“And America,” she continued, “bribes us with the gilded sentimental phrases of Rousseau, Mirabeau, and Thomas Paine woven into your national constitution, with its presumptuous declaration that all men are born free and equal—­shades of Darwin and Nietzsche!—­and that universal suffrage is a panacea for all evils.  In no country boasting itself Christian is there a system so artfully devised for keeping the poor free and unequal, no country where so-called public opinion, as expressed in the press, is used to club the majority into submission.  And you are all proud of this liberty—­a liberty at which the despised serf in Russia or the man of the street in London sneers—­there is to-day more individual liberty in England and Germany than in the United States.  Don’t smile!  I can prove it.  As for France or Italy—­they are a hundred years ahead of you in municipal government.  But I shan’t talk blue-books at you, Arthur!”

“Why not, why not?” he quickly interposed.  “You always impress me by your easy handling of facts.  And why won’t my money be of use to the social revolution?” Scornfully she started up again and began walking.

“Why?  Because convictions can’t be bought with cash!  Why!  Because philanthropy is the most selfish of vices.  You may do good here and there—­but you do more harm.  You create more paupers, you fine gentlemen, with your Mission houses and your Settlement workers!  You are trying to cover the ugly sores with a plaster of greenbacks.  It won’t heal the sickness—­it won’t heal it, I tell you.”  Her eyes were flaming and she stamped the floor passionately.

“We workers on the East Side have a name for you millionnaires.  We call you the White Mice.  You have pretty words and white lies, pretty ways and false smiles.  Lies! lies! lies!  You are only giving back, with the aid of your superficial fine ladies, the money stolen from the true money earners.  You have discovered the Ghetto—­you and the impertinent newspaper men.  And like the reporters you come down to use us for ‘copy.’  You live here in comfort among us and then go away, write a book about our wretchedness and pose as altruistic heroes in your own silly set.  How I loathe that word—­altruism!  As if the sacrifice of your personality does not always lead to self-deception, to hypocrisy!  It is an excuse for the busybody-rich to advertise their charities.  If they were as many armed as Briareus or the octopus, their charity would be known to each and every hand on their arms.  These sentimental anarchs!  They even marry our girls and carry them off to coddle their conscience with gilded gingerbread.  Yet they would turn their backs on Christ if he came to Hester Street—­Christ, the first modern anarch, a destructionist, a proletarian who preached fire and sword for the evil rich of his times.  Nowadays he would be sent to Blackwell’s Island for six months as a disturber of the peace or for healing without a license from the County Medical Association!”