The New Republic Volume 2 (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1915 Excerpt: ...author's. And then Billy begins to meet the "revoluters" with whom his sister Sue is running around, and the efficiency engineer who is the father of the girl to whom he is most attracted. To please this girl Billy throws himself heart and soul into a study of the harbor, and the more he goes into it the more he becomes possessed of the ideal of efficiency. So effectively does Mr. Poole suggest the charm of Eleanore, the engineer's daughter, that the semi-religious zeal with which Billy masters his study of harbor life seems perfectly natural. On the basis of this common interest in her father's ideal, these two young Americans develop a complete and beautiful relation. It is not entirely possible to believe in the engineer's "abounding reserve of force deep down under his quiet," but by the quality of the love relation it is impossible not to be genuinely moved. From associating with the planner of an efficient New York harbor, Billy goes on to meet and interpret most of the "makers" of successful America. After his hard initial struggle, he comes in a short time to be one of the best of a certain type of expert journalist. The old meticulous notions of Paris are outlived. He feels what he writes about, and both he and his wife glow with the same aspirations as her father. Then Joe Kramer comes back into their life. He is heralded by Billy's sister, who lives in the thick of radicalism and says to the married couple: "You two have built up a wall of contentment around you a person couldn't break through with an axe." Joe Kramer lives by the harbor, but his life is with the men who stoke and load the ships, not to the companies who profit by them. At first he is sullen with Billy. They live in different worlds. But in...