This is the story of a man who said that he would stop the motor of the world - and did. Was he a destroyer or the greatest of liberators? Why did he have to fight his battle, not against his enemies but against those who needed him most - and his hardest battle against the woman he loved? What is the world's motor - and the motive power of every man? This novel presents a panorama of human life - from the productive genius who becomes a worthless playboy... to the great steel industrialist who does not know that he is working for his own destruction... to the philosopher who becomes a pirate... to the woman who runs a transcontinental railroad... to the lowest track worker in her Terminal tunnels.