the inherent idea that the founders of this Republic sought to embody in the Constitution. But Liberty must have as a complement unhampered opportunity," are his opening words.

"The man who is dependent upon another for his livelihood is not capable of enjoying real liberty, or of attaining happiness. When the men of a nation are debased to a position of minor importance, where they can only act as servants, they lose the stamina necessary to make them good citizens. This condition now prevails in the United States.

"My own experience will exemplify this statement.

"Forty years ago I attained my majority. I was a citizen of the state of Pennsylvania, and considered that I was a freeman. By the death of my father I had come into a fortune of fifty thousand dollars. I lived in the oil region, and sought to engage in the oil industry. To this end I purchased land contiguous to a railroad. On my holdings a well was located which yielded three hundred barrels of oil a day.

"No sooner had I begun to operate my well than the agents of the Oil Trust, which had then but recently sprung into existence as a menace to individual refining, came to me with a proposition to incorporate my well in the Trust's system. The well was capable of earning a net profit of seventy thousand dollars a year. The Trust offered me a paltry two hundred and thirty thousand dollars for my plant. This I refused to accept, for the actual value was one million dollars.

"Then by crafty insinuation the agents of the Trust intimated that unless I sold my property and accepted inflated stock in the Trust and allowed my well to be absorbed in the system, I would find myself opposed by the mighty consolidation. Still I refused to abrogate my right to conduct an independent business.

"Failing to allure me by their offers, which would have proved valueless in the end; or of intimidating me by their threats, the agents reported to the office of the Trust that I was obdurate and must be disciplined.

"Accordingly pressure was brought to bear on the railroad over which I sent my product to a market. The railroad discriminated against me; it gave the Trust a rebate on all oil shipped over the road and made me pay the full schedule rates. Even against this detrimental condition I was able to sell my oil at a small profit.

"I might have survived the unequal struggle had not the 'pipe line' system been introduced. By this the Oil Trust transports its oil to the sea-board at a cost that enables it to undersell all competitors. And for a time the price of oil was reduced, and all the minor competitors were driven into bankruptcy or forced to sell out to the Trust at a ridiculously low figure.

"Owing to my well being centrally located I was able to hold out longer than many others.

"John D. Savage, the Oil King, realized that some more potent means had to be devised to crush me. This means was found in the expedient of 'Sacrifice' sales. At every depot where I sold, the agents of the Trust offered to sell oil at figures lower than I could possibly sell it. I lost my trade. In an effort to retrench, my fortune was consumed, and from a position of affluence I descended to beggary, and had to join the ranks as an employee. So bitter was the animosity of the Trust that it sought to rob me even of the opportunity to earn a living. I have been hounded from post to pillar; my life has been made miserable. I have seen my family want for bread.

"And all because I withstood the assault of the Oil King.

"As an American I protest against the existence of a corporation that can set at naught the mandates of the law; a corporation that can, with utter impunity, resort to arson as a final means of gaining its illegal end, as the oil Trust has done, again and again.

"I thank God that I still possess my fore-fathers' spirit of resistance against oppression. There are few men who are in want, or in actual dread of being thrown out of employment, however unremunerative, who will assert their right. A nation composed of such men is not free, no matter what its form of government may be.

"I am ready to do anything that will restore the right to the individual citizen to engage in business; I am ready to make a stand against the few plutocrats who now usurp the avenues of human activity; and I believe that we will be able to enlist men in support of the idea that the rights of the majority transcend the aggressions of the oligarchy of American capitalists."

As Chadwick concludes his statement, Hiram Goodel, a delegate from New Hampshire, obtains the floor.

"Coercion is the word that epitomizes my grievance against the Trusts," he begins. "It was by the exercise of coercion that I was driven out of business. I conducted a retail tobacco store in Concord, in my native state. My business sufficed to insure me a decent living, and a comfortable margin to be husbanded as a safeguard for my declining years. I had a wife and three sons. My sons were all under age, and I kept them at school to provide them with good educations.

"There was competition in my business; such natural competition as is met with in all pursuits. It did not, however, prevent my making a success of my business.

"Then came the Tobacco Trust. It set out to control the retail trade. This was to be effected by the inauguration of a system of "consigning" goods to the retail stores with strict provisos that the retailer would not handle the product of any concern out of the Tobacco Combine. In order to ingratiate themselves with the store-keepers, the Trust managers at first offered terms that were so far below the current prices that a majority of the stores bound themselves to handle the Trust goods exclusively.

"Three years passed, in which the independent tobacco manufacturers strove to hold out against the ring. Then came a crash.

"I had opposed the innovation of binding myself to buy from one concern; for I felt intuitively that as soon as the Trust was all-powerful it would begin to exercise dictatorial sway over the retailer.

"My fears were soon justified.

"The Trust advanced the price of its goods to the retailer, and compelled the trade to sell at the same retail figures.

"When this system of extortion was successfully launched the Trust determined to reward its patrons, as a means of pacifying them for reduced profits.

"The reward came in the shape of discriminating against the store-keepers who still handled the goods made by the fast vanishing opposition concerns.

"I was informed that unless I signed an agreement to use only the Trust brands of cigarettes and tobacco no more goods would be sold to me. As the Trust embraced all of the leading brands, that meant that I must go out of business.

"My puritan blood boiled at the thought that I must submit to the tyranny of a band of robbers. I determined to fight to the last. Four years of business at a net loss, drove me into insolvency; then a mortgage was placed upon my freehold, to be followed by foreclosure. I still struggled on, under the delusion that I was in a free land and that the Trust iniquities would not be permitted to crush the individual citizen forever. The decision of the courts of the several states where the Tobacco Trust was arraigned, upholding the Trust, disillusioned me. But it was too late, I was a ruined man.

"My sons were forced to work in the cigar factory of the local branch of the Trust; and I was obliged to apply for a patrimony from the Government, as a veteran of the war for the emancipation of man from slavery. On this slender pension I now live.

"Can anyone blame me for being a volunteer in the crusade against the most insidious and dangerous foe that has ever assailed a land; a foe that seeks to entrench itself by emasculating the citizens and degrading them to a position of servants of mighty and intolerant masters?"

There is a pause. The aged speaker trembles with emotion.

"I am an old man, over seventy years of age, yet whatever vigor remains in me will be expended in my last battle with the destroyers of free government.

"What right has Amos Tweed, the Tobacco King, to tax me?

"I was born a free man; I fought to free an inferior race. Alas, I have lived to see the shackles placed upon the wrists of my own sons. So help me God, I shall strike a blow to make them free once more."

Overcome with the exertion of delivering his fervent speech, Hiram Goodel totters. He would fall, did not the strong arms of Carl Metz support him.

"Where is the man who can view this picture of patriarchal devotion, and hesitate to give significance to the prayer that freedom may again be the inheritance of the youth of America," demands Nevins in thrilling tones.

It is apparent that the recital of the grievances of the members of the committee is making a deep impression on every man.

Horace Turner, a farmer from Wisconsin, who had migrated to that state when it was in its infancy, preferring its fertile plains to the rocky hillside homestead in Vermont, is the next to speak. He is sixty years of age, well preserved, temperate and fairly well educated.

"I can quote no higher authority than the Holy Bible," are his opening words. "If in that book we can find authority for complaining against tyrants; if we can find a prayer that has come down from age to age, shall we not be justified in uttering it?

"Are these words from the Psalms meaningless? 'Deliver me from the oppression of Man; so will I keep thy precepts.'

"There is vitality in this cry from the oppressed; because the oppressor exists. You and I are both victims of oppression.

"I am a producer of wheat, the great staple of this country. You are all consumers of my product. When I cannot make a living by producing wheat, and you cannot purchase it without paying tribute to a band of speculators, there must be in operation a damnable system of oppression to bring about this condition, for it is not natural.

"The Wheat Trust determines what price I shall receive for my wheat; it sets the price at which you shall buy it in the form of bread.

"Whether there is a bounteous crop or a short one, the Trust still controls the wheat and flour and arbitrarily fixes their price.

"When the newspapers assert that the farmers enjoy the advance of the price of a season's crop, they state an absolute falsehood.

"By the system that prevails in this country to-day, as a result of the Wheat Trust, crops are sold a year in advance. There are never two years of exceptionally large crops; so the benefit of the advance of one year does not go over to the next.

"The farmers of this country are compelled, by the present system, to pledge their next year's crop to the local wheat factors who control the elevators. The purchase price is determined by the factor. The farmer receives a certain number of bushels of 'seed' wheat from the factor, agreeing to repay him with two or two and a half bushels of the coming crop; a large percentage of the remainder of the crop is pledged to the local store-keeper for the goods that the farmer must have to do his work and to live upon.

"Wheat is the medium of exchange. The Trust's price is the measure of value. Why? Because the farmer cannot sell to any one except to an agent of the Trusts, as the Trust has arranged traffic rates with every railroad; and the wheat, if bought by any one outside of the Trust, could not be transported to a market and sold at a profit. This statement is indisputable.

"The Wheat King, David Leach, depresses the market when the crop is to be sold, and so gives a semblance of reason for the inadequate price he allows the farmer.

"It is the farmer who does the planting; he has to run the risk of the loss of the crop by drought, or excessive rain; he has to do the harvesting. Yet he does not share in the just profits of the sale of his product.

"And the consumer is made to pay exorbitantly for the bread that keeps life in his body.

"If there were no Wheat Trust, no speculation in wheat and no discriminating traffic rates, bread could be sold at a fair profit for three cents a loaf, and the farmer would still be able to get a higher price than he averages now.

"I have toiled as a farmer for two score years, and all I have in this world is a farm of two hundred acres, valued at thirty-six hundred dollars, on which there is a two thousand dollar mortgage at six per cent. When the interest is paid and my yearly expenses are defrayed, I am lucky to have one hundred dollars to my credit in the bank. For the past six years I have been obliged to send whatever I had remaining to my son, who has married and who is struggling to live in Milwaukee. He is engaged as a brakeman on the railroad that exacts thirty per cent. of the value of every bushel of wheat I raise.

"I am not one of the discontented, homeless vagabonds who the Plutocrats declare are alone demanding the destruction of Monopoly. I am a citizen who can foresee the inevitable result that will come from a perpetuation of Commercial Despotism. I am not afraid to assert my opinions, nor will I fear to act on any suggestion, that will insure independence to the farmer and to all the citizens of the Republic."

Donald Harrington, a delegate accredited to Maryland, now begins his arraignment:

"It will not be necessary for me to take the story of my ruin back to the beginning; you are interested only in that part which has to do with the effect of the Trusts upon me.

"I could say that they were the sole cause of my downfall, but in this statement I should be doing the Trusts an injustice. I felt the first downward impulse given me when I was a lad of sixteen. I had entered the employ of a banking house and was a clerk in their counting room. It was my especial duty to see that the books of the company were put in the safes at night. This duty I faithfully performed for more than three years.

"One day I was tempted to steal.

"It was an easy matter for me to take a sum of money from the drawer and make away with it. I was not detected in the first peculation; this encouraged me to take more. So matters went on until I was guilty of having stolen a sum aggregating ten thousand dollars. I knew that I could not keep the game up much longer, for the annual accounting would disclose the deficit.

"Of the sums I had taken, I had less than half saved. I did not know how I was to get out of the position in which I was placed. Then the idea struck me that I might make the entire sum good if I could make a successful turn on the Exchange.

"This I determined to try.

"From the first I was successful. Soon I had three times the sum required to make up my peculations.

"I restored the money to the safe and breathed easily.

"This was my first venture in dealing with other peoples' money.

"The experience led to my entering upon a career as a banker and broker.

