By sheer weight Dickinson's voice boomed out of the medley.
". . . just as Henry George says: 'Private ownership of land is
the nether mill-stone. Material progress is the upper mill-stone.
Between them, with an increasing pressure, the working classes are
being ground.' We're just beginning to see the effect of private
property in land. Within a few years. . . ."
"What we need is to get back to Democracy. Individualism has run
wild. . . ."
"Trouble is we can't get anywhere under the Constitution. Every
time we make a move--check. It was adopted by aristocrats to hold
back the people and that's what it's done. Law--"
Apparently nobody got a chance to finish his argument. The Polish
Jew broke in sharply. "Law! There iss no law."
"Plenty of it, Sobieski, Go out on the streets and preach your
philosophic anarchy if you don't believe it. See what it will do
to you. Law's a device to bolster up the strong and to hammer down
the weak."
James had given a polite cynical indulgence to views so lost to
reason and propriety. But he couldn't quite stand any more. He
made a sign to Jeff and they adjourned to the next room.
"Your friends always so--so enthusiastic?" he asked with the
slightest lift of his upper lip.
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