arly years of this century--about 1902, probably--John
Barclay paid an accounting company twenty-five thousand dollars--more
money than General Ward and Watts McHurdie and Martin Culpepper and
Jacob Dolan had saved in all their long, industrious, frugal, and
useful lives--to go over his business, install a system of audits and
accounts, and tell him just how much money he was worth. After a score
of men had been working for six months, the accounting company made
its report. It was put in terms of dollars and cents, which are
fleeting and illusive terms, and mean much in one country and little
in another, signify great wealth at one time and mere affluence in
another period. So the sum need not be set down here. But certain
interesting details of the report may be set down to illuminate this
narrative. For instance, it indicates that John Barclay was a man of
some consequence, when one knows that he employed more men in that
year than many a sovereign state of this Union employed in its state
and county and city governments. It signifies something to learn that
he controlled more land growing wheat than any of half a dozen
European kings reign over. It means something to realize that in those
years of his high tide John Barclay, by a few lines dictated to Neal
Ward, could have put bread out of the reach of millions of his
fellow-creatures. And these are evidences of material power--these
men he hired, these lands he dominated, and this vast store of food
that he kept. So it is fair to assume that if this is a material
world, John Barclay's fortune was founded upon a rock. He and his
National Provisions Company were real. They were able to make laws;
they were able to create administrators of the law; and they were able
to influence those who interpreted the law. Barclay and his power were
substantial, palpable, and translatable into terms of money, of power,
of vital force.

And then one day, after long years of growth in the
under-consciousnesses of men, an idea came into full bloom in the
world. It had no especial champions. The people began to think this
idea. That was all. Now life reduced to its lowest terms consists of
you and him and me. Put us on a desert island together--you and him
and me--and he can do nothing without you and me--except he kill us,
and then he is alone; even then we haunt him, so our influence still
binds him. You can do nothing without him and me, and I can do nothing
without you and him. N