"For eight years I was actively engaged in rolling up a fortune. I was sought out by the Magnates of many of the largest Trusts, and they extended me unlimited credit.

"When the country was precipitated into a panic in 1893, I was not one of the sufferers; I was one of the scoundrels active in bringing the distress upon the people. I aided in the establishment of the all-powerful Money Trust.

"Later I was interested in a big mining scheme. It appeared to me to be one of the best things in which to invest money. I put the bulk of my fortune in the mining stocks, and lost.

"In attempting to retrieve my losses I dissipated my fortune to the last cent.

"The whole of my career as a banker was of a criminal nature. Nearly everything I had touched was a speculative venture. The cursed practice of watering stocks to three and four times their actual value was the common work of my days.

"At the end I was caught in the net which I had so often thrown out to ensnare others. My former partner, James Golding, the Napoleon of Finance, wrought my undoing.

"All of this leads to this conclusion:

"I am an enemy of the Trusts now, because I know their methods; I know the results that follow the practice of fictitious speculation. Before you all I acknowledge that my past has been of the darkest and most disreputable nature.

"I also wish to state that I have experienced a change of heart. It has not come upon me solely because I have lost my fortune; I have felt it creeping upon me for the past three years. In my inmost heart I feel a beating that will not be stilled unless I am engaged in the work of destroying the power of the accursed Trusts.

"That there is a chance on earth for a man to redeem himself, I am confident. I have heard the call and have responded to it. I am resolved to use the rest of my strength in battling with the enemies of the people. And I am the more in earnest since I can never forget that I am personally responsible for the distress of hundreds. Widows and orphans, young and old, all have been my victims.

"What object Nevins may have in getting us to recount our grievances, I do not know; but if it will lead to any good result, he may depend upon me to give my untiring aid.

"I have but a word to add. Since my ruin, I have seen my wife and only child, a daughter of twenty, languish and die before my very eyes. This has embittered me against the men who have worked the ruin of the masses more than anything else. I have pledged myself to avenge the sufferings of humanity. I shall be doing something for the good of the race; something to atone for the evil deeds I myself have done."

There is nothing in the recital of Harrington's life's history that is of an exceptional nature. True, no one present is aware that he had at one time been the head of the great bond issue plot.

But the delegates are looking for something of a far different tone than a mere recital of crime and a fall from affluence to penury. Several of the committeemen are on their feet demanding the floor.

Cyrus Fielding, the delegate representing the federation of stone masons, is recognized by the chair.

Fielding is a man of short stature, his eyes betray a lacklustre that might be the result of over-indulgence in liquor or want of rest; he is thin and poorly clad, his face is cleanly shaven. At every pause in his speech he runs his fingers through his thick dishevelled black hair, and finishes this mannerism with wiping his forehead with the back of his hand. His delivery is awkward and these repeated movements intensify this awkwardness.

"I have a grievance against the Trusts that dates back as far as my birth. I never had a fair start. My father was a victim of the power of gold and I inherited his misfortune.

"My first work was as a helper in the great Pennsylvania Iron Trust's works that are owned by that old man, the self-styled philanthropist, Ephraim Barnaby, a hypocrite of the first water, who goes about the world asking people how he can best dispose of his fabulous fortune.

"From the rank of helper I soon rose to the position of foreman of the moulding shop. This was a most important place and I felt proud that I had attained it in so short a period as three years.

"It was my ambition to learn all I could relating to the work in the iron industry. Toward this end I spent four hours every night in reading and experimenting. At the end of another three years I had a fund of knowledge that put me in the front rank as a constructing engineer.

"But I was not a graduate of a college of engineering, so I could not get the degree. The opportunity of utilizing my practical knowledge by forming a competing company was closed by the bar of traffic rates.

"My employers advanced me to the rank of superintendent of the shops in the largest iron manufacturing city in the state. I had to be satisfied with a position under the iron masters.

"Then came the memorable strike that led to the killing of the men by the paid detectives of the Iron Masters.

"The claims of the men were just, and as a man I could not side against them. I put my fortune in with them. The details of the strike are known to you all. The story of the shooting of unarmed mill hands at the instance of the mill owners will never be forgotten; it has marked an era in the history of this country.

"Well, I was a conspicuous figure in those days. The strikers hailed me as a champion; the mill owners first sought to win me over; then they contrived to do away with me. Three times I was assaulted by murderous men who had been hired to kill me.

"When their schemes of violence failed they resorted to the most effective method of destroying me. They discharged me and refused to let me return after the strike was declared off. Not satisfied with having turned me away from their mills they dogged my every step. Since that day I have been unable to get employment in any mill in this country.

"As I am acquainted with the methods of the iron trade I have been able to give the trade Union many valuable points. It was upon my suggestion that the amalgamation of the unions was effected.

"From my intimate knowledge of the manufacture of iron I know that the item of wage is less than fifteen per cent. of the cost of the completed casting, yet the tariff on manufactured iron is on the average thirty per cent. Where does the additional fifteen per cent. go? To fatten the pockets of the favored manufacturer. But that is only half the story. The fifteen per cent. that is supposed to protect the American laborer, does it go for this end? Not at all. All of you are familiar with the wage schedules in the iron industry. They have not been advanced five per cent. since the imposition of the high tariff. So the manufacturer gobbles more than ninety per cent. of the tariff bounty.

"It is because I keep telling the iron workers this truth that I am hounded by the minions of the Trusts.

"We have allowed ourselves to be robbed long enough. I am an American to the back-bone, and I propose to fight the men who have disputed this country till I die.

"Let me say that to whatever Nevins may propose I am willing to lend my support, provided the ends he seeks to obtain are honorable and the means reasonable.

"As I am talking I cannot keep out of my mind the home which the Iron Masters destroyed. I had a wife and two children who loved me and were the idols of my heart. I saw this home destroyed. I saw my children turned adrift and their mother forced to work to support them; for during the first three years after the strike I could get nothing to do.

