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precedence.
    "You foment class hatred," I said. "I consider it wrong and criminal to appeal to all that is narrow and brutal in the working class. Class hatred is anti-social, and, it seems to me, anti- socialistic."
    "Not guilty," he answered. "Class hatred is neither in the text nor in the spirit of anything I have every written."
    "Oh!" I cried reproachfully, and reached for his book and opened it.
    He sipped his tea and smiled at me while I ran over the pages.
    "Page one hundred and thirty-two," I read aloud: "'The class struggle, therefore, presents itself in the present stage of social development between the wage-paying and the wage-paid classes.'"
    I looked at him triumphantly.
    "No mention there of class hatred," he smiled back.
    "But," I answered, "you say 'class struggle.'"
    "A different thing from class hatred," he replied. "And, believe me, we foment no hatred. We say that the class struggle is a law of social development. We are not responsible for it. We do not make the class struggle. We merely explain it, as Newton explained gravitation. We explain the nature of the conflict of interest that produces the class struggle."
    "But there should be no conflict of interest!" I cried.
    "I agree with you heartily," he answered. "That is what we socialists are trying to bring about,--the abolition of the conflict of interest. Pardon me. Let me read an extract." He took his book and turned back several pages. "Page one hundred and twenty-six: 'The cycle of class struggles which began with the dissolution of rude, tribal communism and the rise of private property will end with the passing of private property in the means of social existence.'"
    "But I disagree with you," the Bishop interposed, his pale, ascetic face betraying by a faint glow the intensity of his feelings. "Your premise is wrong. There is no such thing as a conflict of interest between labor and capital--or, rather, there ought not to be."
    "Thank you," Ernest said gravely. "By that last statement you have given me back my premise."
    "But why should there be a conflict?" the Bishop demanded warmly.
    Ernest shrugged his shoulders. "Because we are so made, I guess."
    "But we are not so made!" cried the other.
    "Are you discussing the ideal man?" Ernest asked, "--unselfish and godlike, and so few in numbers as to be practically non-existent, or are you discussing the common and ordinary average man?"
    "The common and ordinary man," was the answer.
    "Who is weak and fallible, prone to error?"
    Bishop Morehouse nodded.
    "And petty and selfish?"
    Again he nodded.
    "Watch out!" Ernest warned. "I said 'selfish.'"
    "The average man IS selfish," the Bishop affirmed valiantly.
    "Wants all he can get?"
    "Wants all he can get--true but deplorable."
    "Then I've got you." Ernest's jaw snapped like a trap. "Let me show you. Here is a man who works on the street railways."
    "He couldn't work if it weren't for capital," the Bishop interrupted.
    "True, and you will grant that capital would perish if there were no labor to earn the dividends."
    The Bishop was silent.
    "Won't you?" Ernest insisted.
    The Bishop nodded.
    "Then our statements cancel each other," Ernest said in a matter- of-fact tone, "and we are where we were. Now to begin again. The workingmen on the street railway furnish the labor. The stockholders furnish the capital. By the joint effort of the workingmen and the capital, money is earned.* They divide between them this money that is earned. Capital's share is called 'dividends.' Labor's share is called 'wages.'"
    * In those days, groups of predatory individuals controlled all the means of transportation, and for the use of same levied toll upon the public.
    "Very good," the Bishop interposed. "And there is no reason that the division should not be amicable."
    "You have already forgotten what we had agreed upon," Ernest replied. "We agreed that the average man is selfish. He is the man that is. You have gone up in the air and are arranging a division between