In Chicago in 1893 and in the men who went aimlessly seeking work in
the streets of Chicago in that year there were none of these signs.
Like the coal mining town from which Beaut McGregor had come, the city
lay sprawling and ineffective before him, a tawdry disorderly dwelling
for millions of men, built not for the making of men but for the
making of millions by a few odd meat-packers and drygoods merchants.
With a slight lifting of his great shoulders McGregor sensed these
things although he could not have expressed his sense of them and the
hatred and contempt of men, born of his youth in the mining town, was
rekindled by the sight of city men wandering afraid and bewildered
through the streets of their own city.
Knowing nothing of the customs of the unemployed McGregor did not walk
the streets looking for signs marked "Men Wanted." He did not sit on
park benches studying want advertisements, the want advertisements
that so often proved but bait put out by suave men up dirty stairways
to glean the last few pennies from pockets of the needy. Going along
the street he swung his great body through the doorways leading to the
offices of factories. When some pert young man tried to stop him he
did not say words but drew back his fist threateningly and, glowering,
walked in.
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