"With these memories which had as a climax the deaths of two nearest and dearest to me, I have nothing left to live for but the fulfillment of my resolve to break the power of the Monopolists who have control of this country."

"This meeting will be protracted to the middle of next week if we all take a half hour or more to tell our tale of woe," observes one of the committee who cannot foresee the end of the discussion.

The chairman asks if the members wish to limit the time of the speakers to five minutes, and this proposition meets with the approval of all.

So the remaining stories are told in short intensive sentences which describe the heart-breaking history of men who have been trodden down under the heel of monopoly.

There are examples of every type that can be imagined. Men who have been defrauded of their ideas and patents; others who have been the victims of unjust legislation, the dupes of the speculator, the betrayed friends of men who have ridden to fortune on the backs of those who gave them their first start.

Under the new ruling, the first man to be recognized is Herman Nettinger, a man known to all the assemblage as an anarchist. He had been admitted to the councils on the supposition that the best way to pacify and placate the Anarchistic element was to offer them full representation in the work of regenerating the government.

Nettinger had been one of the few men who succeeded in eluding the police during the days of the reign of anarchy in Chicago in 1885.

He is a man of gigantic build, and of imperturbable placidity. When a soldier in the German army had provoked him to the point where he had to fight, this modern Titan had seized his tormenter and without apparent effort had dashed the man's brains out by butting him against the wall of the barracks. For this episode Nettinger had been compelled to serve eleven years in the military prison.

During these years he had familiarized himself with the teachings of the socialists, for his companions were, many of them, students of sociology. Upon his release he had come to this country. He invented a compressed air motor, but the American Motor Trust robbed him of his patents.

In the space of five minutes Nettinger strives to defend the theory of anarchy. He denounces all government as a make-shift, and asserts that man should accordingly dispense with the forms of government and depend upon animal instinct to regulate the social community. He names Samuel L. Bell, chairman of the International Patent Commission, as the man who contrived to rob him of his patent rights.

The meeting adjourns at the conclusion of this harangue.

In the hour that has passed the elements for a political revolution have been brought together and combined by a master mind.



CHAPTER X.

THE SECRET SESSION.

It is apparent that the views of the men who have the most serious grievances against the Trusts are yet to be heard. Most of the members are glad that the meeting of the previous night had adjourned so as to afford time for them to consider the salient points of the remarkable proposal that had been sprung by Nevins.

One of the members, who was conspicuous at all of the meetings, a man of pinched features and diminutive form, a veritable Pope Leo, as it were, makes a motion, as soon as the meeting opens, that three of the members be heard, and if their stories in any way coincide with the general views of the others, the pledge of the remaining men, that they hold equally strong opinions, be sufficient to admit them to the standing necessary for the exposition of the plan.

As a means of expediting matters, the committee adopts this resolution and the three men who are to tell their life's history are chosen. The first of these is a man of the world, a fallen idol of society, who had lately joined the ranks of the oppressed as a consequence of dire financial difficulties.

When he made his advent in the company of the desperate men of Chicago, he had adopted the name of Stephen Marlow.

This name is sufficient, for the men with whom he comes in contact are not occupied in searching genealogies. They are working for results. Marlow is in every sense of the word a leader. He has the grace of manner and the personal charm that at once attracts men. His physical development makes him the envy of the male sex and the idol of the feminine. In stature he is slightly under six feet, with broad shoulders and a fullness of figure that impresses one with the fact that he is a good liver, yet withall muscular.

A pale complexion, strongly marked features and high forehead, with dark brown hair and clear brown eyes, make him a conspicuous figure in any assemblage.

As he rises to address his fellow-committeemen on this momentous occasion, a flush of excitement adds to his attractiveness. He is a man of thirty-five, with the experience of a man of fifty.

"Were I to take the course pursued by those who have already spoken to you," he begins, "I might take you back to the scenes of my childhood and portray pictures of affluence and luxury that few of you could quite appreciate. But the days of my childhood are gone; I am a man and have to fight the battles of men, so I shall limit myself to the few facts that are pertinent to the discussion before us.

"In the past six months I have made the sudden transition from the highest stratum of society to the one in which I am to-day. We cannot, and do not desire to pose as contented men, or as men who are looking for mild solutions of the problems that are now pressing for settlement. I cannot, therefore, affront you when I say that by being among you I prove that I am a radical reformer.

"What you will be interested in learning will be the reasons that impelled me to come here.

"There is not a single thing to be hidden from you. I am here for the purpose of satisfying a revenge.

"My every fibre is quickened by the desire to see the men who caused my downfall brought to my level.

"I am selfish in my purpose; so deeply rooted are my resolves to be avenged that I here and now state to you that any thing radical that may be proposed by this committee shall receive my full support.

"And do you blame me? Listen to my reasons:

"Six years ago I entered the employ of Stephen Steel, the New York banker. He is a man whom the people of the city and the country at large look upon as a paragon. His words are constantly quoted in the papers; his advice is sought by men of affairs.

"My friends told me I was indeed fortunate to be associated with such a prominent man.

"Well, he was a schemer. At every turn he was on the lookout for a chance to get at the wealth of others. I had not been in his employ more than a month when I discovered that he was at the bottom of a plot to loot the treasuries of three of the largest banks. His scheme was diabolical. It would have entailed the loss of the savings of thousands of small depositors.

"With this knowledge in my possession, I did not know just what my duty was. To shut my eyes to the affair and let it culminate in disaster to innocent thousands, would have been a simple matter. For several days I was in a quandary, but my conscience at length conquered. I mustered up courage enough to speak to my employer. I chose for my time the hour after his return from church on Sunday. He had passed the plate with the unction of a saint. Men and women had looked at him and inwardly said: 'What a fine man Mr. Steel is; if there were only more like him.'

