The next day I happened to pass the place again and they were selling the same watch. I listened for the second time to the sad story of Joe the brakeman. He was still in the hospital and still willing to sacrifice his eighty-five-dollar gold watch to the highest bidder. Just for fun I started off the bidding at two dollars. The auctioneer at once knocked down the watch to me and took my money. The speed of it dazed me, and I stumbled along the street like a fool. What was the game? I held the glittering watch in my hand and gazed at it like a hypnotized bird. I came to another pawnshop and went in. “What will you give me on this watch?” I asked. The pawnbroker glanced at it and said he couldn't give me anything but advice.
“I can buy these watches for three dollars a dozen. They are made to be sold at auction. The case is not gold and the works won't run.”
I had been caught in the game after all. The whole show had been put on for me. The men who did the bidding the first day were “with the show.” Their scheme was to get a real bid from me. When I failed to bite, they rung down the curtain and waited for the next come-on. The show was staged again for me the following day, and that time they got me. I had the “brakeman's watch” and he had the laugh on me. In the next wreck that Brakeman Joe got into I wished him the same luck Comrade Bannerman wished for the trainload of plutocrats. “If I should meet Joe now,” I said, “I'd gladly give him back the timepiece that he prizes so.” Let us hope that the brakeman I gave the watch to down in Alabama was Brakeman Joe.
There was much to think of in that auction incident. Experience will often give the lie to theory. My theory of the game was good enough for me. I acted on my theory, and they got my money. Perhaps the theory of Bannerman was wrong. He claimed he knew just how the capitalists were robbing labor. Suppose we backed his theory with some money and got stung? I was now theory shy and I have stayed away from theories ever since.
If you know the facts, no swindle can deceive you. I spend my life in getting facts. I now have seen enough to know that capitalism is not a swindle. If all hands labored hard and honestly the system would enrich us all. Some workers are dishonest and they gouge the employers. Some employers are dishonest and they gouge the workers. But whether employer or employee does the robbing, the public is the one that's robbed. And they are both members of the public. In making the world poorer they are rendering a sorry service to the world.