There are family traditions among the poor just as there are among
the rich. The families of working-men may cling as tenaciously to
their traditions as the descendants of an earl. In certain families
the sons are compelled by tradition to become bakers, in others
machinists; still other lowly family histories urge their members to
conduct of one sort or another. It is inherent in them to hold
certain beliefs regarding themselves. Here is a family whose
tradition is loyalty to another family which has employed the father,
son, grandfather; across the street may live a group whose peculiar
religion is to oppose all constituted authority and to uphold
anarchism. Theories and beliefs are handed down from generation to
generation until they assume the dignity of blood laws.

Bonbright was being wrenched to fit into the Foote tradition. Ruth
Frazer, his secretary, needed no alterations to conform to the
tradition of HER family. This was the leveling tradition; the
elevating of labor and the pulling down of capital until there was a
dead level of equality--or, perhaps, with labor a bit in the saddle.
Probably a remote ancestor of hers had been a member of an ancient
guild; perhaps one had risen with Wat Tyler. Not a man of the family,
for time beyond which the memory of man runneth not, but had been a
whole-souled, single-purposed labor man--trade-union man--extremist--
revolutionist. Her father had been killed in a labor riot--and
beatified by her. As the men of her family had been, so were the
women--so was she.

Rights of man, tyranny of capital, class consciousness had been
taught her with her nursery rhymes. She was a zealot. A charming
zealot with a soul that laughed and wanted all mankind to be happy