Carolina watchman. [volume] (Salisbury, N.C.) 1871-1937, 1932-10-07

l am marrying Gerrit Rantoul
| owe my life to him. Don't blam,
me- John. 1t is best for us botl
now that poor dear, brave Gilber,
Is gone. Forgive me. JOSEPHINE
Years of slavish toll followed
tor John. He sunk himself in hi,
work. Occasion ally he heard of
Josephine. and Rantoul, married
and In the vortex of young ano
gay America just before the war.
Finally the a~cqueduct was fin
lshed. Talking it over with Har-
board and Pug Malone one night
Judge Kelly went to a Uttered
desk. He searched for a moment,
then found a card. MY friend,
Almon Strauss, has started some
thing interesting. The Bureau of
City Plan. An engineer named
Coltax is in charge. I think there
a place for John if l say the word.
"A place tor al enthusiastic endow-
ed with a modicum OF. brains. My
sad past, gentlemen, leads me to
the belief hat the wiser a man is
the less enthusiastic he gets. Solo,
mon was an utter pessimist.
Enthusiasm starts wars, and
wisdom ends them" Harboard had
lit his pipe. Malone, also smoking,
thought deeply. "John Breen
was thrown into this city with
nothing but enthusiasm; he may
find wisdom, and perhaps some
happiness, within its walls"
For a year he had been at work
with Colfax, as assitaant engineer
of the Bureau of City Plan. The
city EMBODIED him, enthralled him.
He seemed to be playing with a
set of magic blocks, scheming,
planning, and soon they would
build.
One day, John had checked
over reports of a field survey &C
counting for many acres of land
safely under water and purchased
by a commission spending other
peoples money. CoIfax smoked
interminably, cigar after cigar,
his teeth champing at the rolls of
weed, tossing the butts when
burned to the middle.
"Do you sense this thing?" he
asked, waving his hand in a gen
eral sweep. II mean the thing
that has us all-this lighting a
brand hesitated in his reply. COL
fax seemed unnerved, the night
was insuferably hot, and he, too,
came to the office with the din of
war added to another clamor
coming to a surge within him.
Colfax, thin but of fiery energy,
seemed to radiate a restless, gnnw-
ing sorrow.
"What l have said about the
city bears out the rottenness a.
broad. Everything is wrong. 1t
will drag us back in the wash of
a The reformers will fail, the
people will fail, and the grab and
gouge and hell of blood and hate
will swing around the world, kill
ing everything we do. This stuff"
and Colfax brought his first down
with with a bang on bundles of
reports, this might as we'll be
burned, for the good it will do
while l am here, or you too.
II have worked years, given all
that is in me, to set a standard. l
seek a city to set up as an ideal
habitation of men. You know my
theories about the heating and
and sanitation of groups, you
know the Colfax formula for the
regeneration of waste materials
and the return of nitrogen to the
sail in an endless cycle. We must
strive,' Mr. Breen, to the time
when the terrible waste will be
overcome and men may live for
something other than their appeti-
ties and greed. When plenty will
be common and the poor will only
be the poor in spirit, or in mind.
You know this, you have seen the
plans and the fitting of them to
meet the transition from industrial
truce to industrial peace and free
! dom.
Colfax suddenly stood upright