Page:Forty years of it (IA fortyyearsofit00whitiala).pdf/173

 had loved and even recited certain passages from them. Well then, Johnson bought his book, and idly turning the pages began to read, became interested, finally enthralled, and read on and on. Later be bought "Progress and Poverty," and as he read that wonderful book, as there dawned upon his consciousness the awful realization that notwithstanding all the amazing progress mankind has made in the world, poverty has kept even pace with it, stalking ever at its side, that with all of man's inventions, labor-saving devices, and all that, there has been no such amelioration of the human lot, no such improvement in society as should have come from so much effort and achievement, he had a spiritual awakening, experienced within him something that was veritably, as the Methodists would say, a "conversion." There was an instant revolution in his nature, or in his purpose; he turned to confront life in an entirely new attitude, and he began to have that which so many, rich and poor, utterly lack, so many to whom existence is but a meaningless confusion of the senses, a life concept. And with this new concept there came a new ideal.

He at once sought out Henry George, the two became fast friends, and the friendship lasted until George's dramatic death in the midst of his campaign for the mayoralty of New York. George used to do much of his work at the Johnson home in Cleveland—and used to forget to fasten his collar when he was called from that spell of concentration over his desk to the dinner table. The Johnsons were aristocrats from Kentucky, descended from a