I had seen in several other cities under socialist control. It is a story one may hear in every part of the United States.
In another city, barely escaping socialist majorities, a teacher old enough to remember the Civil War gave me the same record of experience. "I haven't had a political thrill, except of disgust, since those great days of my youth. Two bright boys in my Civics class began to bring me accounts of what local socialists were doing. I had read three or four socialist books of the better sort, but thought of them as stimulating and harmless Utopias. I then set to work on the local programs. I was surprised to find many of my old pupils and teachers consecrated to the movement, though many of them held positions which kept them silent. It has brought to me in my closing years the great emotions of 1860. I had come to believe that concentrating wealth had so fastened upon our political life as to lead us straight toward disaster. We may go there still, but this Socialism has restored my hope. It has made me believe there are moral resources in the community and intellectual capacities among common people which will save us, if we are sane enough to recognize them and work with them."
I have emphasized these final words, because they hold a lesson that we must learn if we are capable of learning anything. Later in this study the lesson will be taken up when further proofs of its significance can be given. It is very important at this point that the reader avoid the error of thinking these two illustrations are merely interesting exceptions. They are
