human
Come in, Doctor; sit down and talk, shrilled the Doctor before the Captain could speak, and when the Doctor had seated himself upon the box by the workbench, the Captain managed to say:
gpt
Surely--come right in, I'm kind of lonesome anyhow.
human
And I'm mad, cried the Doctor.
gpt
Just let me sit here and blow off a little to my old army friend.
human
Well--well, Doctor, it's queer to see you hot under the collar--eh? The Doctor began digging out his pipe and filling it, without speaking. The Captain asked:
gpt
What's gone wrong? Politics ain't biling? what say?
human
Well, returned the Doctor,
gpt
and here the Doctor thumped on the floor with his cane,
human
I saw Violet Hogan and the children--dressed like princesses, walking out to-day--past the Judge's house--showing it to them--what say? My, how old she looks, Doctor!
gpt
Well--the damned villain--the infernal scoundrel-- piped the Doctor.
human
I just been reading that decision. The men showed in their lawsuit that the month before the law took effect the company, knowing the law had been passed, went out and sold their switch and sold the slag dump, to a fake railroad company that bought a switch engine and two or three cars, and incorporated as a railroad, and then--the same people owning the smelter and the railroad, they set all the men in the smelter that they could working on the slag dump, so the men were working for the railroad and not for the smelter company and didn't come within the eight hour law. And now the Judge stands by that farce; he says that the men working there under the very chimney of the smelter on the slag dump where the fumes are worst, are not subject to the law because the law says that men working for the smelters shall not work more than eight hours, and these men are working for a cheating, swindling subterfuge of a railroad. That's judge-made law. That's the kind of law that makes anarchists. Law! snorted the Doctor,
gpt
Law!--made by judges who have graduated out of the employ of corporations--law!--is just what the Judge on the bench dares to read into the statute. I tell you, Cap, if the doctors and engineers and preachers were as subservient to greed and big money as the lawyers are, we would soon lose our standing. But when a lawyer commits some flagrant malpractice like that of Tom Van Dorn's--the lawyers remind us that the courts are sacred institutions.
human
Well, I suppose he found the body of the decisions leaning that way, Doc--you know Judges are bound by the body of the law.
gpt
The body of the law--yes, damn 'em, I've bought 'em to find the body of the law myself.
human
I never had any more trouble buying a court than a Senator. And lawyers have no shame about hiring themselves to crooks and notorious lawbreakers. And some lawyers hire themselves body and soul to great corporations for life and we all know that those corporations are merely evading the laws and not obeying them; and lawyers--at the very top of the profession--brazenly hire out for life to that kind of business. What if the top of the medical profession was composed of men who devoted themselves to fighting the public welfare for life! We have that kind of doctors--but we call them quacks. We don't allow 'em in our medical societies. We punish them by ostracism. But the quack lawyers who devote themselves to skinning the public--they are at the head of the bar. They are made judges. They are promoted to supreme courts. A damn nice howdy-do we're coming to when the quacks run a whole profession. And Tom Van Dorn is a quack--a hair-splitting, owl-eyed, venal quack--who doles out the bread pills of injustice, and the strychnine stimulants of injustice and the deadening laudanum of injustice, and falls back on the body of the decisions to uphold him in his quackery. Justice demands that he take that fake corporation, made solely to evade the law, and shake its guts out and tell the men who put up this job, that he'll put them all in jail for contempt of court if they try any such shenanigan in his jurisdiction again. That would be justice. This--this decision--is humbug and every one knows it. What's more--it may be murder. For men can't work on that slag dump ten hours a day without losing their lives.
gpt
Burn their bodies, and blear their minds, and then wail about our vicious lower classes--I'm getting to be an anarchist.
human
Thank you, Cap, he chirped.
gpt
How good and beautiful a thing it is to blow off steam in a barn to your old army friend.
human
What was that you were saying about Violet Hogan?
gpt
I said I saw her to-day and she looked faded and old--she's not so much older than my Emma--eh?
human
Still, said the Doctor,
gpt
Violet's had a tough time--a mighty tough time; three children in six years. The last one took most of her teeth; young horse doctor gave her some dope that about killed her; she's done all the cooking, washing, scrubbing and made garden for the family in that time--up every morning at five, seven days in the week to get breakfast for Dennis--Emma would look broken if she'd had that. The Doctor paused.
human
Like her mother--weak--vain--puts all of Denny's wages on the children's backs--Laura says Violet spends more on frills for those kids than we spend for groceries--and Violet goes around herself looking like the Devil before breakfast. The Doctor rested his chin on his cane.
gpt
Remember her mother--Mrs. Mauling--funny how it breeds that way. The human critter, Cap, is a curious beast--but he does breed true--mostly.
human
Last day of the century, he piped,
gpt
But, he added reflectively--
human
Cap, I want to tell you something more wonderful than all; I've seen seven absolutely honest men elected this year to the State Senate--I've sounded them, felt them out, had all kinds of reports from all kinds of people on those seven men. Each man thinks he's alone, and there are seven.
gpt
Cap--we meet next week. Listen here. I was elected without a dollar of the old spider's money. He fought me for that smelter law on the quiet. Now look here; you watch my smoke. I'm going to organize those seven, and make eight and you're going to see some fighting.
human
You ain't going to fight the party, are you, Doc? asked the amazed Captain, as though he feared that the Doctor would fall dead if he answered yes. But the Doctor grinned and said:
gpt
Maybe--if it fights me.
human
Well, Doc-- cried the Captain,
gpt
You bet I think--that's what's the matter. The smelter lawsuit's made me think. They want to control government so they can have a license to murder. That's what it means. Watch 'em blight Denny Hogan's lungs down on the dump; watch 'em burn 'em up and crush 'em in the mines--by evading the mining laws; watch 'em slaughter 'em on the railroads; murder is cheap in this country--if you control government and get a slaughter license.
human
It makes me mad To think what men will do an' I am dead.
gpt
Well, Cap--speak up--what are you going to do about it?
human
was all the Captain could reply. The Doctor toddled to the door, and standing there sang back:
gpt
Well, Cap--do you think the Lord Almighty laid off all the angels and quit work on the world when he invented Tom Van Dorn's automobile--that it is the last new thing that will ever be tried?