diana, where
she now lives:

"When your roommates complained because your light kept them awake, I
knew what you were doing. I knew that you were studying their problems
for them, getting yourself an education so you would know how to get
them better wages and better working conditions."

This letter pleased me more than I can tell. This kind old lady, now
eighty-two, had faith in me and feels that her faith was justified. Now,
then, can I believe that life is meaningless,--that there is no plan,
and that all man's efforts are foredoomed to failure?

CHAPTER XXXIII. I MEET THE INDUSTRIAL CAPTAINS

Elwood, Indiana, was a small village that had been called Duck Creek
Post-Office until the tin mill and other industries began making it into
a city. In my capacity as president of the local union and head of the
wage mill committee, I was put in personal contact with the heads of
these great industrial enterprises. This was my first introduction to
men of large affairs.

I approached them with the inborn thought that they must be some sort of
human monsters. The communist books that Comrade Bannerman had given
me taught me to believe that capitalists had no human feelings like
ordinary mortals. I therefore expected to find the mill-boss as cunning
as the fox and ape combined. I supposed that his word would be worthless
as a pledge and would be given only for the purpose of tricking me. His
manners I expected to be rude; he would shout at me and threaten me,
hoping to take away my courage and send me back to my fellows beaten.

What I found, of course, was a self-possessed man, the model of courtesy
and exactness. He differed from us men in one respect. His mind was
complex instead of simplex. That is, he could think on two sides of a
question at the same time. He had so trained his mind by much use of
it that it was as nimble as the hands of a juggler who can keep
several objects tossing in the air at the same time. We men were clumsy
thinkers, and one thing at a time was all we could handle without
fumbling it.

The great manufacturer never showed any emotion. He was never angry,
domineering, sneering or insulting. He kept these emotions under control
because they could do him no good, and because they would give pain to
others. We fellows never hesitated to show how we felt. We would jibe
one another, laugh at a fellow to his chagrin, and when we were angry
bawl each other out unmercifully. For a fellow to