"At the first intimation I gave him that I looked upon his plans as illegal and immoral, if not absolutely criminal, he attempted to prove to me in a plausible argument that bankers have a right to look out for themselves, no matter who it hits.

"'This plan of mine,' he said, 'is just a stroke of financiering; it is what any man would do if put in my place.'

"This did not satisfy me, and the expression of scorn that came over my face did not escape him.

"From attempting to prove the righteousness of the case, he then took to berating me for interfering with his business. Had I not enough to do to attend to my affairs in his office, without prying into his outside dealing? Was it a matter that he must lay before his manager? These were the questions he put to me in sharp tones.

"I saw that it would be useless to argue with him so I arose and said:

"'As you will not listen to reason, as you are a hypocrite and a villain, I shall be compelled to quit your employ. But I wish to inform you that I shall expose this diabolical plan. It shall not be carried out if I can prevent it, and you know that I am in possession of the facts.'

"At this statement his anger knew no bounds. He railed at me as a trickster. He charged me with wishing to blackmail him. Then seeing that this was not the way to gain his point, he adroitly shifted his lines.

"Would I not take a share in the profits that were to be made? Did I not see that banking was a business in which every advantage was to be seized and worked for all that was in it? At length he offered to let me in his firm as a partner. This last offer was one that a man would have been more than human to set aside without weighing.

"He saw me hesitate. It was not the hesitation that comes as a forerunner of surrender; it was the pause that a man will make when he has to confront a momentous problem that is to have an effect on his after-life. I did not intend to accept his alluring terms; it had been my resolve at the outset to leave his employ should he refuse to abandon his scheme of loot.

"In the few seconds that I stood facing him, the light of lust came in his eyes, he became the incarnation of greed. A snake that sees its quarry edging inch by inch toward the fangs of death could not have had a more exultant, triumphant look shoot from its treacherous eyes.

"'You will be a man,' said he; 'you will listen to reason.' He uttered these words not as a query, but as an assertion of fact.

"'I shall do as I have said,' was my reply, and I walked toward the door.

"'But you do not mean to say that you refuse to become a partner?' he ejaculated in amazement.

"'That is just what I mean. I tell you once for all that I will not be a party to such crimes as you propose to commit.' "'Then I warn you, young man,' he thundered, losing his self control, 'that if you attempt to thwart me in my business I shall make it uncomfortable for you in this city.

"'Yes, I tell you now once for all, that you will find me the most unmerciful enemy that was ever known. I have too much at stake to let a fool of a man upset me.

"'Do you think that the world will credit the utterances of a nobody as against mine? Why, you will be lodged in an insane asylum. I shall have that matter fixed at once.

"'By the way, where are the bonds that I entrusted to your care last week?'

"'What bonds?' I demanded hotly. For even then I saw the purport of the question.

"'What bonds? Ah, that will not satisfy a jury.'

"And the banker chuckled at the thought that he had struck upon the proper weapon with which to crush me.

"In the confidence of his own power, and no doubt as a means of avoiding publicity, he thought that the affair had gone to a point where he might appear magnanimous. "'I do not hold any ill will toward you,' he continued, 'it is as a friend that I speak. You are suffering from a sensitive conscience, which is out of place in this age and generation.

"'I can pity you, but of course it would be impossible for me to allow sentiment to rule me in business.

"'We will let this evening pass out of our minds. You will return to your duties, and in the future let my outside matters be distinct from your work and concern. But remember, not a word of this to any one.'

"As the last few words were spoken we walked as if by common impulse toward the door.

"I bade him good-night, and the next minute I found myself on the sidewalk. It was winter, and the cold bracing air soon made me alive to the events that had occurred in such quick succession in the banker's parlor.

"My mind was in a flurry. What was I now to do? Did my silence at parting indicate that I had accepted his offer to return to work as his clerk?

"With a muddled brain I walked on and on until I found I had reached the entrance of the Park at Fifty-ninth street and Fifth avenue. I entered the park and sank exhausted upon a bench.

"Then I began to review the words of our interview.

"It all became clear to me. I was in the power of an unscrupulous man. He could throw me into prison at a word; if this was not to be desired he could have me declared insane and put in an insane asylum. My word was as naught against his. So I determined to work in his bank until I could get the evidence that I needed to prove my case.

"I had misjudged my man, for a week later he called me into his private office and informed me that he had no further use for me.

"His bank wrecking scheme was successfully carried out.

"In vain I sought to awaken the interest of the press. The story I told was not credited. I lacked documentary proof. When the crash came the editors realized that I had told the truth. But it was too late.

"When I began to look for employment, I found that my name had been blacklisted. Wherever I go, from Maine to California, I am confronted by an agent of my arch enemy. I cannot even hold a position as a day laborer.

"The damning brand of the magnate is on me, and employers are warned against me. And all because I possess a conscience that would not stoop to crime. I have stood out against retaliating as long as I can. Now my vow is given to be avenged on Steel and his ilk."

Of all the committeemen none has a more distinguished bearing than Professor Herbert Talbot. He is a scion of an honorable New England family; the advantages of refined home surroundings and a college education have combined to give him a polish that should win him the respect and admiration of all who know him.

From the day of his graduation from one of the leading universities he had begun to teach his favorite study, political economy. At fifty years of age he found himself the recognized authority on economics, a professor in his alma mater, and the recipient of honors at home and abroad.

That was in 1894. What a difference a few years has wrought. Now he is an outcast, driven from his position in the faculty by the order of Rufus Vanpeldt, the Woolen King, the patron of the university. Talbot is reviled by his fellow-collegians, and ostracized from the society in which he had always been a leader; and all because he has had the manliness to express the truth on the political conditions of the country.

He has advocated the reduction of the tariff to a reasonable point; he has been a staunch supporter of the income tax; his views on the money question are deemed heretical and he is dismissed from the circles of learning.

From being the submissive hireling and servitor of the educational institution, he entered the political field as their most powerful adversary. He is one of the leaders of the Anti-Trust movement. When the committee of Forty was organized, he had been one of the first selected.

