noon
And each day 's papers would bring fresh details for them to cite -- famine and pestilence , fire and slaughter , poison gas , incendiary bombs , torpedoed passenger-ships . Look at these pious hypocrites , the masters , with their refinement , their culture , their religion ! These are the people you are asked to follow , it is for such as these that you have been chained to the machines all these weary , toil-crowded years ! On every street corner , in every meeting-room , in every spot where the workers gathered at the noon hour , you would hear such arguments ; and you would find men listening to them -- men who perhaps had never listened to such arguments before . They would nod , and their faces would become grim -- yes , the people up on top must be a rotten lot ! Here in America , supposed to be a land of liberty and all that -- here they were just the same , they were crowding to the trough to drink the blood that was poured out in Europe . Of course , they covered their greed with a camouflage of sympathy for the Allies ; but did anybody believe that old man Granitch loved the Russian government ?