selected from a mass of testimony with the same significance, because they express the rebellious attitude with concreteness and lucidity. I found men and women teachers settled in their determinations to resign their positions in order to take active part in socialist work. In no case were these persons failures in their calling. An instructor of natural science in a high school said, "I am only waiting for an opening in the socialist ranks where I can be fairly certain of doing the kind of work that I think would count for the cause." He was prepared to take all the chances in earning a living. He found at every teachers' gathering more and more willing listeners and more readers of socialist literature.
Interfused as opinion and hope, these instances stand for a new faith and a new purpose held by two or three millions of our fellow citizens. If the ability and willingness to sacrifice oneself for an ideal are hopeful qualities, this rapidly growing body must be counted among our moral assets. If, in whole or in part, it is to be opposed, for that very reason it should be understood. Every attempt merely to outlaw it, to vilify or browbeat it, will prove the friendliest service its opponents can render to a cause they fear.[1] There is at the present moment in our midst no more dangerous obtuseness than that which constituted authority has been displaying from San Diego to
- ↑ The judicial part in the trial of Ettor, Giovannitti and Caruso which has just closed at Salem is an auspicious exception. If one could hope that the temper of the presiding judge in this instance would generally prevail throughout the country, the greater safety of every true social interest would be more secure.
