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.
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