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  “That was me. I was that fellow,” cried the fat man who in reality had bought his interest in the bicycle company after the age of forty. Tapping himself on the breast he paused as though overcome with feeling. Tears came into his eyes. The young workman had become a reality to him. “All day I ran about the little shop crying ‘Quality! Quality!’ I do that now. It is a fetish with me. I do not make bicycles for money but because I am a workman with pride in my work. You may put that in the book. You may quote me as saying that. A big point should be made of my pride in my work.” The advertising man nodded his head and scribbled upon the pad of paper. Almost he could have written the story without the visit to the factory. When the fat man was not looking he turned his face to one side and listened attentively. With a whole heart he wished the president would go away and leave him alone to wander in the factory.

  On the evening before, John Van Moore had taken part in an adventure. With a companion, a fellow who drew cartoons for the daily papers, he had gone into a saloon and there had met another man of the newspapers.

  In the saloon the three men had sat until late into the night drinking and talking. The second newspaper man — that same dapper fellow who had watched the marchers by the factory wall — had told over and over the story of McGregor and his Marchers. “I tell you there is something growing up here,” he had said. “I have seen this McGregor and I know. You may believe me or not but the fact is that he has found out something. There is an element in men that up to now has not been understood — there is a thought hidden away within the breast of labour, a big unspoken thought — it is a part of men’s bodies as well as their minds. Suppose this fellow has figured that out and understands it, eh!”

  Becoming more and more excited as he continued to drink the newspaper man had been half wild in his conjectures as to what was to happen in the world. Thumping with his fist upon a table wet with beer he had addressed the writer of advertisements. “There are things that animals know that have not been understood by men,” he cried. “Consider the bees. Have you thought that man has not tried to work out a collective intellect? Why should man not try to work that out?”

  The newspaper man’s voice became low and tense. “When you go into a factory I want you to keep your eyes and your ears open,” he said. “Go into one of the great rooms where many men are at work. Stand perfectly still. Don’t try to think. Wait.”

  Jumping out of his seat the excited man had walked up and down before his companions. A group of men standing before the bar listened, their glasses held half way to their lips.

  “I tell you there is already a song of labour. It has not got itself expressed and understood but it is in every shop, in every field where men work. In a dim way the men who work are conscious of the song although if you talk of the matter they only laugh. The song is low harsh rhythmical. I tell you it comes out of the very soul of labour. It is akin to the thing that artists understand and that is called form. This McGregor understands something of that. He is the first leader of labour that has understood. The world shall hear from him. One of these days the world shall ring with his name.”

  In the bicycle factory John Van Moore looked at the pad of paper before him and thought of the words of the half drunken man in the saloon. In the great shop at his back there was the steady grinding roar of many machines. The fat man, hypnotised by his own words, continued to walk up and down telling of the hardship that had once confronted the imaginary young workman and above which he had risen triumphant. “We hear much of the power of labour but there has been a mistake made,” he said. “Such men as myself — we are the power. Do you see we have come out of the mass? We stand forth.”

  Stopping before the advertising man and looking down the fat man winked. “You do not need to say that in the book. There is no need of quoting me there. Our bicycles are being bought by workingmen and it would be foolish to offend them but what I say is nevertheless true. Do not such men as I, with our cunning brains and our power of patience build these great modern organisations?”

  The fat man waved his arm toward the shops from which the roar of machinery came. The advertising man absentmindedly nodded his head. He was trying to hear the song of labour talked of by the drunken man. It was quitting time and there was the sound of many feet moving about the floor of the factory. The roar of the machinery stopped.

  Again the fat man walked up and down talking of the career of the labourer who had come forth from the ranks of labour. From the factory the men began filing out into the open. There was the sound of feet scuffling along the wide cement sidewalk past the flowerbeds.

  Of a sudden the fat man stopped. The advertising man sat with pencil suspended above the paper. From the walk below sharp commands rang out. Again the sound of men moving about came in through the windows.

  The president of the bicycle company and the advertising man ran to the window. There on the cement sidewalk stood the men of the company formed into columns of fours and separated into companies. At the head of each company stood a captain. The captains swung the men about. “Forward! March!” they shouted.

  The fat man stood with his mouth open and looked at the men. “What’s going on down there? What do you mean? Quit that!” he bawled.

  A derisive laugh floated up through the window.

  “Attention! Forward, guide right!” shouted a captain.

  The men went swinging down the broad cement sidewalk past the window and the advertising man. In their faces was something determined and grim. A sickly smile flitted across the face of the grey-haired man and then faded. The advertising man, without knowing just what was going on felt that the older man was afraid. He sensed the terror in his face. In his heart he was glad to see it.

  The manufacturer began to talk excitedly. “Now what’s this?” he demanded. “What’s going on? What kind of a volcano are we men of affairs walking over? Haven’t we had enough trouble with labour? What are they doing now?” Again he walked up and down past the table where the advertising man sat looking at him. “We’ll let the book go,” he said. “Come to-morrow. Come any time. I want to look into this. I want to find out what’s going on.”

