If Kelly used
force against him, whether the perverted law of the courts or
open lawlessness, he must meet it with peace. If Kelly smote him
on the right cheek he must give him the left to be smitten.
When the League could outvote Kelly, then--another policy, still
of calmness and peace and civilization, but not so meek. But
until the League could outvote Kelly, nothing but patient
endurance.
Every man in the League had been drilled in this strategy. Every
man understood--and to be a member of the League meant that one
was politically educated. Victor believed in his associates as
he believed in himself. Still, human nature was human nature.
If Kelly should suddenly offer some adroit outrageous
provocation-- would the League be able to resist?
Victor, on guard, studied the crowd spreading out from the
platform in a gigantic fan. Nothing there to arouse suspicion;
ten or twelve thousand of working class men and women. His
glance pushed on out toward the edges of the crowd--toward the
saloons and alleys of the disreputable south side of Market
Square. His glance traveled slowly along, pausing upon each
place where these loungers, too far away to hear, were gathered
into larger groups. Why he did not know, but suddenly his glance
wheeled to the right, and then as suddenly to the left--the west
and the east ends of the square. There, on either side he
recognized, in the farthest rim of the crowd, several of the men
who did Kelly's lowest kinds of dirty work--the brawlers, the
repeaters, the leaders of gangs, the false witnesses for petty
corporation damage cases.
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