Many of the committee await his speech with lively interest. Whatever view he takes of the proposition they determine to adopt. He is the next member to be called upon.

In an impressive, convincing argument he approves of the proposition. Not that it is faultless, but because it offers the only remedy for the vicious condition of the country's social condition.

In presenting the arguments in favor of the adoption of the proposition, Professor Talbot demonstrates that the centralization of capital in the hands of a few men is the gravest mistake that a republic can permit to occur. It creates an oligarchy that is more pernicious than one of class distinction, since such a one can be coped with, while an oligarchy of wealth possesses so many ramifications that it is practically unassailable except by direct and physical means.

"It is the common belief that labor-saving inventions are accountable for much of the distress that exists in this country," he says, "but this is not so in so far as the inventions themselves are concerned.

"The evils that have followed the introduction of labor-saving machinery are the results of capitalists seeking to squeeze the last cent of profit out of their enterprises.

"When an inventor produces any improvement in manufacture he does the world a good; when the manufacturer who adopts this invention, at the same time discharges his adult male operatives and substitutes child labor, he vitiates the good that has been done and works a great harm to society.

"The crying evil of to-day is child labor, and the labor of women in trades and at work that is manifestly fit only for men.

"I shall make no lengthy appeal to you to adopt a direct means of securing your rights. I shall set you an example by announcing that I pledge my support to Mr. Nevins in anything that he may do that has for its object the emancipation of the women, children and men of this country from industrial slavery.

"There is a living to be had for every inhabitant on the earth if he will work. We in America should guarantee more than subsistence to our citizens. A life of plenty is here for all if the social conditions can be readjusted."

Peter Bergen, a socialist who represents Kansas, is the last to speak. His views are those of the radical. Nothing but instant centralization of all the land and property of the country to be owned and operated by the people as a whole, appear to him to offer an adequate solution of the social problem. He is ready to aid in any movement that is calculated to bring this condition about. He rails against the tyranny of landlordism.

"What justification is there to the laws that will permit an alien to hold land idle in this country until American energy improves the surrounding property? What justification is there in permitting an alien to withdraw rents from this country without paying a tax toward the support of the Federal government?

"I have fought for this country; I have paid a land tax on my farm and a tax on everything I consume. What does the alien land-holder pay? Nothing.

"I am ready to defend my home and country now. I will ever be loyal to it, for it is the best in the world.

"Its government is not perfect; it is our duty to make it so.

"Let us confiscate the lands of expatriated Americans as an initial step.

"The man who will not contribute to the support of the government does not deserve its protection." His words are uttered with vehemence.

When he concludes this recital of personal grievances against the Trusts, the chairman announces that at the next meeting the members will be given full particulars of the purpose of the syndicate.

The forty men separate, each carrying with him the conviction that at length the time has come when something definite is to be decided upon in the war against Trusts.



CHAPTER XI.

MARTHA'S PREMONITION.

Trueman remains in Chicago after the close of the Anti-Trust conference so as to be present at the National convention of the Independence party. He is one of the delegates at large to this convention, and hopes to be able to exert an influence over its deliberations, now that he has won some renown as a speaker.

In the rush of the sessions of the Anti-Trust conference he had had no time to keep his promise to Martha. Once only had he sent her a note telling her of his safe arrival in the city. It had not occurred to him that she would be anxiously awaiting a letter from him containing his views on the results of the conference. Why should a woman be interested in such matters?

It is with unbounded surprise therefore that he receives the following letter from her:

WILKES-BARRE, JUNE 13. My Dear Friend:

It has been so long since I have heard from you that I take the initiative and write to ask you to forward to me as soon as possible, an article embodying your views on the recent Anti-Trust conference. I have a special reason for wishing this before the assembling of the Independence convention. To be frank with you, I have a premonition that you will be honored with the nomination for the Vice-presidency. Your friends in Pennsylvania, and in the other Eastern states, are working for you. I am handicapped by being a woman, yet in some ways it has proven advantageous to me.

By my peculiar intimacy with the families of this district, I became acquainted with the fact that your name is being mentioned as a possible candidate for the office. As soon as I learned this, I set to work to 'boom,' as the politicians would say, the incipient movement. Last night I was assured by O'Connor, the local leader, that you were sure of the support of the delegations of Pennsylvania and New York. For this reason I can wait no longer for a letter from you.

Let me know at once if you look favorably on the proposition of being a candidate for the high office.

Are you a member of the Committee of Forty? And what is this body?

As ever your friend,

MARTHA.

Here is a revelation.

Unknown to him, his friends, and especially Martha, are at work planning for his nomination as a candidate for the office of Vice-president. The idea of his achieving such a success has never entered his mind.

How can an unknown delegate hope to receive the support of the convention. It seems unreasonable, and he is on the point of writing to Martha that the effort could not help but end in a ridiculous farce, when an interruption prevents him from doing so. A card is brought to his room. It bears the simple inscription:

A FRIEND.

"Invite the person up," Trueman tells the servant.

The apartments he occupies are in a quiet boarding house on Lincoln Avenue. He has been in the house six weeks, during which time no one has ever called to see him.

A minute passes in which he ransacks his mind in an attempt to think who can have any business with him. It is half-past eight at night.

A loud rap at the door announces the visitor.

"Come in," calls Trueman.

"Good evening, Mr. Trueman." It is William Nevins who speaks.

"O, it is you, Mr. Nevins," exclaims Trueman.

"I owe you an apology," he continues, "for being surprised at seeing you; but the fact is I am a stranger in Chicago and have had no visitors. When your card came I could not imagine who could wish to see me."

"I am well aware that you are a stranger in this city," Nevins replies. "And as I am little better off I thought that I would drop in to have a chat with you."

"We were delegates at the Anti-Trust Conference and will have much to discuss," says Trueman, in his most affable manner. "I certainly am glad you thought of me. Take a seat, and make yourself as comfortable as the quarters will permit."

