Book II: Chapter I

by Sherwood Anderson

　　It was late in the summer of 1893 when McGregor came to Chicago, anill time for boy or man in that city. The big exposition of the yearbefore had brought multiplied thousands of restless labourers into thecity and its leading citizens, who had clamoured for the expositionand had loudly talked of the great growth that was to come, did notknow what to do with the growth now that it had come. The depressionthat followed on the heels of the great show and the financial panicthat ran over the country in that year had set thousands of hungry mento wait dumbly on park benches poring over want advertisements in thedaily papers and looking vacantly at the lake or had driven them totramp aimlessly through the streets, filled with forebodings.

　　In time of plenty a great American city like Chicago goes on showing amore or less cheerful face to the world while in nooks and cranniesdown side-streets and alleys poverty and misery sit hunched up inlittle ill-smelling rooms breeding vice. In times of depression thesecreatures crawl forth and joined by thousands of the unemployed trampthe streets through the long nights or sleep upon benches in theparks. In the alleyways off Madison Street on the West Side and offState Street, on the South Side, eager women driven by want sold theirbodies to passersby for twenty-five cents. An advertisement in thenewspapers of one unfilled job brought a thousand men to block thestreets at daylight before a factory door. In the crowds men swore andknocked each other about. Working-men driven to desperation went forthinto quiet streets and knocking over citizens took their money andwatches and ran trembling into the darkness. A girl of Twenty-fourthStreet was kicked and knocked into the gutter because when attacked bythieves she had but thirty-five cents in her purse. A professor of theUniversity of Chicago addressing his class said that, having lookedinto the hungry distorted faces of five hundred men clamouring for aposition as dishwasher in a cheap restaurant, he was ready topronounce all claims to social advancement in America a figment in thebrains of optimistic fools. A tall awkward man walking up State Streetthrew a stone through the window of a store. A policeman hustled himthrough the crowd. "You'll get a workhouse sentence for this," hesaid.

　　"You fool that's what I want. I want to make property that won'temploy me feed me," said the tall gaunt man who, trained in thecleaner and more wholesome poverty of the frontier, might have been aLincoln suffering for mankind.

　　Into this maelstrom of misery and grim desperate want walked BeautMcGregor of Coal Creek--huge, graceless of body, indolent of mind,untrained, uneducated, hating the world. Within two days he hadsnatched before the very eyes of that hungry marching army threeprizes, three places where a man might by working all day get clothesto wear upon his back and food to put into his stomach.

　　In a way McGregor had already sensed something the realisation ofwhich will go far toward making any man a strong figure in the world.He was not to be bullied with words. Orators might have preached tohim all day about the progress of mankind in America, flags might havebeen flapped and newspapers might have dinned the wonders of hiscountry into his brain. He would only have shaken his big head. He didnot yet know the whole story of how men, coming out of Europe andgiven millions of square miles of black fertile land mines andforests, have failed in the challenge given them by fate and haveproduced out of the stately order of nature only the sordid disorderof man. McGregor did not know the fullness of the tragic story of hisrace. He only knew that the men he had seen were for the most partpigmies. On the train coming to Chicago a change had come over him.The hatred of Coal Creek that burned in him had set fire to somethingelse. He sat looking out of the car window at the stations runningpast during the night and the following day at the cornfields ofIndiana, making his plans. In Chicago he meant to do something. Comingfrom a community where no man arose above a condition of silent brutelabour he meant to step up into the light of power. Filled with hatredand contempt of mankind he meant that mankind should serve him. Raisedamong men who were but men he meant to be a master.

　　And his equipment was better than he knew. In a disorderly haphazardworld hatred is as effective an impulse to drive men forward tosuccess as love and high hope. It is a world-old impulse sleeping inthe heart of man since the day of Cain. In a way it rings true andstrong above the hideous jangle of modern life. Inspiring fear itusurps power.

　　McGregor was without fear. He had not yet met his master and lookedwith contempt upon the men and women he had known. Without knowing ithe had, besides a huge body hard as adamant, a clear and lucid brain.The fact that he hated Coal Creek and thought it horrible proved hiskeenness. It was horrible. Well might Chicago have trembled and richmen strolling in the evening along Michigan Boulevard have lookedfearfully about as this huge red fellow, carrying the cheap handbagand staring with his blue eyes at the restless moving mobs of people,walked for the first time through its streets. In his very frame therewas the possibility of something, a blow, a shock, a thrust out of thelean soul of strength into the jelly-like fleshiness of weakness.

