To the man in the wheel chair, looking out upon the scene that
lay with all its varied human interests before him, there was no bit of
life anywhere that was not in the shadow of the gathering storm. The
mills and factories along the river, the stores and banks and interests
of the business section, the farms in the valley, the wretched Flats,
the cottage homes of the workmen and the homes on the hillside, were
all alike in the path of the swiftly approaching danger.
The people with anxious eyes watched for the storm to break and made
such hurried preparations as they could. They heard the dull, muttering
sound of its heavy voice and looked at one another in silent dread or
talked, neighbor to neighbor, in low tones. A strange hush was over
this community of American citizens. In their work, in their pleasures,
in their home life, in their love and happiness, in their very sorrows,
they felt the deadening presence of this dread thing that was sweeping
upon them from somewhere beyond the borders of their native land. And
against this death that filled the air they seemingly knew not how to
defend themselves.
This, to the Interpreter, was the almost unbelievable tragedy--that the
people should not know what to do; that they should not have given more
thought to making the structure of their citizenship stormproof.
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