________________________________________________
_ The Marching Men Movement was never a thing to intellectualise. For
years McGregor tried to get it under way by talking. He did not
succeed. The rhythm and swing that was at the heart of the movement
hung fire. The man passed through long periods of depression and had
to drive himself forward. And then after the scene with Margaret and
Edith in the Ormsby house came action.
There was a man named Mosby about whose figure the action for a time
revolved. He was bartender for Neil Hunt, a notorious character of
South State Street, and had once been a lieutenant in the army. Mosby
was what in modern society is called a rascal. After West Point and a
few years at some isolated army post he began to drink and one night
during a debauch and when half crazed by the dullness of his life he
shot a private through the shoulder. He was arrested and put on his
honour not to escape but did escape. For years he drifted about the
world a haggard cynical figure who got drunk whenever money came his
way and who would do anything to break the monotony of existence.
Mosby was enthusiastic about the Marching Men idea. He saw in it an
opportunity to worry and alarm his fellow men. He talked a union of
bartenders and waiters to which he belonged into giving the idea a
trial and in the morning they began to march up and down in the strip
of parkland that faced the lake at the edge of the First Ward. "Keep
your mouths shut," commanded Mosby. "We can worry the officials of
this town like the devil if we work this right. When you are asked
questions say nothing. If the police try to arrest us we will swear we
are only doing it for the sake of exercise."
Mosby's plan worked. Within a week crowds began to gather in the
morning to watch the Marching Men and the police started to make
inquiry. Mosby was delighted. He threw up his job as bartender and
recruited a motley company of young roughs whom he induced to practise
the march step during the afternoons. When he was arrested and dragged
into court McGregor acted as his lawyer and he was discharged. "I want
to get these men out into the open," Mosby declared, looking very
innocent and guileless. "You can see for yourself that waiters and
bartenders get pale and stoop-shouldered at their work and as for
these young roughs isn't it better for society to have them out there
marching about than idling in bar rooms and planning God knows what
mischief?"
A grin appeared over the face of the First Ward. McGregor and Mosby
organised another company of marchers and a young man who had been a
sergeant in a company of regulars was induced to help with the
drilling. To the men themselves it was all a joke, a game that
appealed to the mischievous boy in them. Everybody was curious and
that gave the thing tang. They grinned as they marched up and down.
For a while they exchanged gibes with the spectators but McGregor put
a stop to that. "Be silent," he said, going about among the men during
the rest periods. "That's the best thing to do. Be silent and attend
to business and your marching will be ten times as effective."
The Marching Men Movement grew. A young Jewish newspaper man, half
rascal, half poet, wrote a scare-head story for one of the Sunday
papers announcing the birth of the Republic of Labour. The story was
illustrated by a drawing showing McGregor leading a vast horde of men
across an open plain toward a city whose tall chimneys belched forth
clouds of smoke. Beside McGregor in the picture and arrayed in a gaudy
uniform was Mosby the ex-army officer. In the article he was called
the war lord of "The secret republic growing up within a great
capitalistic empire."
It had begun to take form--the movement of the Marching Men. Rumours
began to run here and there. There was a question in men's eyes.
Slowly at first it began to rumble through their minds. There was the
tap of feet clicking sharply on pavements. Groups formed, men laughed,
the groups disappeared only to again reappear. In the sun before
factory doors men stood talking, half understanding, beginning to
sense the fact that there was something big in the wind.
At first the movement did not get anywhere with the ranks of labour.
There would be a meeting, perhaps a series of meetings in one of the
little halls where labourers gather to attend to the affairs of their
unions. McGregor would speak. His voice harsh and commanding could be
heard in the streets below. Merchants came out of the stores and stood
in the doorways listening. Young fellows who smoked cigarettes stopped
looking at passing girls and gathered in crowds below the open
windows. The slow working brain of labour was being aroused.
After a time a few young men, fellows who worked at the saws in a box
factory and others who ran machines in a factory where bicycles were
made, volunteered to follow the lead of the men of the First Ward. On
summer evenings they gathered in vacant lots and marched back and
forth looking at their feet and laughing.
McGregor insisted upon the training. He never had any intention of
letting his Marching Men Movement become merely a disorganised band of
walkers such as we have all seen in many a labour parade. He meant
that they should learn to march rhythmically, swinging along like
veterans. He was determined that the thresh of feet should come
finally to sing a great song, carrying the message of a powerful
brotherhood into the hearts and brains of the marchers.
McGregor gave all of his time to the movement. He made a scant living
by the practice of his profession but gave it no thought. The murder
case had brought him other cases and he had taken a partner, a ferret-
eyed little man who worked out the details of what cases came to the
firm and collected the fees, half of which he gave to the partner who
was intent upon something else. Day after day, week after week, month
after month, McGregor went up and down the city, talking to workers,
learning to talk, striving to make his idea understood.
One evening in September he stood in the shadow of a factory wall
watching a group of men who marched in a vacant lot. The movement had
become by that time really big. A flame burned in his heart at the
thought of what it might become. It was growing dark and the clouds of
dust raised by the feet of the men swept across the face of the
departing sun. In the field before him marched some two hundred men,
the largest company he had been able to get together. For a week they
had stayed at the marching evening after evening and were beginning a
little to understand the spirit of it. Their leader on the field, a
tall square shouldered man, had once been a captain in the State
Militia and now worked as engineer in a factory where soap was made.
