of the city by the Golden Gate.

CHAPTER XXVII

THE CRISIS

What is of more value to civilization, or what commands a greater premium
in the world than successful leadership? Successful leaders are few, and
the masses follow. Honor, fame, power, and wealth are some of the rewards
of great leadership. The confidences bestowed and the responsibilities
assumed are often very great. A betrayal of important trusts, or a
failure to discharge responsibilities, usually brings swift and terrible
punishment, poverty, prison, disgrace, and dishonor to descendants.

George Ingram had proved himself a successful leader, and those who knew
him best, by study of his methods and his works, saw his capacity for
leadership. Hence the popular demand for him to stand as candidate for
mayor of Harrisville. His practical intelligence, and his acuteness in
observation of character, had served him well in organizing, developing,
and controlling the greatest model steel-plant of his generation, which
for quality, quantity, and minimum cost of products had attracted the
attention of manufacturers and scientists. Politicians soon discovered in
George Ingram natural prudence and tact in behavior. The strong religious
element of the city conceded that he possessed, as a certain doctor of
divinity said, "a nice sense of what is right, just and true, with a
course of life corresponding thereto."

The alert women of the city were in hearty approval of conferring the
honor of Mayor upon George Ingram. They knew that the completeness of his
character resulted in no small degree from the influence of his gifted
wife. The practical business men of the city saw that the proposed
candidate for mayor had good common sense. So all party spirit was laid
aside, as it should be in local politics, and George Ingram was nominated
and elected unanimously as the mayor of Harrisville. His cabinet,
composed of the heads of several departments, was filled with able men,
who with zest took up their portfolios not with the thought of personal
gain but with the lofty purpose of securing the utmost good to every
citizen.

Fortunately the city had adopted the just principle of paying its
servants liberally for all services rendered. By the so-called "Federal
Plan" the number of members of the Cabinet, of the Board of Control, of
the Council, and of the School Board, has been so reduced that at their
meetings speeches and angry discussions were tabooed; each as