And then, at last, out of the South, like a still, small voice, came the third man,—­black, with great eyes and greater memories; hesitantly eager and yet with the infinite softness and ancient calm which come from that eternal race whose history is not the history of a day, but of endless ages.  Here, surely, was fit meeting-place for these curiously intent forces, for these epoch-making and age-twisting forces, for these human feet on their super-human errands.

Yesterday I rode in East St. Louis.  It is the kind of place one quickly recognizes,—­tireless and with no restful green of verdure; hard and uneven of street; crude, cold, and even hateful of aspect; conventional, of course, in its business quarter, but quickly beyond one sees the ruts and the hollows, the stench of ill-tamed sewerage, unguarded railroad crossings, saloons outnumbering churches and churches catering to saloons; homes impudently strait and new, prostitutes free and happy, gamblers in paradise, the town “wide open,” shameless and frank; great factories pouring out stench, filth, and flame—­these and all other things so familiar in the world market places, where industry triumphs over thought and products overwhelm men.  May I tell, too, how yesterday I rode in this city past flame-swept walls and over gray ashes; in streets almost wet with blood and beside ruins, where the bones of dead men new-bleached peered out at me in sullen wonder?

Across the river, in the greater city, where bronze St. Louis,—­that just and austere king—­looks with angry, fear-swept eyes down from the rolling heights of Forest Park, which knows him not nor heeds him, there is something of the same thing, but this city is larger and older and the forces of evil have had some curbing from those who have seen the vision and panted for life; but eastward from St. Louis there is a land of no taxes for great industries; there is a land where you may buy grafting politicians at far less rate than you would pay for franchises or privileges in a modern town.  There, too, you may escape the buying of indulgences from the great terminal fist, which squeezes industry out of St. Louis.  In fact, East St. Louis is a paradise for high and frequent dividends and for the piling up of wealth to be spent in St. Louis and Chicago and New York and when the world is sane again, across the seas.

So the Unwise Men pouring out of the East,—­falling, scrambling, rushing into America at the rate of a million a year,—­ran, walked, and crawled to this maelstrom of the workers.  They garnered higher wage than ever they had before, but not all of it came in cash.  A part, and an insidious part, was given to them transmuted into whiskey, prostitutes, and games of chance.  They laughed and disported themselves.  God!  Had not their mothers wept enough?  It was a good town.  There was no veil of hypocrisy here, but a wickedness, frank, ungilded, and open.  To be sure, there were things sometimes