PREFACE
When I was a youngster I was looked upon as a weird sort of creature,
because, forsooth, I was a socialist. Reporters from local papers
interviewed me, and the interviews, when published, were pathological
studies of a strange and abnormal specimen of man. At that time (nine or
ten years ago), because I made a stand in my native town for municipal
ownership of public utilities, I was branded a "red-shirt," a "dynamiter,"
and an "anarchist"; and really decent fellows, who liked me very well,
drew the line at my appearing in public with their sisters.
But the times changed. There came a day when I heard, in my native
town, a Republican mayor publicly proclaim that "municipal ownership
was a fixed American policy." And in that day I found myself picking up
in the world. No longer did the pathologist study me, while the really
decent fellows did not mind in the least the propinquity of myself and their
sisters in the public eye. My political and sociological ideas were ascribed
to the vagaries of youth, and good-natured elderly men patronized me and
told me that I would grow up some day and become an unusually
intelligent member of the community. Also they told me that my views
were biassed by my empty pockets, and that some day, when I had
gathered to me a few dollars, my views would be wholly different,--in
short, that my views would be their views.