At this point in the tirade, my old friend the ex-centre-rush,
who was standing in the wings with me, turned and
whispered: “For God’s sake, Billy,
what kind of a Goddamn Bolshevik stunt is this, anyhow?”
I answered: “Hush, you dub! He’s
quoting from the Bible!”
President Brown of the Western City Labor Council
arose to perform his next duty as chairman. Said
he:
“The next speaker is a stranger to most of you,
and he is also a stranger to me. I do not know
what his doctrine is, and I assume no responsibility
for it. But he is a man who has proven his friendship
for labor, not by words, but by very unusual deeds.
He is a man of remarkable personality, and we have
asked him to make what suggestions he can as to our
problems. I have pleasure in introducing Mr.
Carpenter.”
Whereupon the prophet fresh from God arose from his
chair, and come slowly to the front of the platform.
There was no applause, but a silence made part of
curiosity and part of amazement. His figure,
standing thus apart, was majestic; and I noted a curious
thing—a shining as of light about his head.
It was so clear and so beautiful that I whispered
to Old Joe: “Do you see that halo?”
“Go on, Billy!” said the ex-centre-rush.
“You’re getting nutty!”
“But it’s plain as day, man!”
I felt some one touch my arm, and saw the little lady
of the anti-vivisection tracts peering past me.
“Do you see his aura?” she whispered,
excitedly.
“Is that what it is?”
“Yes. It’s purple. That denotes
spirituality.”
I thought to myself, “Good Lord, am I getting
to be that sort?”
Carpenter began to speak, quietly, in his grave, measured
voice. “My brothers!” He waited for
some time, as if that were enough; as if all the problems
of life would be solved, if only men would understand
those two words. “My brothers: I am,
as your chairman says, a stranger to this world of
yours. I do not understand your vast machines
and your complex arts. But I know the souls of
men and women; when I meet greed, and pride, and cruelty,
the enslavements of the flesh, they cannot lie to
me. And I have walked about the streets of your
city, and I know myself in the presence of a people
wandering in a wilderness. My children!—broken-hearted,
desolate, and betrayed—poorest when you
are rich, loneliest when you throng together, proudest
when you are most ignorant—my people, I
call you into the way of salvation!”
He stretched out his arms to them, and on his face
and in his whole look was such anguish, that I think
there was no man in that whole great throng so rooted
in self-esteem that he was not shaken with sudden
awe. The prophet raised his hands in invocation:
“Let us pray!” He bowed his head, and
many in the audience did the same. Others stared
at him in bewilderment, having long ago forgotten how
to pray. Here and there some one snickered.
