“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, or a thousand—­your class shall be dragged down.  And it shall be done by power.  We of the labor hosts have conned that word over till our minds are all a-tingle with it.  Power.  It is a kingly word.”

And so ended the night with the Philomaths.

CHAPTER VI

ADUMBRATIONS

It was about this time that the warnings of coming events began to fall about us thick and fast.  Ernest had already questioned father’s policy of having socialists and labor leaders at his house, and of openly attending socialist meetings; and father had only laughed at him for his pains.  As for myself, I was learning much from this contact with the working-class leaders and thinkers.  I was seeing the other side of the shield.  I was delighted with the unselfishness and high idealism I encountered, though I was appalled by the vast philosophic and scientific literature of socialism that was opened up to me.  I was learning fast, but I learned not fast enough to realize then the peril of our position.

There were warnings, but I did not heed them.  For instance, Mrs. Pertonwaithe and Mrs. Wickson exercised tremendous social power in the university town, and from them emanated the sentiment that I was a too-forward and self-assertive young woman with a mischievous penchant for officiousness and interference in other persons’ affairs.  This I thought no more than natural, considering the part I had played in investigating the case of Jackson’s arm.  But the effect of such a sentiment, enunciated by two such powerful social arbiters, I underestimated.

True, I noticed a certain aloofness on the part of my general friends, but this I ascribed to the disapproval that was prevalent in my circles of my intended marriage with Ernest.  It was not till some time afterward that Ernest pointed out to me clearly that this general attitude of my class was something more than spontaneous, that behind it were the hidden springs of an organized conduct.  “You have given shelter to an enemy of your class,” he said.  “And not alone shelter, for you have given your love, yourself.  This is treason to your class.  Think not that you will escape being penalized.”