He sat down in the chair opposite and said to me: "We've been figuring out this proposition of Mr.Vedder's.

Your idea is all right, and it would be a fine thing if we could really get together as you suggest upon terms of common understanding and friendship." "Just what Mr.Vedder said," I exclaimed.
"Yes," he continued, "it's all right in theory; but in this case it simply won't work.

Don't you see it's got to be war?
Your friend and I could probably understand each other--but this is a class war.

It's all or nothing with us, and your friend Vedder knows it as well as we do." After some further argument and explanation, I said: "I see: and this is Socialism." "Yes," said the great R---- D----, "this is Socialism." "And it's force you would use," I said.
"It's force THEY use," he replied.
After I left the strike headquarters that evening--for it was almost dark before I parted with the committee--I walked straight out through the crowded streets, so absorbed in my thoughts that I did not know in the least where I was going.

The street lights came out, the crowds began to thin away, I heard a strident song from a phonograph at the entrance to a picture show, and as I passed again in front of the great, dark, many-windowed mill which had made my friend Vedder a rich man I saw a sentinel turn slowly at the corner.