　　In the world of men nothing is so rare as a knowledge of men. Christhimself found the merchants hawking their wares even on the floor ofthe temple and in his naive youth was stirred to wrath and drove themthrough the door like flies. And history has represented him in turnas a man of peace so that after these centuries the temples are againsupported by the hawking of wares and his fine boyish wrath isforgotten. In France after the great revolution and the babbling ofmany voices talking of the brotherhood of man it wanted but a shortand very determined man with an instinctive knowledge of drums, ofcannons and of stirring words to send the same babblers screamingacross open spaces, stumbling through ditches and pitching headlonginto the arms of death. In the interest of one who believed not at allin the brotherhood of man they who had wept at the mention of the wordbrotherhood died fighting brothers.

　　In the heart of all men lies sleeping the love of order. How toachieve order out of our strange jumble of forms, out of democraciesand monarchies, dreams and endeavours is the riddle of the Universeand the thing that in the artist is called the passion for form andfor which he also will laugh in the face of death is in all men. Bygrasping that fact Caesar, Alexander, Napoleon and our own Grant havemade heroes of the dullest clods that walk and not a man of all thethousands who marched with Sherman to the sea but lived the rest ofhis life with a something sweeter, braver and finer sleeping in hissoul than will ever be produced by the reformer scolding ofbrotherhood from a soap-box. The long march, the burning of the throatand the stinging of the dust in the nostrils, the touch of shoulderagainst shoulder, the quick bond of a common, unquestioned,instinctive passion that bursts in the orgasm of battle, theforgetting of words and the doing of the thing, be it winning battlesor destroying ugliness, the passionate massing of men foraccomplishment--these are the signs, if they ever awake in our land,by which you may know you have come to the days of the making of men.

　　In Chicago in 1893 and in the men who went aimlessly seeking work inthe streets of Chicago in that year there were none of these signs.Like the coal mining town from which Beaut McGregor had come, the citylay sprawling and ineffective before him, a tawdry disorderly dwellingfor millions of men, built not for the making of men but for themaking of millions by a few odd meat-packers and drygoods merchants.

　　With a slight lifting of his great shoulders McGregor sensed thesethings although he could not have expressed his sense of them and thehatred and contempt of men, born of his youth in the mining town, wasrekindled by the sight of city men wandering afraid and bewilderedthrough the streets of their own city.

　　Knowing nothing of the customs of the unemployed McGregor did not walkthe streets looking for signs marked "Men Wanted." He did not sit onpark benches studying want advertisements, the want advertisementsthat so often proved but bait put out by suave men up dirty stairwaysto glean the last few pennies from pockets of the needy. Going alongthe street he swung his great body through the doorways leading to theoffices of factories. When some pert young man tried to stop him hedid not say words but drew back his fist threateningly and, glowering,walked in. The young men at the doors of factories looked at his blueeyes and let him pass unchallenged.

　　In the afternoon of his first day of seeking Beaut got a place in anapple warehouse on the North Side, the third place offered him duringthe day and the one that he accepted. The chance came to him throughan exhibition of strength. Two men, old and bent, struggled to get abarrel of apples from the sidewalk up to a platform that ran waisthigh along the front of the warehouse. The barrel had rolled to thesidewalk from a truck standing in the gutter. The driver of the truckstood with his hands on his hips, laughing. A German with blond hairstood upon the platform swearing in broken English. McGregor stoodupon the sidewalk and looked at the two men who were struggling withthe barrel. A feeling of immense contempt for their feebleness shonein his eyes. Pushing them aside he grasped the barrel and with a greatheave sent it up onto the platform and spinning through an opendoorway into the receiving room of the warehouse. The two workmenstood on the sidewalk smiling sheepishly. Across the street a group ofcity firemen who lounged in the sun before an engine house clappedtheir hands. The truck driver turned and prepared to send anotherbarrel along the plank extending from the truck across the sidewalk tothe warehouse platform. At a window in the upper part of the warehousea grey head protruded and a sharp voice called down to the tallGerman. "Hey Frank, hire that 'husky' and let about six of the deadones you've got around here go home."

　　McGregor jumped upon the platform and walked in at the warehouse door.The German followed, inventorying the size of the red-haired giantwith something like disapproval. His look seemed to say, "I likestrong fellows but you're too strong." He took the discomfiture of thetwo feeble workmen on the sidewalk as in some way reflecting uponhimself. The two men stood in the receiving room and looked at eachother. A bystander might have thought them preparing to fight.

　　And then a freight elevator came slowly down from the upper part ofthe warehouse and from it jumped a small grey-haired man with a yardstick in his hand. He had a sharp restless eye and a short stubby greybeard. Striking the floor with a bound he began to talk. "We pay twodollars for nine hours' work here--begin at seven, quit at five. Willyou come?" Without waiting for an answer he turned to the German."Tell those two old 'rummies' to get their time and get out of here,"he said, turning again and looking expectantly at McGregor.

　　McGregor liked the quick little man and grinned with approval of hisdecisiveness. He nodded his assent to the proposal and, looking at theGerman, laughed. The little man disappeared through a door leading toan office and McGregor walked out into the street. At a corner heturned and saw the German standing on the platform before thewarehouse looking after him. "He is wondering whether or not he canwhip me," thought McGregor.

