But the little cluster of intellectuals on the staff of the New Dawn persevered.  Monthly it isolated the causative bacteria of unrest, to set the results before those who could profit would they but read.  Merle, the modernist, at the forefront of what was known as all the new movements, tirelessly applied the new psychology to the mind of the common man and proved him a creature of mean submissions.  He spoke of “our ranks” and “our brave comrades of Russia,” but a selective draft had its way and an army went forward.

In Newbern, which Merle frequented between issues of the magazine, he received perhaps less appreciation than was his due.  Sharon Whipple was blindly disparaging.  Even Gideon was becoming less attentive when the modernist expounded the new freedom.  Gideon was still puzzled.  He quoted, as to war:  “The sign of a mad world.  God bless us out of it!” But he was beginning to wonder if perhaps this newest Whipple had not, with all his education, missed something that other Whipples had learned.

Harvey D. had once or twice spoken with frank impatience of the New Dawn’s gospel.  And one Kate Brophy, cook at the Whipple New Place, said of its apostle that he was “a sahft piece of furniture.”  Merle was sensitive to these little winds of captiousness.  He was now convinced that Newbern would never be a cultural centre.  There was a spirit of intolerance abroad.

Sharon Whipple, becoming less and less restrained as the months went on, spoke of the staff of the New Dawn in Merle’s hearing.  He called it a cage of every unclean and hateful bird.  Merle smiled tolerantly, and called Sharon a besotted reactionary, warning him further that such as he could never stem the tide of revolution now gathering for its full sweep.  Sharon retorted that it hadn’t swept anything yet.

“Perhaps not yet—­on the surface,” said Merle.  “But now we shall show our teeth.”

Sharon fell to a low sort of wit in his retort.

“Better not show your teeth to the Government!” he warned.  “If you do you want to have the address of a good dentist handy.”

And after another month—­when the magazine of light urged resistance to the draft—­it became apparent not only that the New Dawn would not stop the war, but that the war would incredibly stop the New Dawn.  The despoilers of America actually plotted to destroy it, to smother its message, to adjust new shackles about the limbs of labour.

Sharon Whipple was the first of the privileged class to say that something had got to be done by the family—­unless they wanted to have the police do it.  Gideon was the second.  These two despoilers of the people summoned Harvey D. from Washington, and the conspiracy against spiritual and industrial liberty ripened late one night in the library of the Whipple New Place.  It was agreed that the last number of the New Dawn went pretty far—­farther than any Whipple