“But what is the way, Grant–what is it? You don’t know–any more than we do–what is beyond the next decade’s fight! What is the way you are going to point out so fine and gay–what is it?” she cried.
“I don’t know,” he answered doggedly. “I only know I must go. The scouts never know where they are going. Every great movement has its men who set out blindly, full of faith, full of courage, full of joy, happy to fail even in showing what is not the way–if they cannot find the path. I must go,” he cried passionately, “with those who leave their homes to mark the trail–perhaps a guide forward, perhaps as a warning away–but still to serve. I’m going out to preach the revolution for I know that the day of the Democracy of labor is at hand! It is all but dawning.”
She saw the exultation upon him that hallowed his seamed features and she could not speak. But when she got herself in hand she said calmly: “But, Grant–that’s stuff and nonsense–there is no revolution. There can be no Democracy of labor, so long as labor is what it is. We all want to help labor–we know that it needs help. But there can be no Democracy of labor until labor finds itself; until it gets capacity for handling big affairs, until it sees more clearly what is true and what is false. Just now labor is awakening, is growing conscious–a little–but, Grant, come now, my good friend, listen, be sensible, get down to earth. Can’t you see your fine pioneering and your grand scouting won’t help–not now?”
“And can’t you understand,” he replied almost angrily, “that unless I or some one else who can talk to these people does go out and preach a definite ideal, a realizable hope–even though it may not be realized, even though it may not take definite shape–they will never wake up? Can’t you see, girl, that when labor is ready for the revolution–it won’t need the revolution? Can’t you see that unless we preach the revolution, they will never be ready for it? When the 487workers can stand together, can feel class consciousness and strike altogether, can develop organizing capacity enough to organize, to run their own affairs–then the need for class consciousness will pass, and the demand for the revolution will be over? Can’t you see that I must go out blindly and cry discontent to these people?”
She smiled and shook her head and answered, “I don’t know, Grant–I don’t know.”
They were coming into town, and every few blocks the car was taking on new passengers. She spoke low and almost whispered when she answered:
“I only know that I believe in you–you are my faith; you are my social gospel.” She paused, hesitated, flushed slightly, and said, “Where you go I shall go, and your people shall be my people! Only do–Oh, do consider this well before you take the final step.”
“Laura, I must go,” he returned stubbornly. “I am going to preach the revolution of love–the Democracy of labor founded on the theory that the Holy Ghost is in every heart–poor as well as rich–rich as well as poor. I’m not going to preach against the rich–but against the system that makes a few men rich without much regard to their talent, at the expense of all the rest, without much regard to their talents.”
The woman looked at him as he turned his blue eyes upon her in a kind of delirium of conviction. He hurried on as their car rattled through the town:
“We must free master as well as slave. For while there is slavery–while the profit system exists–the mind of the slave and the mind of the master will be cursed with it. There can be no love, no justice between slave and master–only deceit and violence on each side, and I’m going out to preach the revolution–to call for the end to a system that keeps love out of the world.”