John Van Moore a young Chicago advertising man went one afternoon to
the offices of the Wheelright Bicycle Company. The company had both its
factory and offices far out on the west side. The factory was a huge
brick affair fronted by a broad cement sidewalk and a narrow green lawn
spotted with flower beds. The building used for offices was smaller and
had a veranda facing the street. Up the sides of the office building
vines grew.
Like the reporter who had watched the Marching Men in the field by the
factory wall John Van Moore was a dapper young man with a moustache.
In his leisure hours he played a clarinet. “It gives a man something to
cling to,” he explained to his friends. “One sees life going past
and feels that he is not a mere drifting log in the stream of things.
Although as a musician I amount to nothing, it at least makes me dream.”
Among the men in the advertising office where he worked Van Moore was
known as something of a fool, redeemed by his ability to string words
together. He wore a heavy black braided watch chain and carried a cane
and he had a wife who after marriage had studied medicine and with whom
he did not live. Sometimes on a Saturday evening the two met at some
restaurant and sat for hours drinking and laughing. When the wife had
gone to her own place the advertising man continued the fun, going from
saloon to saloon and making long speeches setting forth his philosophy
of life. “I am an individualist,” he declared, strutting up and down and
swinging the cane about. “I am a dabbler, an experimenter if you will.
Before I die it is my dream that I will discover a new quality in
existence.”
For the bicycle company the advertising man was to write a booklet
telling in romantic and readable form the history of the company.
When finished the booklet would be sent out to those who had answered
advertisements put into magazines and newspapers. The company had
a process of manufacture peculiar to Wheelright bicycles and in the
booklet this was to be much emphasised.
The manufacturing process in regard to which John Van Moore was to
wax eloquent had been conceived in the brain of a workman and was
responsible for the company's success. Now the workman was dead and the
president of the company had decided that he would take credit for the
idea. He had thought a good deal of the matter and had decided that in
truth the notion must have been more than a little his own. “It must
have been so,” he told himself, “otherwise it would not have worked out
so well.”
In the offices of the bicycle company the president, a grey gross man
with tiny eyes, walked up and down a long room heavily carpeted. In
reply to questions asked by the advertising man, who sat at a table with
a pad of paper before him, he raised himself on his toes, put a thumb
in the armhole of his vest and told a long rambling tale of which he was
the hero.
The tale concerned a purely imaginary young workman who spent all of the
earlier years of his life labouring terribly. At evening he ran quickly
from the shop where he was employed and going without sleep toiled
for long hours in a little garret. When the workman had discovered the
secret that made successful the Wheelright bicycle he opened a shop and
began to reap the reward of his efforts.
“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.