you, my friends, I'm not saying we are not going to find plenty of
stumps and roots and a tough sod in this furrow we are going to plow. It's
only the fool or the ignoramus who underrates the strength of his
opponent. It is going to be just plain, honest justice and the will of the
people against the money of the Harrimans and the Goulds and the
Vanderbilts and all the rest of 'em. But the law is mighty, and it will
prevail. Give us an honest legislature to make such laws, and an executive
strong enough to enforce 'em, and the sovereign State will stand out
glorious and triumphant as a monument against oppression.

"When that time comes--and it's a-coming, my friends--the corporations and
the syndicates will read the handwriting on the wall; don't you be afraid
of that. If they should be a little grain thick-headed and sort o' blind
at first, as old King Belshazzar was, it may be that the sovereign State
will have to give 'em an object-lesson--lawfully, always lawfully, you
understand. But when they see, through the medium of such an object-lesson
or otherwise, as the case may be, that we mean business; when they see
that we, the people of this great and growing commonwealth, mean to assert
our rights to live and move and have our being, to have fair, even-handed
justice meted out to ourselves, our wives and our little children, they'll
come down and quit watering their stock with the sweat of our brows; and
that hold-up motto of theirs, 'All the tariff the traffic will stand,'
will be no more known in Israel!"

Again the clamor of applause rose like fine dust on the throng-heated air,
and Kent looked at his watch.

"It is time we were going," he said; adding: "I guess you have had enough
of it, haven't you?"

Loring was silent for the better part of the way back to the railway
station. When he spoke it was in answer to a delayed question of Kent's.

"What do I think of him? I don't know, David; and that's the plain truth.
He is not the man he appears to be as he stands there haranguing that
crowd. That is a pose, and an exceedingly skilful one. He is not
altogether apparent to me; but he strikes me as being a man of immense
possibilities--whether for good or evil, I can't say."

"You needn't draw another breath of uncertainty on that score," was the
curt rejoinder. "He is a demagogue, pure and unadulterated."

Loring did not attempt to refute the charge.

"Are he and his party likely to win?" he asked.

"God