"Nobody realizes it. The Liberty Loan did something toward bringing the war home to our people, but it was only a beginning. Detroit rushed and pawed to make up its quota--but, after all, it was only a pocketbook affair. It brought no suffering, only benefits to most. It introduced the man with fifty dollars to investment. It made men fancy they could be patriots for a fifty-dollar bill. But it was a step toward arousing the people. We're nearer." "When they give their sons--" Potter said. "It will come closer then. The draft was a big step--and the people's attitude toward the draft was an eye-opener. I've a notion we men who like to think we're the most important thing in the nation, we wealthy men, don't really know what the people are thinking about. Maybe they're more serious than we think? Maybe there's more genuine love for America in them than we think.... A year ago I would have said an attempt to draft would have brought on a revolution." "Thank God for the people!" Potter said. "But even they won't feel the war--not when their sons march off to training-camps ... not until the cables bring home lists of the dead. Then America will know it is at war." Potter dined at the Detroit Athletic Club that scorching September day which was to see the first draft men in their farewell parade. It was almost a gala occasion. The dining-rooms were crowded with cheerful men, and some of those men were to march in the parade. Most of those whom Potter saw were bent on holiday, wore a holiday expression; many carried a humorous expression. The air was not heavy with foreboding, but light with jest. A spectacle was in preparation for their eyes, and they were in humor to enjoy it. Men arose and sauntered toward Woodward Avenue. A man at the next table said, jauntily, "Well, it's about time we ambled over to take a look at the circus." That was the attitude--a section of the attitude. Potter wondered how far it went, how deep its strata extended, how much of it was genuine. There was a thoughtlessness that offended him. He went alone to see the spectacle. He did not want companions, but wanted to see, to study, to comprehend. He was going to the laboratory to endeavor to assay the American people. From a boy he bought a wooden box and stood upon it at the corner of Woodward and Adams avenues. North and south the streets were massed with such a crowd as Detroit had never before turned out. Potter watched the section of it that lay under his eye, and listened for such messages by word of mouth from the public thought as might filter to his ears. In the park at his left the very trees bore a human fruit. Roofs were densely fringed; every window was filled beyond its capacity--and upon all the pitiless heat beat down. They waited patiently, for the parade, like all parades in Detroit, was delayed in starting. A couple of women fainted--not from emotion, not because loved ones were marching away, but because of weariness and the breathless heat.