Wolf continued his address.

“Sind sie zufrieden mit ihrer Secretary?”

This time there was no dissent.  The "Yes" came like thunder.

“Sind sie zufrieden mit ihrer Treasurer?”

Yeas and nays mingled.  The question of the retention, of the functionary was put to the vote.  But there was much confusion, for the East-End Jew is only slowly becoming a political animal.  The ayes had it, but Wolf was not yet satisfied with the satisfaction of the gathering.  He repeated the entire batch of questions in a new formula so as to drive them home.

“Hot aner etwas zu sagen gegen mir?” Which is Yiddish for “has any one anything to say against me?”

“No!” came in a vehement roar.

“Hot aner etwas zu sagen gegen dem secretary?”

“No!”

“Hot aner etwas zu sagen gegen dem treasurer?”

“No!"

Having thus shown his grasp of logical exhaustiveness in a manner unduly exhausting to the more intelligent, Wolf consented to resume his oration.  He had scored a victory, and triumph lent him added eloquence.  When he ceased he left his audience in a frenzy of resolution and loyalty.  In the flush of conscious power and freshly added influence, he found a niche for Pinchas’s oratory.

“Brethren in exile,” said the poet in his best Yiddish.

Pinchas spoke German which is an outlandish form of Yiddish and scarce understanded of the people, so that to be intelligible he had to divest himself of sundry inflections, and to throw gender to the winds and to say “wet” for “wird” and mix hybrid Hebrew and ill-pronounced English with his vocabulary.  There was some cheering as Pinchas tossed his dishevelled locks and addressed the gathering, for everybody to whom he had ever spoken knew that he was a wise and learned man and a great singer in Israel.

“Brethren in exile,” said the poet.  “The hour has come for laying the sweaters low.  Singly we are sand-grains, together we are the simoom.  Our great teacher, Moses, was the first Socialist.  The legislation of the Old Testament—­the land laws, the jubilee regulations, the tender care for the poor, the subordination of the rights of property to the interests of the working-men—­all this is pure Socialism!”

The poet paused for the cheers which came in a mighty volume.  Few of those present knew what Socialism was, but all knew the word as a shibboleth of salvation from sweaters.  Socialism meant shorter hours and higher wages and was obtainable by marching with banners and brass bands—­what need to inquire further?