A man arose in the audience and climbed upon the platform
beside McGregor. It was a daring thing to do
and men’s knees trembled. While the man
was crawling up to the platform shouts arose.
One has in mind a picture of a bustling little fellow
going into the house and into the upper room where
Jesus and his followers were having the last supper
together, going in there to wrangle about the price
to be paid for the wine.
The man who got on the platform with McGregor was
a socialist. He wanted to argue.
But McGregor did not argue with him. He sprang
forward, it was a quick tiger-like movement, and spun
the socialist about, making him stand small and blinking
and comical before the crowd.
Then McGregor began to talk. He made of the little
stuttering arguing socialist a figure representing
all labour, made him the personification of the old
weary struggle of the world. And the socialist
who went to argue stood with tears in his eyes, proud
of his position in men’s eyes.
All over the city McGregor talked of old Labour and
how he was to be built up and put before men’s
eyes by the movement of the Marching Men. How
our legs tingled to fall in step and go marching away
with him.
Out of the crowds there came the note of that wailing
march. Some one always started that.
That night on the North Side Doctor Cowell got hold
of the shoulder of a newspaper man and led him to
a car. He who knew Bismarck and who had sat in
council with kings went walking and babbling half the
night through the empty streets.
It is amusing now to think of the things men said
under the influence of McGregor. Like old Doctor
Johnson and his friend Savage they walked half drunk
through the streets swearing that whatever happened
they would stick to the movement. Doctor Cowell
himself said things just as absurd as that.
And all over the country men were getting the idea—the
Marching Men— old Labour in one mass marching
before the eyes of men—old Labour that
was going to make the world see—see and
feel its bigness at last. Men were to come to
the end of strife—men united—Marching!
Marching! Marching!
In all of the time of The Marching Men there was but
one bit of written matter from the leader McGregor.
It had a circulation running into the millions and
was printed in every tongue spoken in America.
A copy of the little circular lies before me now.
“They ask us what we mean.
Well, here is our answer.
We mean to go on marching.
We mean to march in the morning
and in the evening when the sun
goes down.
On Sundays they may sit on their
porches or shout at men playing
ball in a field
But we will march.
On the hard cobblestones of the
city streets and through the dust
