"Does everybody think like this?" Potter wondered. It might be so. His friends at the table in the Pontchartrain bar had been surprised at the news, but he considered their actions those of men who had not been shocked or those of men enraged. Perhaps they, too, were of one mind with his father.... Perhaps _all_ the people were of that mind. Perhaps that was the sort of people the American nation had grown to be.... "Dad," he said, "if Mother had been on board--" "She wasn't," said Fabius Waite. "Senator, this is mighty ticklish, and it will grow more ticklish. This one act can be smoothed over, but many recurrences of it cannot be smoothed over. Isn't there some machinery to set afoot forbidding American citizens to cross the ocean? That would do it." "I wouldn't care to introduce such a resolution," said the Senator, "but probably somebody can be got to do it." "We've a _right_ to travel," Potter said, hotly. "Didn't we fight a war about that once? You don't mean to say, Dad, that you actually would have this country admit that it was afraid to claim its rights.... The world would laugh at us." "Let it," said his father. "Another year or two of this war and this nation will top them all. We'll be the financial rulers of the world. We're getting there now, and nothing must happen to set us back." "And the world will despise us," Potter said, bitterly. He was beginning to see more clearly now. He paused. This attitude of mind he was witnessing could not be common to all the people. He would not believe it. "Dad, think _bigger_. You men are wrong. You can't head this off. It means _war_.... It's got to mean war. And war means armies and cannon and shell--and aeroplanes. We've got to have them all. Think, Dad, and you'll realize it.... Take a telegraph blank, Dad, and write the President. You can help with this plant; every other plant like it can help. Wire the President that this plant is at the disposal of the country for any use the country can put it to.... Tell him you're with him. Tell him you can make guns or shrapnel-cases or motors for him as well as for England or France or Russia--as you are making them.... And aeroplanes. We'll need thousands of them.... Give that job to me, Dad. I know aeroplanes--" "You know mixed drinks and chorus girls and traffic cops," his father snorted. "You won't do it?" "Don't be a fool." Potter turned and walked out of the room. He stopped at the information-desk. Here sat a man who worked for wages, a common citizen. Here sat the sort of man who made up the bulk of that crowd he had watched on Woodward Avenue. "Dickson," he said, "the Germans have sunk the _Lusitania_ and killed a hundred Americans." "Awful, wasn't it? I just heard." "What are we going to do about it?" "Why--we'll make 'em pay for it, that's what. We'll collect damages, millions of dollars." "_Money?_" said Potter. "You bet, Mr. Waite. Money." "Is that all? Will that satisfy you?"