A People's Man by E. Phillips Oppenheim — Read

In the roar of applause which followed Maraton's brilliant but wholly unprepared peroration, a roar which broke and swelled like the waves of the sea, different people upon the platform heard different things. Peter Dale and his little band of coadjutors were men enough to know that a new force had come amongst them. It is possible, even, that they, hardened as they were by time and circumstances, felt some thrill of that erstwhile enthusiasm which in their younger days had brought them out from the ranks of their fellows. To Aaron, listening with quivering attention to every sentence, it seemed like the consummation of all his dreams. Julia alone was conscious of a certain restraint, knew that behind all the deep feeling and splendid hopefulness of Maraton's words, there was a sense of something kept back. It wasn't what he had meant to say. Something had come between Maraton and his passionate dreams of freedom. He, too, had become a particularist.

He, too, was content to preach salvation piecemeal. He had spoken to them at first simply, as one worker to another. Then he had drifted out into the larger sea, and for those few moments he had been, at any rate, vigorously in earnest as he had attacked with scorpion-like bitterness the hideous disproportions which existed between the capitalized corporation and the labour which supported it. Yet afterwards he had gone back within himself. Almost she had expected to see him with his hands upraised, bidding them tear down these barriers for themselves. Instead he showed them the legalized way, not to free humanity, but to ensure for themselves a more comfortable place in life. It was all very magnificent. The strike was assured now, almost the success of it.