One Man in His Time

by Ellen Anderson Gholson Glasgow

"Oh, I know the old proceedings were bad enough," replied Stephen, "but I am trying to find out how the Governor expects to make them better. You understand that I am trying merely to see your point of view—to get at the roots of your theory of government. What you tell me will never find its way to the public."

"I realize that," said Vetch gravely, and he added with a quick glance at Darrow: "Do you think if I were not honest that I'd talk to you so frankly?"

Stephen smiled. "It might be. The political coat has many colours. I don't mean to be rude, you know, but one good turn in frankness deserves another."

"I like you the better for that." A cluster of fine lines appeared at the corners of the Governor's laughing eyes. "But, once for all, you must get rid of your false impressions of me, and see me as a fact, not as a kind of social scarecrow. First of all, you think I am an extremist—well, I am not. I am merely a man of facts. I see the world as it is and you see it as you wish it to be—that is the difference between us. I have lived with realities; I know actual conditions—and you know only what you have been told or imagined. Oh, I admit that you saw an edge of reality in the trenches; but, after all, life in the trenches was as abnormal as life in the movies. Each represents an extreme. What you know of average human life, of hunger and pain and labour, could be learned in an academy for young ladies. Yet you imagine that it is experience! You have lived so long in your lily-pond, with the rushes hemming you in, that when you hear all the frogs croaking on the same note, you think complacently, 'that is the voice of the people'. Why, I tell you, man, you are so ignorant of the conditions in this very town, that Darrow could take you out and show you things that would make you feel like Robinson Crusoe!"

Stephen turned eagerly to the old man at the window. "I am ready for you, Mr. Darrow."

Darrow nodded with a reluctant assent. "I've got my Ford around the corner," he answered. "If you would like to go up town with me I can show you a thing or two that might interest you."

"You mean the conditions in this city?"

"The conditions in all cities. They differ only in the name of the town."

"He will show you a little—just a little—of what getting back to peace means," said Vetch earnestly. "By next winter it will be worse, of course, but it has already begun. The rate of wages is falling—for wages always fall first—and the cost of living is still as high as in war times. Rents are going up every day, Darrow can tell you more about the speculation in rents than I can, and the housing of the working-classes, both white and coloured, is growing worse. We shall soon be facing the most serious problem of the system under which we live, the problem of the unemployed. Already it is beginning. Darrow was telling me just before you came in of a man in one of the houses where he has been working—a returned soldier too—who has walked the streets for weeks in search of work. He has been unable to pay his rent, so of course he is obliged to move somewhere, if he can find a place to move into. Oh, I realize perfectly what you are going to say! The brief prosperity of the war still envelops the labouring man in your mind; and you are preparing to remind me of the lace curtains and victrolas of yesterday. Yes, I admit that lace curtains and victrolas are not necessities. It was a case where nature cropped out in the wrong spot. Even the working-man may have suppressed desires, you see, and lace curtains and victrolas may stand not only for the improvidence of the poor, but for the neurasthenic yearnings of the rich. Talk about the economy of Nature! Why, nothing in the universe, not even the civilization of man, has ever equalled her indecent prodigality!"

As the man's words poured out in his rich, deep voice, Stephen stared at him in a silence which reminded him humorously of the pause in church before the sermon began. Was this the reason of Vetch's influence and authority—this flow of ideas, as from a horn of plenty, that left the listener both charmed and bewildered?