f his uprightness and of his
benevolence. He showed a nice regard for the claims of the Republic, and
a proper appreciation of what true public spirit is.

Some time afterward I was talking to a very prominent New York editor,
and the conversation turned to millionaires, whereupon for about half an
hour the editor agreeably recounted circumstantial stories of the
turpitude of celebrated millionaires--stories which he alleged to be
authentic and undeniable in every detail. I had to gasp. "But surely--"
I exclaimed, and mentioned the man who had so favorably impressed me.

"Well," said the editor, reluctantly, after a pause, "I admit he has
_the new sense of right and wrong_ to a greater extent than any of his
rivals."

I italicize the heart of the phrase, because it is italicized in my
memory. No words that I heard in the United States more profoundly
struck me. Yet the editor had used them quite ingenuously, unaware that
he was saying anything singular!... Since when is the sense of right and
wrong "new" in America?

Perhaps all that the editor meant was that public spirit in its higher
forms was growing in the United States, and beginning to show itself
spectacularly here and there in the immense drama of commercial and
industrial policies. That public spirit is growing, I believe. It
chanced that I found the basis of my belief more in Chicago than
anywhere else.

* * * * *

I have hitherto said nothing of the "folk"--the great mass of the
nation, who live chiefly by the exercise, in one way or another, of
muscular power or adroitness, and who, if they possess drawing-rooms, do
not sit in them. Like most writers, when I have used such phrases as
"the American people" I have meant that small dominant minority which
has the same social code as myself. Goethe asserted that the folk were
the only real people. I do not agree with him, for I have never found
one city more real than another city, nor one class of people more real
than another class. Still, he was Goethe, and the folk, though
mysterious, are very real; and, since they constitute perhaps
five-sixths of the nation, it would be singular to ignore them. I had
two brief glimpses of them, and the almost theatrical contrast of these
two glimpses may throw further light upon the question just discussed.

I evaded Niagara and the Chicago Stock-yards, but I did not evade the
"East Side" of New York. The East Side insisted on being