There were
people who called themselves Socialists right here in American City
who wanted to draw the movement into the same kind of trap!
This debate was not conducted in the realm of abstractions; the two
wings of the movement would attack one another with bitterness. The
"politicians" would denounce the "impossibilists," calling them
"anarchists;" and the other side, thus goaded, would accuse their
enemies of being in the hire of the government. Peter would supply
McGivney with bits of scandal which the "under cover" men would
start going among the "left-wingers;" and in the course of the long
wrangles in the local these accusations would come out. Herbert
Ashton would mention them with his biting sarcasm, or "Shorty"
Gunton would shout them in one of his tirades--"hurling them into
his opponents teeth," as he phrased it.
"Shorty" Gunton was a tramp printer, a wandering agitator who was
all for direct action, and didn't care a hang who knew it.
"Violence?" he would say. "How many thousand years shall we submit
to the violence of capitalist governments, and never have the right
to reply?" And then again he would say, "Violence? Yes, of course
we must repudiate violence--until we get enough of it!" Peter had
listened to "Shorty's" railings at the "compromisers" and the
"political traders," and had thought him one of the most dangerous
men in American City.
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