se.

{Starkweather}

Do I not make two dollars where one was before? Do I not make for
more happiness than was before I came?

{Knox}

Is that any more than the duty any man owes to his fellowman?

{Starkweather}

Oh, you unpractical dreamer. (_Returns to his note-book._)

{Rutland}

(_Throwing himself into the breach._) Where do I steal, Mr.
Knox?--I who get a mere salary for preaching the Lord's Word.

{Knox}

Your salary comes out of that water I mentioned. Do you want to
know who pays your salary? Not your parishioners. But the little
children toiling in the mills, and all the rest--all the slaves
on the wheel of labor pay you your salary.

{Rutland} I earn it.

{Knox}

They pay it.

{Mrs. Dowsett}

Why, I declare, Mr. Knox, you are worse than Mr. Sakari. You are
an anarchist.

(_She simulates shivering with fear._)

{Chalmers}

(_To Knox._) I suppose that's part of your speech to-morrow.

{Dolores Ortega}

(_Clapping her hands._) A rehearsal! He's trying it out on us!

{Sakari}

How would you remedy this--er--this theft?

(_Starkweather again closes note-book on finger and listens as
Knox begins to speak._)

{Knox}

Very simply. By changing the governmental machinery by which this
household of ninety millions of people conducts its affairs.

{Sakari}

I thought--I was taught so at Yale--that your governmental
machinery was excellent, most excellent.

{Knox}

It is antiquated. It is ready for the scrap-heap. Instead of
being our servant, it has mastered us. We are its slaves. All the
political brood of grafters and hypocrites have run away with it,
and with us as well. In short, from the municipalities up, we are
dominated by the grafters. It is a reign of theft.

{Hubbard}

But any government is representative of its people. No people
is worthy of a better government than it possesses. Were it
worthier, it would possess a better government.

(_Starkweather nods his head approvingly._)

{Knox}

That is a lie. And I say to you now that the average morality and
desire for right conduct of the people of the United States is
far higher than that of the government which misrepresents it.
The people are essentially worthy of a better government than
that which is at present in the hands of the politicians, for the
benefit of the politicians and of the interests the politicians
represent. I wonder, Mr. Sakari, if you have ever heard the story
of the four aces.

{Sakari