like its capitalistic twin, but the rank and file
were reasonable and capable of some little self-sacrifice. And Mr. Spreckels’s personal experiences were private, with a few men. He won’t
address a crowd, but Heney does and he sees
that Heney rarely fails to get a response from
his juries and from “the masses” generally.
Well, the masses decide in this country and
their decisions are good, and the reason they
are good is not because the people are better
than their “betters,” but because they are disinterested. They are not in on any graft, so
they can be fair.
But the best hope of Spreckels lies in this rare trait: he has mental as well as moral integrity. He has class prejudices, but they take a peculiar form. A capitalist, he can see the beam in the eye of capital as clearly as he can the mote in the eye of labour; and the only sense of class that he shows is in his real scorn for the workingman’s brick and the politician’s petty - blackmail. He would let them go to get the big, real deviltry of his own class, which is the source of our corruption, political, business, and labour, too. And he did.
Mr. Spreckels was fair. He gave his own class a chance. He passed the word in business circles that he was going after grafters; that he
