22 



THE STORY OF BREAD 



discuss; then, adopt. The leaders of one century 

 are assassinated that their followers in the next may 

 erect monuments to their memory. Yesterday, the 

 authors of new ideas were beheaded; the day before 

 that, they were burned; and as a proof of how civili- 

 zation has advanced, today we merely sick onto them 

 the penny humorists and muck-rakers. 



It is so easy to follow along in the old, smoothly- 

 worn rut. 



One would naturally think that with centuries of 

 poverty, toil, and hunger back of it, the reaper would 

 have been welcomed with open arms, as it were. 

 Farmers sat on the fence, watched it work, shook 

 their heads, and went back to their cradles. And 

 labor cried that the reaper was trying to rob it of 

 the right to work. Work ! Perhaps you do not 

 realize just what that meant eighty years ago. In 

 the hot harvest fields sixteen hours a day at a wage 

 of three cents an hour. Work! Why, the inventor 

 of the reaper lived to pay office boys double this 

 salary for half as many hours. 



It is one thing to make an article, but quite another 

 thing to sell it. The inventor and the salesman are 

 not always related. Even in this golden age of 

 industry and commerce, we speak of an inventor as 

 a genius, a musician as an artist, and a politician as 

 a statesman. But a business man — oh, he's just a 

 business man. 



Had not McCcrmick been an inventor, he would 



