campaign for election. Should I hope for
support among the white-collar classes in the "swell" end of town, among
the merchants and mill owners or only in the quarter where the workers
lived?

The first act of a candidate is to have cards printed and pass them out
to every one he meets. My cards bore my name and my slogan: "Play the
game square." I argued that the workers should take part in the city
government. I quit the tin mill and went around making speeches. And as
there were no movies, and the men had nothing to do evenings but listen
to speeches, it was no trouble at all to find an audience. I learned
that a politician or an orator has the same appetite for audiences that
a drunkard has for gin. When is an orator not an orator? When he hasn't
got an audience. I found that when a horse fell down on the street and
a crowd gathered to pick it up, somebody began "addressing the gathering
on the issues of the day."

Now I know why the cranks from everywhere swarm into any region where a
strike is on. They are seeking audiences. They have no love for humanity
except that portion of humanity which is forced to be an audience for
their itching tongues. I have known rich Jawbone Janes to travel half
across the continent to harangue a poor bunch of striking hunyaks. These
daughters of luxury wanted one luxury that money could not buy. The
luxury of chinning their drivel to an audience. You can't buy audiences
as you buy orchids and furs. Accidents make audiences. When a horse
falls down and a crowd gathers, he'll be up again and the crowd gone
before a girl from Riverside Drive can come a hundred miles in a
Pullman. But when the job falls down, the strike crowd sticks together
for days. This gives the crack-brained lady opportunity to catch the
Transcontinental limited and get there in time to pound their ears
with her oratory. She prefers a foreign crowd that can not understand
English; they are slower to balk on her. Not understanding what she
says, it fails to irritate them greatly. I know of one radical rich girl
who boasts she has spread the glad tidings to audiences of thousands
representing every foreign language in America. She still hopes some
time to catch an audience that understands her own language. That would
be a little better fun, she thinks; but still the joy of talking is the
main thing, so it matters little whether their audience understands. She
wants her audiences to be alive, that's all; she doesn'