Book VII: Chapter I

by Sherwood Anderson

　　The idea prevalent among men that the woman to be beautiful must behedged about and protected from the facts of life has done somethingmore than produce a race of women not physically vigorous. It has madethem deficient in strength of soul also. After the evening when shestood facing Edith and when she had been unable to arise to thechallenge flung at her by the little milliner Margaret Ormsby wasforced to stand facing her own soul and there was no strength in herfor the test. Her mind insisted on justifying her failure. A woman ofthe people placed in such a position would have been able to face itcalmly. She would have gone soberly and steadily about her work andafter a few months of pulling weeds in a field, trimming hats in ashop or instructing children in a schoolroom would have been ready tothrust out again, making another trial at life. Having met manydefeats she would have been armed and ready for defeat. Like a littleanimal in a forest inhabited by other and larger animals she wouldhave known the effectiveness of lying perfectly still for a longperiod, making her patience a part of her equipment for living.

　　Margaret had decided that she hated McGregor. After the scene in herhouse she gave up her work in the settlement house and for a long timewent about nursing her hatred. In the street as she walked about hermind kept bringing accusations against him and in her room at nightshe sat by the window looking at the stars and said strong words. "Heis a brute," she declared hotly, "a mere animal untouched by theculture that makes for gentleness. There is something animal-like andhorrible in my nature that has made me care for him. I shall pluck itout. In the future I shall make it my business to forget the man andall of the dreadful lower strata of life that he represents."

　　Filled with this idea Margaret went about among her own people andtried to become interested in the men and women she met at dinners andreceptions. It did not work and when, after a few evenings spent inthe company of men absorbed in the getting of money, she found themonly dull creatures whose mouths were filled with meaningless words,her irritation grew and she blamed McGregor for that also. "He had noright to come into my consciousness and then take himself off," shedeclared bitterly. "The man is more of a brute than I thought. He nodoubt preys upon everyone as he has preyed upon me. He is withouttenderness, knows nothing of the meaning of tenderness. The colourlesscreature he has married will serve his body. That is what he wants. Hedoes not want beauty. He is a coward who dare not stand up to beautyand is afraid of me."

　　When the Marching Men Movement began to make a stir in ChicagoMargaret went on a visit to New York. For a month she lived with twowomen friends at a big hotel near the sea and then hurried home. "Iwill see the man and hear him talk," she told herself. "I cannot curemyself of the consciousness of him by running away. Perhaps I ammyself a coward. I shall go into his presence. When I hear his brutalwords and see again the hard gleam that sometimes comes into his eyesI shall be cured."

　　Margaret went to hear McGregor talk to a gathering of workingmen in aWest Side hall and came away more alive to him than ever. In the hallshe sat concealed in deep shadows by the door and waited withtrembling eagerness.

　　On all sides of her were men crowded together. Their faces were washedbut the grime of the shops was not quite effaced. Men from the steelmills with the cooked look that follows long exposure to intenseartificial heat, men of the building trades with their broad hands,big men and small men, misshapen and straight, labouring men, all satat attention, waiting.

　　Margaret noticed that as McGregor talked the lips of the working menmoved. Fists were clenched. Applause came quick and sharp like thereport of guns.

　　In the shadows at the further side of the hall the black coats of theworkers made a blot out of which intense faces looked and across whichthe flickering gas jets in the centre of the hall threw dancinglights.

　　The words of the speaker were shot forth. The sentences seemed brokenand disconnected. As he talked giant pictures flashed through theminds of the hearers. Men felt themselves big and exalted. A littlesteel worker sitting near Margaret, who earlier in the evening hadbeen abused by his wife because he wanted to come to the meetinginstead of helping with the dishes at home, stared fiercely about. Hethought he would like to fight hand in hand with a wild animal in aforest.

　　Standing on the narrow stage McGregor seemed a giant seekingexpression. His mouth worked, the sweat stood upon his forehead and hemoved restlessly up and down. At times, with his hands advanced andwith the eager forward crouch of his body, he was like a wrestlerwaiting to grapple with an opponent.

