To an onlooker he might have
seemed but another of the wasted men of modern life, a drifter on the
sea of things--but it was not so. The people plunging through the
streets afire with earnestness concerning nothing had not succeeded in
sucking him into the whirlpool of commercialism in which they
struggled and into which year after year the best of America's youth
was drawn.
The idea that had come into his mind as he sat on the hill above the
mining town grew and grew. Day and night he dreamed of the actual
physical phenomena of the men of labour marching their way into power
and of the thunder of a million feet rocking the world and driving the
great song of order purpose and discipline into the soul of Americans.
Sometimes it seemed to him that the dream would never be more than a
dream. In the dusty little office he sat and tears came into his eyes.
At such times he was convinced that mankind would go on forever along
the old road, that youth would continue always to grow into manhood,
become fat, decay and die with the great swing and rhythm of life a
meaningless mystery to them. "They will see the seasons and the
planets marching through space but they will not march," he muttered,
and went to stand by the window and stare down into the dirt and
disorder of the street below.
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