They seat themselves near the table. A pipe and a jar of tobacco lie on the table.

"Will you smoke?"

Nevins shakes his head negatively, saying as he does so:

"I cannot talk and smoke at the same time. To-night I want to talk.

"The fact is I have become interested in you since your speech at the close of the conference.

"You will remember it was I who suggested that the committee appointed to investigate the Trust question be increased to forty.

"When I made that motion I had an object in view. I was anxious to have you become one of the committeemen."

"Then the full committee has been appointed?" Trueman asks.

"The forty committeemen have been named. You are not among them, and the reason is that the chairman is jealous of you."

"He can have no reason to be jealous of me."

"The fact remains that he is. I strove to get him to appoint you. He flatly refused to do so. I could get no reason from him. So I concluded that he fears you would outshine him in the work that the committee contemplates doing. Your speech was masterly. I am not given to flattery. I say candidly that it was the best delivered at the conference.

"Since I failed to get you on the committee of forty, I come to see if you will aid me in a project that will make the committee superfluous; I have an idea that the trust question, monopoly and the other social problems can be speedily solved."

"You did not speak at the conference; that was the place to propound such an idea," interposes Trueman.

"Quite true. But I held my peace there, because it was not a place to bring forth the plan that I have evolved. You will agree with me if you will hear me through.

"My plan requires in the first place the services of an honest man—one who is proof against the blandishments of the Plutocrats—who will spurn the offers of gold and office that will be tendered him by the men of wealth when they perceive that he is on the eve of winning the popular support.

"Such a man is hard to find in this age of commercialism which has all but quenched the spark of true patriotism in the hearts of the people. I have sought for the ideal leader in all the States and was on the point of giving up the quest in despair when I suddenly came upon him. Once I determined that the man had been found, I set about learning his record. It appears that he is the product of evolution. From the servant of the Plutocrats he has come to be their most powerful adversary. In him the people will recognize the long-looked-for deliverer."

Here Nevins pauses for a moment to let his words sink into the mind of his interested listener.

"Mr. Trueman," he resumes, "I have decided that you are the man to lead the people out of their bondage."

"I certainly feel complimented at your estimate of my integrity," Trueman replies, "but you greatly overestimate my ability and the hold which I have upon the people.

"It was by the merest chance that I was elected to the position of delegate to the conference. I have really little influence with the men of my own State. This you must know if you have made a careful investigation."

"I know why you are not the recipient of the full support of the men of Pennsylvania. They cannot conceive of a man changing his views so thoroughly as you have. But this lack of perception they will overcome.

"I want you to assure me that you will become the leader of the Independence Party. If you do this I, in turn, will assure you of the nomination for the Presidency.

"That I am not speaking of impossibilities you will be able to understand when I show you the proof of the power I hold to elect the man I decide upon.

"If I am not mistaken, you are opposed to violence as a means of rectifying the social conditions of the people of this country."

"It has been my purpose to defeat every proposition that advised force," comes the quick response. "I am too vividly acquainted with the horrid results that follow an appeal to force.

"My hope is that the people will regain their rights by the proper exercise of the ballot.

"If they discard their all-powerful weapon to take up the sword or the torch, the end must be the destruction of popular government."

"Were you in the position of the chief executive you would follow this view? You would be as determined in suppressing violence as you were in preventing crime of any other sort? Your gratitude to the people for electing you would not blind you to your duty in preventing them from instituting a reign of anarchy? I am correct in this supposition?"

Nevins looks Trueman in the eyes with a glance that seems intent on reading his inmost thoughts.

"I should do my full duty under the constitution," Trueman declares emphatically.

"But, really," he adds, "I cannot appreciate this situation. It is inexplicable why you should interest yourself in my behalf to the extent of seeking to bring about my nomination for the Presidency."

"My reason is not hard to divine. It is not you whom I am working for; it is the people.

"In you I find the proper agent to fulfil the mission of a leader in an hour of grave importance.

"Older men lack the power of attracting the masses. Of the young men whom I have studied, none has the ability, the needed environment that you have.

"Men are creatures of circumstances only when they permit themselves to drift. If one cannot propel himself to a given haven of success he should at least anchor in a place of safety.

"With you it is only necessary that you give me the sign, and you will become the master of circumstances. You will be the man to lead the people to the plane of high civilization that their government makes it possible for them to attain."

For three hours Nevins continues to unfold in detail the plan he has for accomplishing the nomination of Trueman at the coming convention. He shows his prospective candidate letters pledging the support of a majority of the State delegations to the man whom he should designate. In explanation of his power as a leader Nevins states that he has been the secret agent of the Allied Unions for three years, that he has been deputized to select a man to be presented to the convention as a possible candidate. If the man proves acceptable the delegates representing the unions will support him.

"The Committee of Forty is working for you," he says in conclusion. "Their work will bring them in all sections of the country and they will be able to influence a great number of the people."

He gives no hint of the true mission of the committee. He knows that Trueman would repudiate the party that would resort to so drastic a means of rescuing the people.

"Have I your consent to bring about your nomination?" he asks.

"I shall have to give this matter much thought. You shall have my answer—

"To-morrow night," Nevins interjects. "Delays are dangerous. The convention meets in two weeks time."

"To-morrow night, then," assents Trueman.

Nevins leaves abruptly. He does not wish to weaken the effect he has produced on Trueman by further discussion.

When he finds himself alone Trueman walks back and forth in the cramped room. He is weighing a question that has never before been put to a man.

There is no doubt in his mind as to the sincerity of Nevins. It is clear that this strange man, who, in a matter-of-fact way, asserts that he holds the power of a great convention in his grasp, could have used it for base ends; he could have chosen a man of less inflexible character than Trueman.

"If I can bring myself to believe that it is because of my honesty that Nevins has selected me, I shall give him my consent."

