ocialism. In each case it was a
rebirth.

"The Way" of Jesus was at first a state of mind; it had no relation to
a book; it had no connection with a church. Socialism is a passion for
the regeneration of society, it is a state of mind, a point of view.
The religion of the peasant Saviour and the movement for industrial
democracy expand as they are understood. Both thrive under opposition
and are retarded only by unfaithful friends. I caught the spirit, then
studied the forms. I got tired of doling out alms. It became degrading
to me either to take them from the rich or to give them to the poor.
Almsgiving deludes the one and demoralizes the other. I had
distributed the crumbs that fall from rich men's tables until my soul
became sick. I expected Lazarus the legion to be grateful; I expected
him to become pious, to attend church, to number himself with the
saved, and he didn't.

Almsgiving not only degrades the recipient but the medium also. The
average minister or missionary is looked upon by the middle and upper
classes as a sort of refined pauper himself. So, like a mendicant he
goes to the merchant and trades his piety for a rebate of ten per
cent.; or he travels on a child's fare on the railroads. I have scores
of times given away my own clothes and have gone to the missionary
"Dorcas Room" and fitted myself out with somebody's worn-out garments;
and I, too, was expected to be grateful and to write of my gratitude
to the person who, "for Jesus' sake," had cleaned out his cellar or
garret. In the West I have been the recipient of Home Missionary
barrels packed in some rich church in New York or New England--annual
barrels in which there is usually a ten-dollar suit for the
missionary, bought by some dear old lady to whom all men were
alike--in size. This whole process is hoary, antiquated, stupid and
degrading.

My Socialism is the outcome of my desire to make real the dreams I
have dreamed of God. It came to me, not through Marx or Lassalle, but
by the way of Moses and Jesus. Twenty years' experience in reform
movements taught me the hopelessness of reformation from without. It
was like soldering up a thousand little holes in the bottom of a
kettle.

For a hundred years men and women have been begging the industrial
lords to spare the little children of the poor. Have they? Ask the
census taker. Millions of them are the victims of the sweater--the
dealer in human endurance. The cure for child labour is justice