y in a low voice, and it had not grown louder, but the
veins on his forehead swelled and his eyes began to glow.

"It is hard, truly," said the countess. "Whose fault is it?"

"Whose fault?" Bailey repeated her words vehemently, yet with something of
bewilderment. "Society's fault, which grinds a poor man to powder, so as
to make a rich man richer. But the people won't stand this sort of thing
for ever."

"You would have a general division of property, then?"

"Indirectly, yes. Power must be taken from bloated corporations and given
to the people; the railroads must be taken by government; accumulation of
capital over a limited amount must be forbidden; men must work for
Humanity, and not for their selfish interests."

"Do you know any men who are working so?"

"I know a few."

"Mostly workingmen?"

"All workingmen."

"Don't you think a general division of property would be for _their_
selfish interests?"

"I don't call it selfish to ask for just a decent living."

"I fancy the chiefs of your party would demand a great deal more than a
bare decent living. Mr. Bailey, the rights of property rest on just this
fact in human nature: A man will work better for himself than he will for
somebody else. And you can't get him to work unless he is guaranteed the
fruits of his labor. Capital is brain, and Labor is muscle, but the brain
has as much to do with the creation of wealth as muscle: more, for it can
invent machines and do without muscle, while muscle cannot do without
brain. You can't alter human nature, Mr. Bailey. If you had a Commune,
every man would be for himself there as he is here: the weak would have
less protection than even now, for all the restraints of morality, which
are bound up inseparably with rights of property, would have been thrown
aside. Marx and Lasallis and Bradlaugh, clever as they are, can't prevent
the survival of the fittest. You knock your head against a stone wall, Mr.
Bailey, when you fight society. You have been knocking it all your life,
and now you are angry because your head is hurt. If you had never tried to
strip other men of their earnings because you fancied you ought to have
more, as skilful a blacksmith as you would have saved money and been a
capitalist himself. Supposing you give it up? Our firm will give you a
chance to make ploughshares and earn twenty dollars a week if you will
only promise not to strike us in return the first chance you get."

The workingman had l