　　* * * * *In the apple warehouse McGregor worked for three years, rising duringhis second year to be foreman and replacing the tall German. TheGerman expected trouble with McGregor and was determined to make shortwork of him. He had been offended by the action of the gray-hairedsuperintendent in hiring the man and felt that a prerogative belongingto himself had been ignored. All day he followed McGregor with hiseyes, trying to calculate the strength and courage in the huge body.He knew that hundreds of hungry men walked the streets and in the enddecided that the need of work if not the spirit of the man would makehim submissive. During the second week he put the question that burnedin his brain to the test. He followed McGregor into a dimly-lightedupper room where barrels of apples, piled to the ceiling, left onlynarrow ways for passage. Standing in the semi-darkness he shouted,calling the man who worked among the apple barrels a foul name, "Iwon't have you loafing in there, you red-haired bastard," he shouted.

　　McGregor said nothing. He was not offended by the vileness of the namethe German had called him and took it merely as a challenge that hehad been expecting and that he meant to accept. With a grim smile onhis lips he walked toward the German and when but one apple barrel laybetween them reached across and dragged the foreman sputtering andswearing down the passageway to a window at the end of the room. Bythe window he stopped and putting his hand to the throat of thestruggling man began to choke him into submission. Blows fell on hisface and body. Struggling terribly the German kicked McGregor's legswith desperate energy. Although his ears rang with the hammer-likeblows that fell about his neck and cheeks McGregor stool silent underthe storm. His blue eyes gleamed with hatred and the muscles of hisgreat arms danced in the light from the window. As he looked into theprotruding eyes of the writhing German he thought of fat ReverendMinot Weeks of Coal Creek and added an extra twitch to the fleshbetween his fingers. When a gesture of submission came from the managainst the wall he stepped back and let go his grip. The Germandropped to the floor. Standing over him McGregor delivered hisultimatum. "You report this or try to get me fired and I'll kill yououtright," he said. "I'm going to stay here on this job until I getready to leave it. You can tell me what to do and how to do it butwhen you speak to me again say 'McGregor'--Mr. McGregor, that's myname."

　　The German got to his feet and began walking down the passagewaybetween the rows of piled barrels. As he went he helped himself alongwith his hands. McGregor went back to work. After the retreating formof the German he shouted, "Get a new place when you can Dutch, I'll betaking this job away from you when I'm ready for it."

　　That evening as McGregor walked to the car he saw the little grey-haired superintendent standing waiting for him before a saloon. Theman made a sign and McGregor walked across and stood beside him. Theywent together into the saloon and stood leaning against the bar andlooked at each other. A smile played about the lips of the little man."What have you been doing to Frank?" he asked.

　　McGregor turned to the bartender who stood waiting before him. Hethought that the superintendent intended to try to patronise him bybuying him a drink and he did not like the thought. "What will youhave? I'll take a cigar for mine," he said quickly, defeating thesuperintendent's plan by being the first to speak. When the bartenderbrought the cigars McGregor paid for them and walked out at the door.He felt like one playing a game. "If Frank meant to bully me intosubmission this man also means something."

　　On the sidewalk before the saloon McGregor stopped. "Look here," hesaid, turning and facing the superintendent, "I'm after Frank's place.I'm going to learn the business as fast as I can. I won't put it up toyou to fire him. When I get ready for the place he won't be there."

　　A light flashed into the eyes of the little man. He held the cigarMcGregor had paid for as though about to throw it into the street."How far do you think you can go with your big fists?" he asked, hisvoice rising.

　　McGregor smiled. He thought he had earned another victory and lightinghis cigar held the burning match before the little man. "Brains areintended to help fists," he said, "I've got both."

　　The superintendent looked at the burning match and at the cigarbetween his fingers. "If I don't which will you use on me?" he asked.

　　McGregor threw the match into the street. "Aw! don't bother asking,"he said, holding out another match.

　　McGregor and the superintendent walked along the street. "I would liketo fire you but I won't. Some day you'll run that warehouse like aclock," said the superintendent.

　　McGregor sat in the street-car and thought of his day. It had been hefelt a day of two battles. First the direct brutal battle of fists inthe passageway and then this other battle with the superintendent. Hethought he had won both fights. Of the fight with the tall German hethought little. He had expected to win that. The other was different.The superintendent he felt had wanted to patronise him, patting him onthe back and buying him drinks. Instead he had patronised thesuperintendent. A battle had gone on in the brains of the two men andhe had won. He had met a new kind of man, one who did not live by theraw strength of his muscles and he had given a good account ofhimself. The conviction that he had, besides a good pair of fists, agood brain swept in on him glorifying him. He thought of the sentence,"Brains are intended to help fists," and wondered how he had happenedto think of it.