Farr was so quickly on his feet and spoke so promptly that he clipped the man's last words.
“A moment, my friends, before that motion is seconded.” He held up his hand and checked their protests against what his air told them. “Because my little plan has succeeded better than I hoped is not due to me, but to the generous co-operation of good men who have given their time. We are saving the babies, thank God! But do you know what else we have done by our hard toil and our devotion? We are propping up the Consolidated Water Company in this state. Understand me! I am not attacking that company because it is a corporation. If it were now making preparations to pipe down to us clean water from the hills I would gladly go on giving my time to this cause in order to help the case of the Consolidated. But the men in control are deliberately shutting their eyes to the real situation. Now that folks aren't dying, they claim all the credit--when we know the credit is due to weary men who go on working after their day's toil is over. It isn't right--it isn't just! My friends, I have got hold of a bigger thing than I reckoned on when I started out to wake those poison-peddlers up. Now that we are cleaning up the typhoid, the Consolidated is simply riding on our backs--refusing to see the real truth. If they give Marion pure water it will be only at more exorbitant rates, because the nearest lake is twenty miles away. I'm not an anarchist--I want to see capital get its just reward. But when a syndicate takes a franchise from citizens and makes them pay over and over for what was their own the citizens have a right to rise in self-defense. When we force the Consolidated to give us what we're paying for--pure water--they evidently propose to make us pay for what they call our cheek in asking.” He paused for a moment, and his smile succeeded his earnestness. “I beg your pardon for saying 'we.' I must remember that I'm still a stranger in this city.”
“I'll have to dispute you there,” interposed a man. “You're one of us. And we're going to prove it to you a little later.”
“My friends,” went on Farr, “until the cities and towns of this state own their own water-plants and take their own profits they will be paying double tribute to a merciless crowd.”