　　Margaret was deeply moved. Her years of training and of refinementwere stripped off and she felt that, like the women of the FrenchRevolution, she would like to go out into the streets and marchscreaming and fighting in feminine rage for the things of this man'smind.

　　McGregor had scarcely begun to talk. His personality, the big eagersomething in him, had caught and held this audience as it had caughtand held other audiences in other halls and was to hold them nightafter night for months.

　　McGregor was something the men to whom he talked understood. He wasthemselves become expressive and he moved them as no other leader hadever moved them before. His very lack of glibness, the things in himwanting expression and not getting expressed, made him seem like oneof them. He did not confuse their minds but drew for them greatscrawling pictures and to them he cried, "March!" and for marching hepromised them realisation of themselves.

　　"I have heard men in colleges and speakers in halls talk of thebrotherhood of man," he cried. "They do not want such a brotherhood.They would flee before it. But we will make by our marching such abrotherhood that they will tremble and say to one another, 'See, OldLabour is awake. He has found his strength.' They will hide themselvesand 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 loveman. We do not know what they mean by such love. They hurt us andunderpay us. Sometimes one of us gets an arm torn off. Are we to liein our beds loving the man who gets rich from the iron machine thatripped the arm from the shoulder?

　　"On our knees and in our arms we have borne their children. On thestreets we see them--the petted children of our madness. See we havelet them run about misbehaving. We have given them automobiles andwives with soft clinging dresses. When they have cried we have caredfor them.

　　"And they being children with the minds of children are confused. Thenoise of affairs alarms them. They run about shaking their ringers andcommanding. They speak with pity of us--Labour--their father.

　　"And now we will show them their father in his might. The littlemachines they have in their factories are toys we have given them andthat for the time we leave in their hands. We do not think of the toysnor the soft-bodied women. We make of ourselves a mighty army, amarching army going along shoulder to shoulder. We can love that.

　　"When they see us, hundreds of thousands of us, marching into theirminds and into their consciousness, then will they be afraid. And atthe little meetings they have when three or four of them sit talking,daring to decide what things we shall have from life, there will be intheir minds a picture. We will stamp it there.

　　"They have forgotten our power. Let us reawaken it. See, I shake OldLabour by the shoulder. He arouses. He sits up. He thrusts his hugeform up from where he was asleep in the dust and the smoke of themills. They look at him and are afraid. See, they tremble and runaway, falling over each other. The did not know Old Labour was so big.

　　"But you workers are not afraid. You are the arms and the legs and thehands and the eyes of Labour. You have thought yourself small. Youhave not got yourself into one mass so that I could shake and arouseyou.

　　"You must get that way. You must march shoulder to shoulder. You mustmarch so that you yourselves shall come to know what a giant you are.If one of your number whines or complains or stands upon a boxthrowing words about knock him down and keep marching.

　　"When you have marched until you are one giant body then will happen amiracle. A brain will grow in the giant you have made.

　　"Will you march with me?"

　　Like a volley from a battery of guns came the sharp reply from theeager upturned faces of the audience. "We will! Let us march!" theyshouted.

　　Margaret Ormsby went out at the door and into the crowds on MadisonStreet. As she walked in the press she lifted her head in pride that aman possessed of such a brain and of the simple courage to try toexpress such magnificent ideas through human beings had ever shownfavour toward her. Humbleness swept over her and she blamed herselffor the petty thoughts concerning him that had been in her mind. "Itdoes not matter," she whispered to herself. "Now I know that nothingmatters, nothing but his success. He must do this thing he has set outto do. He must not be denied. I would give the blood out of my body orexpose my body to shame if that could bring him success."

　　Margaret became exalted in her humbleness. When her carriage had takenher to her house she ran quickly upstairs to her own room and knelt byher bed. She started to pray but presently stopped and sprang to herfeet. Running to the window she looked off across the city. "He mustsucceed," she cried again. "I shall myself be one of his marchers. Iwill do anything for him. He is tearing the veil from my eyes, fromall men's eyes. We are children in the hands of this giant and he mustnot meet defeat at the hands of children."