Gliding slowly across
the mass came an electric tram, an entirely unbattered tram with
even its glass undamaged, and then another and another. Strikers,
with the happy expression of men who have found something expressive
to do, were escorting the trams off the street. They were being
meticulously careful with them. Never was there less mob violence
in a riot. They walked by the captured cars almost deferentially,
like rough men honoured by a real lady's company. And when White
and Benham reached the Power House the marvel grew. The rioters
were already in possession and going freely over the whole place,
and they had injured nothing. They had stopped the engines, but
they had not even disabled them. Here too manifestly a majority of
the people were, like White and Benham, merely lookers-on.
"But this is the most civilized rioting," said Benham. "It isn't
rioting; it's drifting. Just as things drifted in Moscow. Because
nobody has the rudder. . . .
"What maddens me," he said, "is the democracy of the whole thing.
White! I HATE this modern democracy.
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