David Graham Phillips

“ And Hull knew that it was so. "What do you propose, Dorn?" he said. "I want to do what's right—what's best for the people."
"Don't worry about the people, Hull," said Victor.
"Upper classes come and pass, but the people remain—bigger and stronger and more aggressive with every century. And they dictate language and art, and politics and religion—what we shall all eat and wear and think and do. Only what they approve, only that yoke even which they themselves accept, has any chance of enduring. Don't worry about the people, Davy. Worry about yourself." ”

“ Selma looked at her in that grave way which seemed to compel frankness. "Do YOU believe in yourself?" she asked.
Jane's glance shifted.
"You know you do not," proceeded Selma. "The women of your class rarely have sincere emotions because they do not lead sincere lives. Part of your imaginary love for Victor Dorn is desire to fill up idle hours. The rest of it is vanity—the desire to show your power over a man who seems to be woman-proof." She laughed a little, turned away, paused. "My mother used to quote a French proverb—'One cannot trifle with love.' Be careful, Jane—for your own sake. ”

“ Martha startled. "Good God—Jane—what is it?" she cried.
"On the way here I passed a lot of factories," pursued Jane. "Why should those people have to work like—like the devil, while we sit about planning ball dresses?"
Martha settled back comfortably. "I feel so sorry for those poor people," said she, absently sympathetic.
"But why?" demanded Jane. "WHY? Why should we be allowed to idle while they have to slave? What have we done—what are we doing—to entitle us to ease? What have they done to condemn them to pain and toil?" ”

“ There's no hope for any people of that class. The busy ones are thinking only of making money for themselves, and the idle ones are too enfeebled by luxury to think at all. No, I'm afraid there's no hope for Hull—or for Jane either."
"I'm not sure about Miss Hastings," said Victor.
"You would have been if you'd seen her to-day," replied Selma. "Oh, she was lovely, Victor—really wonderful to look at. But so obviously the idler. And—body and soul she belongs to the upper class. She understands charity, but she doesn't understand justice, and never could understand it. ”

“ In its stead there stood ready to receive the young man a woman of the type that possesses physical charm and knows how to use it—and does not scruple to use it. For a woman to conquer man by physical charm is far and away the easiest, the most fleeting and the emptiest of victories. But for woman thus to conquer without herself yielding anything whatsoever, even so little as an alluring glance of the eye—that is quite another matter. It was this sort of conquest that Jane Hastings delighted in—and sought to gain with any man who came within range. ”

“ Selma, still with the child-like expression, but now one of curiosity, was examining Jane's masculine riding dress. "What a sensible suit!" she cried, delightedly. "I'd wear something like that all the time, if I dared."
"Dared?" said Jane. "You don't look like the frightened sort."
"Not on account of myself," explained Selma. "On account of the cause. You see, we are fighting for a new idea. So, we have to be careful not to offend people's prejudices about ideas not so important. If we went in for everything that's sensible, we'd be regarded as cranks. One thing at a time." ”

“ Davy flushed with confusion. He was in a franker mood now, however. "I'd like to think that," he replied. "But I don't honestly believe it."
"You think that if Victor Dorn loved a woman of our class he'd put her out of his life?"
"That's hardly worth discussing," said Davy. "No woman of our class—no woman he'd be likely to look at—would encourage him to the point where he'd presume upon it."
"How narrow you are!" cried Jane, derisive but even more angry.
"It's different—entirely different—with a man, even in our class. But a woman of our class—she's a lady or she's nothing at all. ”

“ Marriage—to marry one of these men, with their coarse physical ideas of women, with their pitiful weakness before an emotion that seemed to her to have no charm whatever. And these were the creatures who ruled the world and compelled women to be their playthings and mere appendages! Well—no doubt it was the women's own fault, for were they not a poor, spiritless lot, trembling with fright lest they should not find a man to lean on and then, having found the man, settling down into fat and stupid vacuity or playing the cat at the silly game of social position? But not Jane Hastings! ”

“ I want those injunctions to stand. Those fools have done at a stroke what we couldn't have done in years. They have united the working class. They—the few—have forbidden us, the many, to unite or to speak. If those injunctions hold for a month, nothing could stop our winning this fall.... I can't understand how Dick Kelly could be so stupid. Five years ago these moves of his would have been bad for us—yes, even three years ago. But we've got too strong—and he doesn't realize! Selma, when you want to win, always pray that your opponent will underestimate you. ”

“ The only difference between radicals like you robber financiers and radicals like Victor and me is that our ideas of what's to our advantage differ. To you life means money; to us it means health and comfort and happiness. You want the world changed—laws upset, liberty destroyed, wages lowered, and so on—so that you can get all the money. We want the world changed so that we can be healthy and comfortable and happy—securely so—which we can't be unless everybody is, or is in the way to being."
Jane was surprised to see that her father, instead of being offended, was amused and pleased. ”

“ Jane laughed. A plainer, duller man than Headley it would have been hard to find, even among the respectabilities of Remsen City.
"Why do you laugh?" said Charlton. "What is there absurd in a sensible marriage?"
"Would you marry a woman because she was a good housekeeper?"
"That would be one of the requirements," said Charlton. "I've sense enough to know that, no matter how much I liked a woman before marriage, it couldn't last long if she were incompetent. She'd irritate me every moment in the day. I'd lie awake of nights despising her. ”

“ Naturally, Jane, who had only the vaguest conception of the size and power of Victor Dorn's mind, could not comprehend wherein lay the difference between him and the men she read about in novels or met in her wanderings among the people of her own class in various parts of the earth. It is possible for even the humblest of us to understand genius, just as it is possible to view a mountain from all sides and get a clear idea of it bulk and its dominion. ”

“ It will not really benefit the working man for the company, at the urging of a sweet and lovely young Lady Bountiful, to deign graciously to grant a little less slavery to them. In fact, a well fed, well cared for slave is worse off than one who's badly treated—worse off because farther from his freedom. The only things that do our class any good, Miss Hastings, are the things they COMPEL—compel by their increased intelligence and increased unity and power. They get what they deserve. They won't deserve more until they compel more. ”

“ Oh, these David Hulls!—these good men who keep their mantles spotless in order to make them the more useful as covers for the dirty work of others!" Suddenly his merry smile burst out. "And they carried Hugo Galland on their shoulders?"
"Then you don't think Hull's motives were honorable?" inquired Selma, perplexed and anxious.
"How could I know his motives?—any man's motives?" replied Victor. "No one can read men's hearts. All I ever consider is actions. And the result of his actions is probably the defeat of the League and the election of Dick Kelly." ”

“ Jane Hastings shuddered. "Thank heaven, I don't have to marry!" Her eyes flashed. "But I wouldn't, even if I were poor. I'd rather go to work. Why shouldn't a woman work, anyhow?"
"At what?" inquired Hull. "Except the men who do manual labor, there are precious few men who can make a living honestly and self-respectingly. It's fortunate the women can hold aloof and remain pure."
Jane laughed unpleasantly. "I'm not so sure that the women who live with men just for shelter are pure," said she.
"Jen," the young man burst out, "you're ambitious—aren't you?" ”

“ Jane's face almost brightened. "I've been rather hurt because I hadn't received a word of sympathy from—them," she said.
"They'd have come, themselves, except that politics has made a very ugly feeling against them—and Galland's your brother-in-law."
"I understand," said Jane. "But I'm not Galland—and not of that party."
"Oh, yes, you are of that party," replied Charlton. "You draw your income from it, and one belongs to whatever he draws his income from. Civilization means property—as yet. And it doesn't mean men and women—as yet. ”

“ If you'll go back over the history of this town—of any town—of any country—you'll find that most of the wicked things—the things that pile the burdens on the shoulders of the poor—the masses—most of the wicked things have been done under cover of just such men as you, used as figureheads."
"But I want to build up a new party—a party of honest men, honestly led," said Davy.
"Led by your sort of young men? I mean young men of your class. Led by young lawyers and merchants and young fellows living on inherited incomes? Don't you see that's impossible," cried Selma. ”

“ Still, human nature was human nature. If Kelly should suddenly offer some adroit outrageous provocation—would the League be able to resist?
Victor, on guard, studied the crowd spreading out from the platform in a gigantic fan. Nothing there to arouse suspicion; ten or twelve thousand of working class men and women. His glance pushed on out toward the edges of the crowd—toward the saloons and alleys of the disreputable south side of Market Square. His glance traveled slowly along, pausing upon each place where these loungers, too far away to hear, were gathered into larger groups. ”

“ Miss Jane had thought extremely well of that toilet herself. She had heard how impervious this David Hull, the best catch in the town, was to feminine charm; and she had gone prepared to give battle. But she said dejectedly, "You don't know what a shock you've given me."
"Yes, I do," cried he. "I'm ashamed of myself. But—I love you, Jen! Can't you learn to love me?" ”

“ But Victor represented a new type of human being—the type into whose life reason enters not merely as a theoretical force, to be consulted and disregarded, but as an authority, a powerful influence, dominant in all crucial matters. Only in our own time has science begun to make a notable impression upon the fog which formerly lay over the whole human mind, thicker here, thinner there, a mere haze yonder, but present everywhere. ”

