“I'm of the second generation, dad,” the boy went on, at length, “and the second generation has an ideal of its own, and that ideal is Success. It took us these forty years to come to understand the spirit of America. You were a dreamer who loved America. I'm an American. We've translated democracy and brotherhood and equality into enterprise and opportunity and success—and that's getting Americanised. Now, father,” he sought refuge in the tone of every-day things, “you'll get used to it—won't you? I don't expect you to feel very good about it, but you aren't going to be broken up about it—are you? After all, father,” laughing and moving about as if to break the seriousness of things, “there's nothing criminal about being one of the other fellows—is there? Just remember that there are folks who even think it's respectable!” The father had risen and picked up his hat. “No, Fred,” he said, with a sadness in which there was great dignity, “there is nothing criminal in it if a man's conviction sends him that way. But to me there is something—something too sad for words in a man's selling his own soul.”
“Father! How extravagant! Why is it selling one's soul to sit down and figure out what's the best thing to do?” He hesitated, hating to add hurt to hurt, not wanting to say that his father's fight should have been with the revolutionists, that his life was ineffective because, seeing his dream from within a dream, his thinking had been muddled. He only said: “As I say, father, it's a question of giving or getting. I couldn't even give in your way. And I've seen enough of giving to want a taste of getting. I want to make things go—and I see my chance. Why father,” he laughed, trying to turn it, “there's nothing so American as wanting to make things go.”
He looked at him for a long minute. “My boy,” he said, “I fear you are becoming so American that I am losing you.”
“Father,” the boy pleaded, affectionately, “now don't—”
The old man held up his hand. “You've tried to make me understand it,” he said, “and succeeded. You can't complain of the way you've succeeded. I don't know why I don't argue with you—plead; there are things I could say—should say, perhaps—but something assures me it would be useless. I feel a good many years older than I did when I came into this room, but the reason for it is not that you're joining the other party. You know what I think of the men who control this State, the men with whom you desire to cast your lot, but I trust the years I've spent fighting them haven't made a bigot of me. It's not joining their party—it's using it—makes this the hardest thing I've been called upon to meet.”
“Father, don't look like that! How do you think I am going to get up and speak tonight with that face before me?”
“You didn't think, did you,” the man laughed bitterly, “that I would inspire you to your effort?”
The boy stood looking at his father, a strange new fire in his eyes.
“Yes,” he said, quietly, tenderly, “you will inspire me. When I get up before those men tonight I'm going to see the picture of that boy straining for his first glimpse of New York Harbour. I'm going to think for just a minute of the things that boy brought with him—things he has never lost. And then I'll see you as you stand here now—-it will be enough. What I need to do is to get mad. If I falter I'll just think of some of those times when you came home from your campaigns—how you looked—what you said. It will bring the inspiration. Father, I figure it out like this. We're going to get it back. We're going to get what's coming to us. There's another America than the America of you dreamers. To yours you have given; from mine I will get. And the irony of it—don't think I don't see the irony of it—is that I will be called the real American. Do you know what I'm going to do? I'm going to make the railroads of this State—oh, it sounds like schoolboy talk, but just give me a little time—I'm going to make the railroads of this State pay off every cent of that mortgage on your farm! Father,” he finished, impetuously, in a last appeal, “you're broken up now, disappointed, but would you honestly want me to travel the road you've traveled?”
“My boy,” answered the old man, and the tears came with it, “I wanted you to travel the road of an honest man.”