Trueman makes this mental reservation, then turns to the table and writes a long letter to Martha. He sets the matter before her, tells her he will enter politics, and asks for her advice. Regarding the Committee of Forty, he tells her all he knows, which is to the effect that it has been appointed to investigate the work of the Trusts and to make a full report at the next Anti-Trust Conference.

He then goes to his bed. It is daylight before his mind has exhausted itself. He sleeps until midday. On awakening he renews the consideration of Nevins' proposal. At eight o'clock in the evening Nevins arrives.

Where Nevins had been the one to speak the night before, Trueman now enters upon an exhaustive interrogatory. He asks for the most minute particulars of the events that have brought him to the notice of Nevins. To all his questions there is an instant reply. At the conclusion of three hours Trueman definitely makes up his mind to try for the candidacy.

"You may work for my nomination," he says, "and be assured if I am nominated I shall strive to be elected.

"If it is the will of the people to elect me I shall be faithful to the high duties of the office."

Nevins bids his protege good night, assuring him that they will keep in constant communication.

The Committee of Forty, which is in session in a hall on the outskirts of the city in the vicinity of the stock yards, is surprised when, at midnight, Nevins appears before them to announce that he has selected Harvey Trueman to be the candidate for the Presidency on the Independence ticket.



CHAPTER XII.

TAKING THE SECRET OATH.

Eternal vigilance is the policy of the Magnates in keeping their sleuths ever on the alert for the unearthing of the plans of the anti-trust advocates. In every city detectives are untiring in their efforts to discover the work of the Committee of Forty. It is suspected that the committee is to obtain damaging evidence against some of the most oppressive of the monopolies and bring the full story of the wholesale robbery of the people out as a climax in the coming campaign.

By diligent investigation the detectives learn the names of the thirty-seven men who have been added to the committee by the appointive power of the chairman. It is also ascertained that the forty men are still in the city of Chicago.

This fact is open to several interpretations. It may indicate that the committee has determined to work from a central office; or that the committee is a blind, intended to mislead the detectives into watching it while another agency is at work. The importance of discovering the true mission of the committee is therefore most urgent.

To inspire the detectives to solve the question, the Plutocratic National Committee secretly offers a reward of $5000 to the man who will obtain the desired information.

In holding their daily meetings the Forty observe the greatest caution. Each member goes to the appointed place alone, avoiding as much as possible attracting the attention of the detectives whom they know are on the lookout. It is not their intention to have any mystery connected with their existence, yet they wish to work unhampered by the servants of the Magnates.

For its semi-monthly conference the committee meets at Drover's hall. The deliberations are not open to the public; still, no attempt is made to conceal the fact that there is a meeting.

Nevins and the other leading members decide that the secret meeting at which he is to develop his plan shall be held in a place where there will be no possible way for a spy to creep in.

They select a deserted rolling mill on the edge of the river in North Chicago. This mill was one of the most prosperous in the city prior to the consolidation of the iron industries. Immediately following the combine the mill had been closed and the work that should have gone to it was transferred to the Trust's great plant in Pittsburg.

For eight years the fires in the furnaces have been extinguished; the incompleted iron work that lies about the ground has been given over to the ravages of rust; desolation is the master of the mill.

The spot is an ideal one for a secret meeting place. The police never enter the grounds except at long intervals, when the inspector of the precinct is on his rounds. This official makes a perfunctory survey of the mausoleum of dead industry. In his report the entry, "Iron works vacant," sufficiently describes the place.

On the night of the secret meeting the members arrive at the mill by various routes. There are three entrances on land and a wharf extends along the eastern limit of the enclosure. Five of the delegates cross the river in a skiff.

At nine o'clock all the men are present. They gather on the second floor of the storage shed, a brick structure one hundred by one hundred and fifty feet in area, and three stories high. There are no windows in its bleak walls. On each floor in the wall that faces the interior court of the mill enclosure are two corrugated iron doors. These doors are closed, and effectually exclude the light from without, as well as any light that might be made within. On the floor where the committee meet there is a rough plank table that was used by the machinists of the mill.

At this improvised tribunal the Forty meet to discuss the regeneration of the nation.

Two candles at either end of the ten foot table serve to reveal the dense darkness rather than to dispel it. The flickering-lights fall on the faces of the men as they sit on the floor in a semi-circle. Their eyes are alone perceptible, and the several members are unable to distinguish one another.

The voice of one speaker after another issues from the darkness, producing a supernatural effect upon the assemblage. The nerves of even the most intrepid are at a high tension.

A gust of wind rattling the iron doors causes the men to start; the lowest whisper is intensified to what seems a sonorous shout. In this strange theatre, the actors in what is to be the greatest world-drama, wait to be assigned their parts and to play the first act.

Nevins is the stage manager; he has chosen the settings; has assembled the caste. Now it is his duty to give the signal for the curtain to rise. As with the dramatists of old, he decides to introduce his production with a prologue.

Advancing to the centre of the semi-circle he begins the explanation of his plan of salvation.

Is it destined to end as many thousands have done, in miserable failure?

"What I propose will strike you as the ravings of a man who has lost his last grain of sense," he begins. "Yet I am prepared to demonstrate that the plan is not only feasible, but that it is the only one which can be put into execution and carried through to a successful issue. The greed and the power of the Trust Magnates is insatiable. They will not make the least concession to the people. The day for arbitration is at an end; the time for the people to act is at hand.

"Every means of defence against the Trusts has been absorbed by them. What are we to do, surrender meekly, or fight?

"History shows us how terrible a thing war is—especially revolutionary war. Now, I have thought out a plan by which war and its attendant calamity can be averted and the people be reinstated in their power.

"There is not a man here who would not enlist to-day at the call for troops. Many of you have already proven yourselves patriots by your service in the field and on the ships of the United States.

"Now, it is not always necessary to be on a battlefield in order to show courage. Men can be heroes in the humble walks of life.