  Leaving the office of the bicycle company John Van Moore ran along the street past stores and houses. He did not try to follow the Marching Men but ran forward blindly, filled with excitement. He remembered the words of the newspaper man about the song of labour, and was drunk with the thought that he had caught the swing of it. A hundred times he had seen men pouring out of factory doors at the end of the day. Always before they had been just a mass of individuals. Each had been thinking of his own affairs and each man had shuffled off into his own street and had been lost in the dim alleyways between the tall grimy buildings. Now all of this was changed. The men did not shuffle off alone but marched along the street shoulder to shoulder.

  A lump came also into the throat of this man and he like that other by the factory wall began to say words. “The song of labour is here. It has begun to get itself sung!” he cried.

  John Van Moore was beside himself. The face of the fat man pale with terror came back into his mind. On the sidewalk before a grocery store he stopped and shouted with delight. Then he began dancing wildly about, startling a group of children who with fingers in their mouths stood with staring eyes watching.

  CHAPTER III

  ALL THROUGH THE early months of that year in Chicago, rumours of a new and not understandable movement among labourers ran about among men of affairs. In a way the labourers understood the undercurrent of terror their marching together had inspired and like the advertising man dancing on the sidewalk before the grocery were made happy by it. Grim satisfaction dwelt in their hearts. Remembering their boyhoods and the creeping terror that invaded their fathers’ houses in times of depression they were glad to spread terror among the homes of the rich and the well-to-do. For years they had been going through life blindly, striving to forget age and poverty. Now they felt that life had a purpose, that they
were marching toward some end. When in the past they had been told that power dwelt in them they had not believed. “He is not to be trusted,” thought the man at the machine looking at the man at work at the next machine. “I have heard him talk and at bottom he is a fool.”

  Now the man at the machine did not think of his brother at the next machine. In his dreams at night he was beginning to have a new vision. Power had breathed its message into his brain. Of a sudden he saw himself as a part of a giant walking in the world. “I am like a drop of blood running through the veins of labour,” he whispered to himself. “In my own way I am adding strength to the heart and the brain of labour. I have become a part of this thing that has begun to move. I will not talk but will wait. If this marching is the thing then I will march. Though I am weary at the end of the day that shall not stop me. Many times I have been weary and was alone. Now I am a part of something vast. This I know, that a consciousness of power has crept into my brain and although I be persecuted I shall not surrender what I have gained.”

  In the offices of the plough trust a meeting of men of affairs was called. The purpose of the meeting was to discuss the movement going on among the workers. At the plough works it had broken out. No more at evening did the men shuffle along, like a disorderly mob but marched in companies along the brick-paved street that ran by the factory door.

  At the meeting David Ormsby had been as always quiet and self-possessed. A halo of kindly intent hung over him and when a banker, one of the directors of the company, had finished a speech he arose and walked up and down, his hands thrust into his trousers pockets. The banker was a fat man with thin brown hair and delicate hands. As he talked he held a pair of yellow gloves and beat with them on a long table at the centre of the room. The soft thump of the gloves upon the table made a chorus to the things he had to say. David motioned for him to be seated. “I will myself go to see this McGregor,” he said, walking across the room and putting an arm about the shoulder of the banker. “Perhaps there is as you say a new and terrible danger here but I do not think so. For thousands, no doubt for millions of years, the world has gone on its way and I do not think it is to be stopped now.

  “It has been my fortune to see and to know this McGregor,” added David smiling at the others in the room. “He is a man and not a Joshua to make the sun stand still.”

  In the office in Van Buren Street, David, the grey and confident, stood before the desk at which sat McGregor. “We will get out of here if you do not mind,” he said. “I want to talk to you and I would not like being interrupted. I have a fancy that we talk out of doors.”

  The two men went in a street car to Jackson Park and, forgetting to dine, walked for an hour along the paths under the trees. The wind from the lake had chilled the air and the park was deserted.

  They went to stand on a pier that ran out into the lake. On the pier David tried to begin the talk that was the object of their being together but felt that the wind and the water that beat against the piling of the pier made talk too difficult. Although he could not have told why, he was relieved by the necessity of delay. Into the park they went again and found a seat upon a bench facing a lagoon.

  In the presence of the silent McGregor David felt suddenly embarrassed and awkward. “By what right do I question him?” he asked himself and in his mind could find no answer. A half dozen times he started to say what he had come to say but stopped and his talk ran off into trivialities. “There are men in the world you have not taken into consideration,” he said finally, forcing himself to begin. With a laugh he went on, relieved that the silence had been broken. “You see the very inner secret of strong men has been missed by you and others.”

  David Ormsby looked sharply at McGregor. “I do not believe that you believe we are after money, we men of affairs. I trust you see beyond that. We have our purpose and we keep to our purpose quietly and doggedly.”

  Again David looked at the silent figure sitting in the dim light and again his mind ran out, striving to penetrate the silence. “I am not a fool and perhaps I know that the movement you have started among the workers is something new. There is power in it as in all great ideas. Perhaps I think there is power in you. Why else should I be here?”

  Again David laughed uncertainly. “In a way I am in sympathy with you,” he said. “Although all through my life I have served money I have not been owned by it. You are not to suppose that men like me have not something beyond money in mind.”

