“All of the older men will have spoken before you are called upon.  The sharp contrast that will be presented in the staid and uninspiring speeches of your predecessors, and your fervid, fluent and convincing call to action, will lift you to the position of the logical candidate.

“No successful statesman has ever been unmindful of the practical side of politics.  A speech may create a whirlwind of enthusiasm for an orator; yet if there is no one to guide the tempest it is soon spent.  I shall be on the watch for the moment that must see your name put in nomination.

“When it comes, I shall put you in nomination.”

“Day by day I am learning that politics is not a game of chance,” observes Trueman, meditatively.  “It is a science, with as much to master as the science of war, which it resembles most strikingly.

“A year ago I should have scoffed at the idea that I would be engaged in planning and in carrying out a campaign to capture a convention.  Yet it is absolutely necessary to make these preparations.”

“How many hours did I spend in convincing you that politics is an exact science?” Nevins inquires, with a faint smile, as he recalls the struggle he has gone through with before he could get Trueman to consent to the methods that had to be adopted to effect his nomination.

“I know that you had an obstinate pupil.  I hope that I have not been instructed in vain.”

“I have no fear on that score.  You will fulfil the mission that is manifestly set for you.  Keep the thought of the people uppermost in your mind when you are speaking, and it will give you the needed inspiration.

“Come, we will review the bill of complaint which the people find against the Trusts.”

They rapidly name, in chronological order, the events that have been instrumental in bringing about the degradation of labor.  There is the primal generator of universal distress—­the private corporation—­which operates with all the functions of an individual, yet is free from even the most ordinary obligations that are enforced upon the individual; from the private corporation has sprung the Trust, a consolidation of corporate bodies which intensifies the evils that exist under the former institution, and as an inevitable consequence of Trusts comes private Monopolies.  These last have been the direct cause of awakening the people to a realization of their condition.  For each aggression of corporate wealth the people have been forced from their position as free men to that of servants.  The climax is reached when the Monopolies adopt the paternal principle of pensioning their employees, thus making of them retainers in name, as they have long been in fact.

“I shall leave you to your thoughts,” says Nevins, in parting.  He walks to the entrance of the hotel with Trueman.  When his friend departs he returns to his room.

Three of the Committee of Forty are awaiting him.  They have come for a short consultation.  At the convention they are to be the trusted lieutenants of Nevins.