The Man of the Hour was written by well-known popular magazine contributor Octave Thanet, the pseudonym used by Alice French. This story deals with the labor problem and with socialistic efforts to solve it. The hero of the tale is John Ivan Winslow, the only son of a Russian mother and an American father. As a child he is sensitive and impressionable and imbibes the nihilistic views of his mother who is strongly in sympathy with her oppressed people. Before her marriage Mrs. Winslow had been the Princess Olga Galitsuin and had met her husband when he was on a business trip to Russia. Not until after their marriage did Mr. Winslow discover his wife's socialistic tendencies, and these in connection with her impracticability and foreign ways caused unhappiness between them which led finally to their separation.