Mr. Calvin sat in uncomfortable silence.

“Go ahead,” Ernest encouraged.

“It is true,” Mr. Calvin confessed.  “We captured the state legislature of Oregon and put through splendid protective legislation, and it was vetoed by the governor, who was a creature of the trusts.  We elected a governor of Colorado, and the legislature refused to permit him to take office.  Twice we have passed a national income tax, and each time the supreme court smashed it as unconstitutional.  The courts are in the hands of the trusts.  We, the people, do not pay our judges sufficiently.  But there will come a time—­”

“When the combination of the trusts will control all legislation, when the combination of the trusts will itself be the government,” Ernest interrupted.

“Never! never!” were the cries that arose.  Everybody was excited and belligerent.

“Tell me,” Ernest demanded, “what will you do when such a time comes?”

“We will rise in our strength!” Mr. Asmunsen cried, and many voices backed his decision.

“That will be civil war,” Ernest warned them.

“So be it, civil war,” was Mr. Asmunsen’s answer, with the cries of all the men at the table behind him.  “We have not forgotten the deeds of our forefathers.  For our liberties we are ready to fight and die.”

Ernest smiled.

“Do not forget,” he said, “that we had tacitly agreed that liberty in your case, gentlemen, means liberty to squeeze profits out of others.”

The table was angry, now, fighting angry; but Ernest controlled the tumult and made himself heard.

“One more question.  When you rise in your strength, remember, the reason for your rising will be that the government is in the hands of the trusts.  Therefore, against your strength the government will turn the regular army, the navy, the militia, the police—­in short, the whole organized war machinery of the United States.  Where will your strength be then?”

Dismay sat on their faces, and before they could recover, Ernest struck again.

“Do you remember, not so long ago, when our regular army was only fifty thousand?  Year by year it has been increased until to-day it is three hundred thousand.”

Again he struck.

“Nor is that all.  While you diligently pursued that favorite phantom of yours, called profits, and moralized about that favorite fetich of yours, called competition, even greater and more direful things have been accomplished by combination.  There is the militia.”

“It is our strength!” cried Mr. Kowalt.  “With it we would repel the invasion of the regular army.”

“You would go into the militia yourself,” was Ernest’s retort, “and be sent to Maine, or Florida, or the Philippines, or anywhere else, to drown in blood your own comrades civil-warring for their liberties.  While from Kansas, or Wisconsin, or any other state, your own comrades would go into the militia and come here to California to drown in blood your own civil-warring.”