“They ask us what we mean. Well, here is our answer. We mean to go on marching. We mean to march in the morning and in the evening when the sun goes down. On Sundays they may sit on their porches or shout at men playing ball in a field But we will march. On the hard cobblestones of the city streets and through the dust of country roads we will march. Our legs may be weary and our throats hot and dry, But still we will march, shoulder to shoulder. We will march until the ground shakes and tall buildings tremble. Shoulder to shoulder we will go--all of us-- On and on forever. We will not talk nor listen to talk. We will march and we will teach our sons and our daughters to march. Their minds are troubled. Our minds are clear. We do not think and banter words. We march. Our faces are coarse and there is dust in our hair and beards. See, the inner parts of our hands are rough. And still we march--we the workers.” CHAPTER VI Who will ever forget that Labour Day in Chicago? How they marched!--thousands and thousands and more thousands! They filled the streets. The cars stopped. Men trembled with the import of the impending hour. Here they come! How the ground trembles! The chant chant chant of that song! It must have been thus that Grant felt at the great review of the veterans in Washington when all day long they marched past him, the men of the Civil War, the whites of their eyes showing in the tan of their faces. McGregor stood on the stone curbing above the tracks in Grant Park. As the men marched they massed in there about him, thousands of them, steel workers and iron workers and great red-necked butchers and teamsters. And in the air wailed the marching song of the workers. All of the world that was not marching jammed into the buildings facing Michigan Boulevard and waited. Margaret Ormsby was there. She sat with her father in a carriage near where Van Buren Street ends at the Boulevard. As the men kept crowding in about them she clutched nervously at the sleeve of David Ormsby's coat. “He is going to speak,” she whispered and pointed. Her tense air of expectancy expressed much of the feeling of the crowd. “See, listen, he is going to speak out.” It must have been five in the afternoon when the men got through marching. They were massed in there clear down to the Twelfth Street Station of the Illinois Central. McGregor lifted his hands. In the hush his harsh voice carried far. “We are at the beginning,” he shouted and silence fell upon the people. In the stillness one standing near her might have heard Margaret Ormsby weeping softly. There was the gentle murmur that always prevails where many people stand at attention. The weeping of the woman was scarcely audible but it persisted like the sound of little waves on a beach at the end of the day. BOOK VII CHAPTER I