The Turmoil

d for politicians. Law-making was a pastime of the people; nothing pleased them more. Singular fermentation of their humor, they even had laws forbidding dangerous speed. More marvelous still, they had a law forbidding smoke! They forbade chimneys to smoke and they forbade cigarettes to smoke. They made laws for all things and forgot them immediately; though sometimes they would remember after a while, and hurry to make new laws that the old laws should be enforced--and then forget both new and old. Wherever enforcement threatened Money or Votes--or wherever it was too much to bother--it became a joke. Influence was the law.

So the place grew. And it grew strong. Straightway when he came, each man fell to the same worship:

Give me of thyself, O Bigness: Power to get more power! Riches to get more riches! Give me of thy sweat that I may sweat more! Give me Bigness to get more Bigness to myself, O Bigness, for Thine is the Power and the Glory! And there is no end but Bigness, ever and