Armies of troops were put into the field, and the fanatics were herded
back at the bayonet point to their tasks in the cities. There they broke
out in ever recurring mobs and riots. Their leaders were executed for
sedition or confined in madhouses. Those who were executed went to their
deaths with all the gladness of martyrs. It was a time of madness. The
unrest spread. In the swamps and deserts and waste places, from Florida
to Alaska, the small groups of Indians that survived were dancing ghost
dances and waiting the coming of a Messiah of their own.

And through it all, with a serenity and certitude that was terrifying,
continued to rise the form of that monster of the ages, the Oligarchy.
With iron hand and iron heel it mastered the surging millions, out
of confusion brought order, out of the very chaos wrought its own
foundation and structure.

"Just wait till we get in," the Grangers said--Calvin said it to us in
our Pell Street quarters. "Look at the states we've captured. With you
socialists to back us, we'll make them sing another song when we take
office."

"The millions of the discontented and the impoverished are ours," the
socialists said. "The Grangers have come over to us, the farmers, the
middle class, and the laborers. The capitalist system will fall to
pieces. In another month we send fifty men to Congress. Two years
hence every office will be ours, from the President down to the local
dog-catcher."

To all of which Ernest would shake his head and say:

"How many rifles have you got? Do you know where you can get plenty