shall remain so long as I and
mine and those that come after us have the power. There is the word.
It is the king of words--Power. Not God, not Mammon, but Power. Pour it
over your tongue till it tingles with it. Power."

* To show the tenor of thought, the following definition is
quoted from "The Cynic's Word Book" (1906 A.D.), written by
one Ambrose Bierce, an avowed and confirmed misanthrope of
the period: "Grapeshot, n. An argument which the future is
preparing in answer to the demands of American Socialism."

"I am answered," Ernest said quietly. "It is the only answer that could
be given. Power. It is what we of the working class preach. We know,
and well we know by bitter experience, that no appeal for the right, for
justice, for humanity, can ever touch you. Your hearts are hard as
your heels with which you tread upon the faces of the poor. So we have
preached power. By the power of our ballots on election day will we take
your government away from you--"

"What if you do get a majority, a sweeping majority, on election
day?" Mr. Wickson broke in to demand. "Suppose we refuse to turn the
government over to you after you have captured it at the ballot-box?"

"That, also, have we considered," Ernest replied. "And we shall give you
an answer in terms of lead. Power you have proclaimed the king of words.
Very good. Power it shall be. And in the day that we sweep to victory at
the ballot-box, and you refuse to turn over to us the government we have
constitutionally and peacefully captured, and you demand what we are
going to do about it--in that day, I say, we shall answer you; and in
roar of shell and shrapnel and in whine of machine-guns shall our answer
be couched.

"You cannot escape us. It is true that you have read history aright. It
is true that labor has from the beginning of history been in the dirt.
And it is equally true that so long as you and yours and those that come
after you have power, that labor shall remain in the dirt. I agree with
you. I agree with all that you have said. Power will be the arbiter,
as it always has been the arbiter. It is a struggle of classes. Just as
your class dragged down the old feudal nobility, so shall it be dragged
down by my class, the working class. If you will read your biology and
your sociology as clearly as you do your history, you will see that this
end I have described is inevitable. It does not matter whether it is in
one year, ten,