“ His trained political sagacity warned him that, as he had suggested to Selma, the time of his party's first great crisis was at hand. No movement could become formidable with out a life and death struggle, when its aim frankly was to snatch power from the dominant class and to place it where that class could not hope to prevail either by direct means of force or by its favorite indirect means of bribery. What would Kelly do? What would be his stroke at the very life of the League?—for Victor had measured Kelly and knew he was not one to strike until he could destroy. ”

“ It is one matter to wish for a person's death. Only a villainous nature can harbor such a wish, can admit it except as a hastily and slyly in-crawling impulse, to be flung out the instant it is discovered. It is another matter to calculate—very secretly, very unconsciously—upon a death that seems inevitable anyhow. Jane had only to look at her father to feel that he would not be spared to her long. ”

“ You bellwether for the plutocracy, to lead reform movements off on a false scent, off into the marshes where they'll be suffocated." She looked at him from head to foot with a withering glance. "No doubt, you'll have what's called a successful career. You'll be their traitor leader for the radicals they want to bring to confusion. When the people cry for a reform you'll shout louder than anybody else—and you'll be made leader—and you'll lead—into the marshes. Your followers will perish, but you'll come back, ready for the next treachery for which the plutocracy needs you. ”

“ I needed a turn such as your friend Davy Hull gave me. Nothing like rivalry to spur a man on. The old crowd was so stupid—cunning, but stupid. But Hull injects a new element into the struggle. To beat him we've got to use our best brains."
"We've got to attack him," said Selma. "After all, he is the enemy. We can't let him disarm us by an act of justice." ”

“ Old Hastings had been in a stupor for several weeks. He astonished everybody, except Dr. Charlton, by rousing on election night and asking how the battle had gone.
"And he seemed to understand what I told him," said Jane.
"Certainly he understood," replied Charlton. "The only part of him that's in any sort of condition is his mind, because it's the only part of him that's been properly exercised. Most people die at the top first because they've never in all their lives used their minds when they could possibly avoid it." ”

“ Some bosses soon grow too proud for the vulgar democracy of such a public stand; but Kelly, partly through shrewdness, partly through inclination, clung to the City Hall stand and encouraged the humblest citizens to seek him there and tell him the news or ask his aid or his advice.
It was at the City Hall that Davy Hull sought him, and found him.
Twice he walked briskly to the boss; the third time he went by slowly. Kelly, who saw everything, had known from the first glance at Hull's grave, anxious face, that the young leader of the "holy boys" was there to see him. ”

“ And Jane Hastings had made herself an adept in the art of handling her father—an accomplishment she could by no means have achieved had she not loved him; it is only when a woman deeply and strongly loves a man that she can learn to influence him, for only love can put the necessary sensitiveness into the nerves with which moods and prejudices and whims and such subtle uncertainties can be felt out. ”

“ Jane kept her smile from the surface. What a man always thought, no matter how plainly a woman showed that she detested him. "No doubt she does," said Jane. She had decided upon a course of action. "If I were you, Davy, I'd keep away from her for the present—give her time to think it over, to see all the advantages. If a man forces himself on a queer, wild sort of girl such as Selma is, he's likely to drive her further away." ”

“ The veins stood out in his forehead; the expression of his eyes was terrifying.
She shrank, sprang up. His baffled hands had not even touched her. "David Hull!" she cried, and the indignation and the repulsion in her tone and in her manner were not simulated, though her artfulness hastened to make real use of them. She loved to rouse men to frenzy. She knew that the sight of their frenzy would chill her—would fill her with an emotion that would enable her to remain mistress of the situation. ”

“ She gazed down at Remsen City, connected by factories and pierced from east, west and south by railways. She gazed out over the fields and woods. Yes, there must be something for her besides merely marrying and breeding—just as much for her as for a man. But what? If she should marry a man who would let her rule him, she would despise him. If she should marry a man she could respect—a man who was of the master class like her father—how she would hate him for ignoring her and putting her in her ordained inferior feminine place. ”

“ When Davy, with grave emotion, referred to the "pitiful efforts to smirch the personal character of candidates," you could not but burn with scorn of the Victor Dorn tactics. What if Hull did own gas and water and ice and traction and railway stocks? Mustn't a rich man invest his money somehow? And how could he more creditably invest it than in local enterprises and in enterprises that opened up the country and gave employment to labor? What if the dividends were improperly, even criminally, earned? Must he therefore throw the dividends paid him into the street? ”