Little by little, as he studied this War, Thyrsis had come upon a strange and sinister fact about it. Roughly speaking, the population of the country might have been divided into two classes. There were those to whom the Union was precious, and who gave their labor and their lives for it; they starved and fought and agonized for it, and came home, worn, often crippled, and always poor. On the other hand there were some who had cared nothing for the Union, but were finding their chance to grow rich and to establish themselves in the places of power. They were selling shoddy blankets and paper shoes to the government; they were speculating in cotton and gold and food. There were a few exceptions to this, of course; but for the most part, when one came to study the gigantic fortunes which were corrupting the nation, he discovered that it was just here they had begun. So this was the curious and ironic fact; the nation had been saved--but only to be handed over to the money-changers! And these now possessed it and dominated it; and a new generation had come forward, which knew not how these things had come to be--which knew only the money-changers and their power. And who was there to tell them of the War, and all that the War had meant? Who was there to make that titan agony real to them, to point them to the high destinies of the Republic? Along with his war-books, Thyrsis was reading his daily newspaper, which came to him freighted with the cynicism of the hour. It was when the revelations of corruption in business and political affairs were at their flood; high and low, in towns and cities, in states and in the nation itself, one saw that the government of the country had been bought. Everywhere throughout the land Mammon sat upon the throne, and men cringed before him--there was only persecution and mockery for those who believed in the things for which America stood to all the world. And this new Lord, who had purchased the people, and held them in bond, was extracting a toll of suffering and privation, of accident and disease and death, that was worse than the agony of many wars. The whole land was groaning and sweating beneath the burden of it; and Thyrsis, who shared the pain, and knew the meaning of it, was sick with the responsibility it put upon him, yearning for a thousand voices with which he might cry the truth aloud. Some one must bring America face to face with its soul again; and who was there to do it--who was there that was even trying? Thyrsis had seen the statues of St. Gaudens, and he knew there was one man who had dreamed the dream of his country. But who was there to put it into song, or into story, that the young might read? Like the newspapers and the churches, the authors had sold out; they were writing for matinée-girls, and for the Pullman-car book-trade; and meantime the civilization of America was sliding down into the pit!