obbing that was started during the
Civil War, and which has never lagged since.

"The fight that I would have you make is against forty cowards and
scoundrels who are sucking the very life out of the country--the forty
who represent the high council of the magnates. Let it be a personal
fight, a tourney; you the Knights Errant who ride against the dragons.

"When the world awakens some morning and reads that at a given hour the
forty Robbers of America were sent to their eternal resting place with
their crimes on their heads, the shock will not pass away in a day. It
will be far different from reading of a battle fought six thousand miles
from Washington. Then will be the time for the men who have the good of
the people at heart to reestablish them in their rights.

"Money is the god that the Nation is asked to worship. It makes fools of
the majority and knaves of the rest.

"It will take some unprecedented occurrence to stir the masses. The
firing on Fort Sumter shook the Nation more than the carnage of
Gettysburg. The Nation has come to be apathetic on a vital question;
even more so than in the ante-bellum days. The dry-rot of Commercialism
is consuming us. We are governed by dividend worshipers. We must act, if
our manifest destiny to be a lasting republic is to be fulfilled.

"If the taking off of the forty men would do the work that I wish to see
done I would be glad; but it will require a sacrifice on our part of
more than our prejudice against taking of life. We shall each have to
kill our man, and then commit suicide."

"What!" ejaculate several.

"We shall be obliged to commit suicide. There is no other course open
for us, for if, on the announcement that the forty men have been
murdered, there is not the still more surprising statement that the
murderer of each is found dead beside the slain, the effect will be
common-place, and everyone will say it is a cowardly plot to kill forty
of the 'best citizens.' There is no way out of it. You would all gladly
fight with an