McCormick was not in any sense a Gradgrind of commercialism--a man who enriched his coffers by the impoverishment of his soul. He made money--ten millions or more; but he did so incidentally, just as a man makes muscle by doing hard work. Several of his fellow Chicagoans had swept past him in the million-making race. No matter how much money came to him, he was the same man, with the same friendships and the same purposes. And it is inconceivable that, for any amount of wealth, he would have changed the ground-plan of his life. It is strictly true to say that he was a practical idealist. He idealized the American Constitution, the Patent Office, the Courts, the Democratic Party, and the Presbyterian Church. He was an Oliver Cromwell of industry. All his beliefs and acts sprang from a few simple principles and fitted together like a picture puzzle. There was religion in his business and business in his religion. He was made such as he was by the Religious Reformation of Europe and the Industrial Revolution of the United States. He was all of one piece--sincere and self-consistent--a type of the nineteenth-century American at his best. He was not sordid. He was not cynical. He was not scientific. He was a man of faith and works--one of the old-fashioned kind who laid the foundations and built the walls of this republic. He felt that he was born into the world with certain things to do. Some of these things were profitable and some of them were not, but he gave as much energy and attention to the one as to the other. In 1859, for instance, he had a factory that was profitable, and a daily paper and a college that were expensive. He was struggling to extend his trade at home and in Europe, to protect his patents, to prevent the war between the North and South, and to maintain the simplicity of the Presbyterian faith. To contend for these interests and principles was his life. He could not have done anything else. It was as natural for him to do so as for a fish to swim or a bird to fly. Once, towards the end of his life, when he was sitting in his great arm-chair, reflecting, he said to his wife, "Nettie, life _is_ a battle." He made this announcement as though it were the discovery of a new fact. All his life he had been much less conscious of the battle itself than of the _cause_ for which he fought.