that sometimes grow on the side of unhealthy trees, but he did not know it. He did not know that throughout the country, even in that early day, a system was being built up to create the myth of greatness. At the seat of the American Government at Washington, hordes of somewhat clever and altogether unhealthy young men were already being employed for the purpose. In a sweeter age many of these young men might have become artists, but they had not been strong enough to stand against the growing strength of dollars. They had become instead newspaper correspondents and secretaries to politicians. All day and every day they used their minds and their talents as writers in the making of puffs and the creating of myths concerning the men by whom they were employed. They were like the trained sheep that are used at great slaughter-houses to lead other sheep into the killing pens. Having befouled their own minds for hire, they made their living by befouling the minds of others. Already they had found out that no great cleverness was required for the work they had to do. What was required was constant repetition. It was only necessary to say over and over that the man by whom they were employed was a great man. No proof had to be brought forward to substantiate the claims they made; no great deeds had to be done by the men who were thus made great, as brands of crackers or breakfast food are made salable. Stupid and prolonged and insistent repetition was what was necessary.
As the politicians of the industrial age have created a myth about themselves, so also have the owners of dollars, the big bankers, the railroad manipulators,
