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On the train from Washington to New York I found men continually wrangling in fierce heat about money, tariff and Coxeyism. I was surprised to hear Wall Street attacked by well dressed, apparently prosperous men, in the very phrases with which the Coxeyites had filled my ears. Nobody by any chance ever stood in defense of Wall Street, but there were those who denounced the Coxeyites and Populists intemperately. Everybody denounced something; nobody was for anything. National morale was in a very low state.

In the smoking compartment two men, behaving as old acquaintances, quarreled interminably and with so much dialectical skill that an audience gathered to listen in respectful silence. One was a neat, clerical-looking person whose anxieties were unrelieved by any glimpse of humor or fancy. The other was carelessly dressed, spilt cigar ashes over his clothes unawares, and had a way of putting out his tongue and laughing at himself dryly if the argument went momentarily against him or when he had adroitly delivered himself from a tight place. He was the elder of the two. He was saying: