McGregor had scarcely begun to talk. His personality, the big eager
something in him, had caught and held this audience as it had caught
and held other audiences in other halls and was to hold them night
after night for months.
McGregor was something the men to whom he talked understood. He was
themselves become expressive and he moved them as no other leader had
ever moved them before. His very lack of glibness, the things in him
wanting expression and not getting expressed, made him seem like one
of them. He did not confuse their minds but drew for them great
scrawling pictures and to them he cried, "March!" and for marching he
promised them realisation of themselves.
"I have heard men in colleges and speakers in halls talk of the
brotherhood of man," he cried. "They do not want such a brotherhood.
They would flee before it. But we will make by our marching such a
brotherhood that they will tremble and say to one another, 'See, Old
Labour is awake. He has found his strength.' They will hide themselves
and eat their words of brotherhood.
"A clamour of voices will arise, many voices, crying out, 'Disperse!
Cease marching! I am afraid!'
"This talk of brotherhood. The words mean nothing. Man cannot love
man. We do not know what they mean by such love.
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