In the place where he had come from there had not been any politics—in Russia one thought of the government as an affliction like the lightning and the hail. “Duck, little brother, duck,” the wise old peasants would whisper; “everything passes away.” And when Jurgis had first come to America he had supposed that it was the same. He had heard people say that it was a free country—but what did that mean? He found that here, precisely as in Russia, there were rich men who owned everything; and if one could not find any work, was not the hunger he began to feel the same sort of hunger?