  The old plough maker looked away over McGregor’s shoulder to where the leaves of the trees shook in the wind from the lake. “There have been men and great leaders who have understood the silent competent servants of wealth,” he said half petulantly. “I want you to understand these men. I should like to see you become such a one yourself — not for the wealth it would bring but because in the end you would thus serve all men. You would get at truth thus. The power that is in you would be conserved and used more intelligently.”

  “To be sure, history has taken little or no account of the men of whom I speak. They have passed through life unnoticed, doing great work quietly.”

  The plough maker paused. Although McGregor had said nothing the older man felt that the interview was not going as it should. “I should like to know what you have in mind, what in the end you hope to gain for yourself or for these men,” he said somewhat sharply. “There is after all no point to our beating about the bush.”

  McGregor said nothing. Arising from the bench he began again to walk along the path with Ormsby at his side.

  “The really strong men of the world have had no place in history,” declared Ormsby bitterly. “They have not asked that. They were in Rome and in Germany in the time of Martin Luther but nothing is said of them. Although they do not mind the silence of history they would like other strong men to understand. The march of the world is a greater thing than the dust raised by the heels of some few workers walking through the streets and these men are responsible for the march of the world. You are making a mistake. I invite you to become one of us. If you plan to upset things you may get yourself into history but you will not really count. What you are trying to do will not work. You will come to a bad end.”

  When the two men emerged from the park the older man had again the feeling that the interview had not been a success. He was sorry. The evening he felt had marked for him a failure and he was not accustomed to failures. “There is a wall here that I cannot penetrate,” he thought.

  Along the front of the park beneath a grove of trees they walked in silence. McGregor seemed not to have heard the words addressed to him. When they came to where a long row of vacant lots faced the park he stopped and stood leaning against a tree to look away into the park, lost in thought.

  David Ormsby also became silent. He thought of his youth in the little village plough factory, of his efforts to get on in the world, of the long evenings spent reading books and trying to understand the movements of men.

  “Is there an element in nature and in youth that we do not understand or that we lose sight of?” he asked. “Are the efforts of the patient workers of the world always to be abortive? Can some new phase of life arise suddenly upsetting all of our plans? Do you, can you, think of men like me as but part of a vast whole? Do you deny to us individuality, the right to stand forth, the right to work things out and to control?”

  The ploughmaker looked at the huge figure standing beside the tree. Again he was irritated and kept lighting cigars which after two or three puffs he threw away. In the bushes at the back of the bench insects began to sing. The wind coming now in gentle gusts swayed slowly the branches of the trees overhead.

  “Is there an eternal youth in the world, a state out of which men pass unknowingly, a youth that forever destroys, tearing down what has been built?” he asked. “Are the mature lives of strong men of so little account? Have you like the empty fields that bask in the sun in the summer the right to remain silent in the presence of men who have had thoughts and have tri
ed to put their thoughts into deeds?”

  Still saying nothing McGregor pointed with his finger along the road that faced the park. From a side street a body of men swung about a corner, coming with long strides toward the two. As they passed beneath a street lamp that swung gently in the wind their faces flashing in and out of the light seemed to be mocking David Ormsby. For a moment anger burned in him and then something, perhaps the rhythm of the moving mass of men, brought a gentler mood. The men swinging past turned another corner and disappeared beneath the structure of an elevated railroad.

  The ploughmaker walked away from McGregor. Something in the interview, terminating thus with, the presence of the marching figures had he felt unmanned him. “After all there is youth and the hope of youth. What he has in mind may work,” he thought as he climbed aboard a street car.

  In the car David put his head out at the window and looked at the long line of apartment buildings that lined the streets. He thought again of his own youth and of the evenings in the Wisconsin village when, himself a youth, he went with other young men singing and marching in the moonlight.

  In a vacant lot he again saw a body of the Marching Men moving back and forth and responding quickly to the commands given by a slender young man who stood on the sidewalk beneath a street lamp and held a stick in his hand.

  In the car the grey-haired man of affairs put his head down upon the back of the seat in front. Half unconscious of his own thoughts his mind began to dwell upon the figure of his daughter. “Had I been Margaret I should not have let him go. No matter what the cost I should have clung to the man,” he muttered.

  CHAPTER IV

  IT IS DIFFICULT not to be of two minds about the manifestation now called, and perhaps rightly, “The Madness of the Marching Men.” In one mood it comes back to the mind as something unspeakably big and inspiring. We go each of us through the treadmill of our lives caught and caged like little animals in some vast menagerie. In turn we love, marry, breed children, have our moments of blind futile passion and then something happens. All unconsciously a change creeps over us. Youth passes. We become shrewd, careful, submerged in little things. Life, art, great passions, dreams, all of these pass. Under the night sky the suburbanite stands in the moonlight. He is hoeing his radishes and worrying because the laundry has torn one of his white collars. The railroad is to put on an extra morning train. He remembers that fact heard at the store. For him the night becomes more beautiful. For ten minutes longer he can stay with the radishes each morning. There is much of man’s life in the figure of the suburbanite standing absorbed in his own thoughts in the midst of his radishes.