As he came up the bay again, November 5,
1904, an older man than either his father or Motley in 1868, he
found the approach more striking than ever -- wonderful -- unlike
anything man had ever seen -- and like nothing he had ever much
cared to see. The outline of the city became frantic in its
effort to explain something that defied meaning. Power seemed to
have outgrown its servitude and to have asserted its freedom. The
cylinder had exploded, and thrown great masses of stone and steam
against the sky. The city had the air and movement of hysteria,
and the citizens were crying, in every accent of anger and alarm,
that the new forces must at any cost be brought under control.
Prosperity never before imagined, power never yet wielded by man,
speed never reached by anything but a meteor, had made the world
irritable, nervous, querulous, unreasonable and afraid. All New
York was demanding new men, and all the new forces, condensed
into corporations, were demanding a new type of man -- a man with
ten times the endurance, energy, will and mind of the old type --
for whom they were ready to pay millions at sight. As one jolted
over the pavements or read the last week's newspapers, the new
man seemed close at hand, for the old one had plainly reached the
end of his strength, and his failure had become catastrophic.
Every one saw it, and every municipal election shrieked chaos.
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