He was still floundering. For some time after his frank repudiation in August of 1915 of Labor's National Peace Council, he had fidgeted from question to question in the _Argus_, trying to fix firmly on a campaign which would advance his program for Sabinsport's regeneration and either ignore or belittle the war. But nothing he attempted counted. It was all trivial, temporary, beside the great stakes for which Europe was struggling. The minds of his readers were there, not in Sabinsport. It was so even in the mills and factories, where the men and women of a dozen nationalities watched the contest and not his efforts to fight what he insisted was their battle. What he did not sense was that these grave laboring people were slowly realizing that _their_ battle was being fought overseas. They could not have told you how or why, perhaps, but feel it they did; and every letter from those of their number in the war fed the idea. It grew amazingly in the mines after Nikola came back with his tale of a nation driven into the sea. Such things should not be. Were not the Allies fighting to put an end to them, to punish those that dared attempt them? If so, was that not the common man's battle? The only discussion Ralph carried on in this period which really stirred Sabinsport was his defense of the Federal Administration's dealings with Germany. He was as violent in upholding its policy as his own party was in abusing it. Not that he was any more willing to yield the nation's rights under international law than his Progressive leader, but he believed with all his obstinate, passionate soul that these rights could be preserved without war. He upheld every successive note, pointing exultantly to their skill in cornering Germany, in forcing admissions and submission from her. "And not a gun fired," he always cried. Under his eloquent leadership, the town became familiar with every point and every fact in the long-drawn-out controversy. The interest was such that full sets of documents were to be found in more than one unlikely place. Thus Sam Peets, the barber at the Paradise, had all that mattered in the drawer under his big glass in front of his chair, his repository for years for whatever interested him in public affairs. And if anybody questioned or mis-stated either the position of Germany or the United States, Sam would stop, whatever the condition of his client's face, and pull out the document which settled the matter. Captain Billy always carried, stuffed in disorder in his overcoat pocket, most of the essential papers; and there was more than one man in the wire mill that had them tucked away in some safe place in his working clothes or some hidden corner of the great shop.