His commands rang out sharp and crisp on the evening air. "Fours right
into line," he cried. The words were barked forth. The men
straightened their shoulders and swung out vigorously. They had begun
to enjoy the marching.
In the shadow of the factory wall McGregor moved uneasily about. He
felt that this was the beginning, the real birth of his movement, that
these men had really come out of the ranks of labour and that in the
breasts of the marching figures there in the open space understanding
was growing.
He muttered and walked back and forth. A young man, a reporter on one
of the city's great daily papers, leaped from a passing street car and
came to stand near him. "What's up here? What's this going on? What's
it all about? You better tell me," he said.
In the dim light McGregor raised his fists above his head and talked
aloud. "It's creeping in among them," he said. "The thing that can't
be put into words is getting itself expressed. Something is being done
here in this field. A new force is coming into the world."
Half beside himself McGregor ran up and down swinging his arms. Again
turning to the reporter who stood by a factory wall--a rather
dandified figure he was with a tiny moustache--he shouted:
"Don't you see?" he cried. His voice was harsh. "See how they march!
They are finding out what I mean. They have caught the spirit of it!"
McGregor began to explain. He talked hurriedly, his words coming forth
in short broken sentences. "For ages there has been talk of
brotherhood. Always men have babbled of brotherhood. The words have
meant nothing. The words and the talking have but bred a loose-jawed
race. The jaws of men wabble about but the legs of these men do not
wabble."
He again walked up and down, dragging the half-frightened man along
the deepening shadow of the factory wall.
"You see it begins--now in this field it begins. The legs and the feet
of men, hundreds of legs and feet make a kind of music. Presently
there will be thousands, hundreds of thousands. For a time men will
cease to be individuals. They will become a mass, a moving all-
powerful mass. They will not put their thoughts into words but
nevertheless there will be a thought growing up in them. They will of
a sudden begin to realise that they are a part of something vast and
mighty, a thing that moves, that is seeking new expression. They have
been told of the power of labour but now, you see, they will become
the power of labour."
Swept along by his own words and perhaps by something rhythmical in
the moving mass of men McGregor became feverishly anxious that the
dapper young man should understand. "Do you remember--when you were a
boy--some man who had been a soldier telling you that the men who
marched had to break step and go in a disorderly mob across a bridge
because their orderly stride would have shaken the bridge to pieces?"
A shiver ran over the body of the young man. In his off hours he was a
writer of plays and stories and his trained dramatic sense caught
quickly the import of McGregor's words. Into his mind came a scene on
a village street of his own place in Ohio. In fancy he saw the village
fife and drum corps marching past. His mind recalled the swing and the
cadence of the tune and again as when he was a boy his legs ached to
run out among the men and go marching away.
Filled with excitement he began also to talk. "I see," he cried; "you
think there is a thought in that, a big thought that men have not
understood?"
On the field the men, becoming bolder as they became less self-
conscious, came sweeping by, their bodies falling into a long swinging
stride.
The young man pondered. "I see. I see. Every one who stood watching as
I did when the fife and drum corps went past felt what I felt. They
were hiding behind a mask. Their legs also tingled and the same wild
militant thumping went on in their hearts. You have found that out,
eh? You mean to lead labour that way?"
With open mouth the young man stared at the field and at the moving
mass of men. He became oratorical in his thoughts. "Here is a big
man," he muttered. "Here is a Napoleon, a Caesar of labour come to
Chicago. He is not like the little leaders. His mind is not sicklied
over with the pale cast of thought. He does not think that the big
natural impulses of men are foolish and absurd. He has got hold of
something here that will work. The world had better watch this man."
Half beside himself he walked up and down at the edge of the field,
his body trembling.
Out of the ranks of the marching men came a workman. In the field
words arose. A petulant quality came into the voice of the captain who
gave commands. The newspaper man listened anxiously. "That's what will
spoil everything. The men will begin to lose heart and will quit," he
thought, leaning forward and waiting.
"I've worked all day and I can't march up and down here all night,"
complained the voice of the workman.
Past the shoulder of the young man went a, shadow. Before his eyes on
the field, fronting the waiting ranks of men, stood McGregor. His fist
shot out and the complaining workman crumpled to the ground.
"This is no time for words," said the harsh voice. "Get back in there.
This is not a game. It's the beginning of men's realisation of
themselves. Get in there and say nothing. If you can't march with us
get out. The movement we have started can pay no attention to
whimperers."
Among the ranks of men a cheer arose. By the factory wall the excited
newspaper man danced up and down. At a word of command from the
captain the line of marching men again swept down the field and he
watched them with tears standing in his eyes. "It's going to work," he
cried. "It's bound to work. At last a man has come to lead the men of
labor." _
Read next: BOOK VI: CHAPTER II
Read previous: BOOK V: CHAPTER VII
Table of content of Marching Men
GO TO TOP OF SCREEN
Post your review
Your review will be placed after the table of content of this book
