The Winslow mail., 1914-09-19

! MS way OfGE 81 UIIuSe 10 Uuy paper,
/ for in those days the papers, which
We're printed upon thin sheets of me-
taIlic foil, were sold at determinate
points by specially licensed purveyors
] Half over he stopped short at a change
/ in the traffic below and was astonished
/ to see that the police signals We're re-
! stricting vehic2s to the half roadway
/ When presently he got within sight Of
/ the transparencies that had replaced
/ the nlacards of Victorian times he read
/ Of the great march of the unemployed
! that was already in progress through
! the west end and SO without expendi-
ture he was able to understand what
was coming.
He watched, and his book describes
this procession which the police had
considered it unWisc to prevent and
/ which had been spontaneously organ
lied in imitation Of the unemployed
] professions of earlier times He had
! expected a mob, but there was a kind
of sullen discipline about the process
sion Wsen at last it arrived What
! seemed for a time an unending column
of men marched Wearily. marched With
a kind of implacable futility. along the
/ roadway underneath him. He was he
says, moved to join them, but instead
he remained watching. They were a
dingy, shabby. ineffective looking mul-
titude, for the most part incapable Of
any but obsolete and superseded types
Of labor. They bore a few banners
with the time honored inscription
Work, Not Charity" but otherwise
their ranks were unadorned.
They We're not singing, they were
not even talking, there was nothing
truculent nor aggressive in their bear
ing, they had no definite objective they
were just marching and showing them
selves in the more prosperous parts
Of London. They were a sample of
that great mass of unskilled, cheap
labor which the new, still cheaper me-
chancal powers had superseded for
evermore. They were being scrap
ped horses had been "scrapped"
/ Barnet leaned over the parapet watch.
ing them. his mind quickened by his
own precarious condition. For a time,
! he says, he felt nothing but despair
at the sight; what should be done,
what could be done for this gathering
surplus Of humanity? They were so
manifestly useless-and incapable
and pitiful.
What were they asking for?
They had been overtaken by unex-
81,
It flashed suddenly into his mind
Just what the muItitudinou# shambIine
enigma below meant 1t was an ap.
peal against the uneXpectcd-an ap-
neal to those others who, more for
tunate, seemed wiser and more power
full, for somethfng-for intelligence
This mute mass, weary footed rank
following rank, protested it's persuasion
that some of These others must have
foreseen these dislocations-th any
how they ought to have foreseen-and
arranged
That was what this crowd Of wreck
age was feeling and seeking so dumbly
to assert
Things came to me like the turning
on of light in darkened room" he
says. 'These men were praying t.
their fellow creatures as once they
prayed to God The last thing that
men will realize about anything is that
it is inanimate They had transferred
their animation to mankind They
still believed there was intelligence
somewhere, even if it was careless or
malignant 1t had only to be aroused
to be conscience stricken, to be moved
to eXertion And | saw, too, that rs
yet there was no such intelligence
The world waits for intelligence That
intelligence has still to be made. that
will for good and order has still to be
gathered together out of scraps Of i'm
pulse and wandering seeds Of benevo.
lence and whatever is fine and creative
in our souls into Il common purpose
It's something still to come"
1t is characteristic of the widening
thought of the time that this not very
heroical young man who in any preyi
GUS age might Well have been alto
gether occupied with the problem OF
his own individual necessities should
be able to stand there and generaliZe
about the needs ofsthe race.
But upon all the stresses and con
tiicts of that chaotic time there was al
ready dawning the light of a new era
The spirit of humanity was escaping
even then it was escaping, from its eX-
treme Imprisonment in individuals