I think I would have shuddered, even more than I did, if I had known
the name of this song; if I had realized that this group of fanatics
were sounding the dread Internationale on the steps of our city
jail! I suspect that what saved them was the fact that the guardians
of the jail had no more idea what it was than I had!
The group had sung a couple of verses, when the iron-barred doors
were opened, and a policeman stepped out. He addressed Carpenter,
who was not singing. "Tell that bunch of nuts of yours to can the
yowling."
To which Carpenter replied: "I tell you that if these men should
hold their peace, the stones of your jail would immediately cry
out!" And he turned, and looked up and down the streets of the city,
and suddenly I saw that he was weeping. "Oh, Mobland, Mobland! If
you had known even at this time the way of justice! But the way is
hid from your eyes, and you will not see it, and now the hour is
coming, the horrors of the class war are upon you, ruin and
destruction are at hand! Your towers of pride shall fall, your own
children shall destroy you; they shall not leave you one stone upon
another, because you knew not the time for justice when it came.
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