all American sham--Broadway--where in the raw glare from
a million lights the senseless crowds swept north and south.

And here, where Jew-manager and gentile ruled the histrionic destiny
of the United States--here where art, letters, service, industry,
business had each developed its own species of human prostitute--two
muddy-brained torrents of humanity poured in opposite directions,
crowding, shoving, shuffling along in the endless, hopeless Hunt for
Happiness.

She had made, in the beginning of her street-corner career,
arrangements with a neighbouring boot-black to furnish one soap-box on
demand at a quarter of a dollar rent for every evening.

She extracted the quarter from her purse and paid the boy; carried the
soap-box herself to the curb; and, with that invariable access of
fright which attacked her at such moments, mounted it to face the
first few people who halted out of curiosity to see what else she
meant to do.

Columns of passing umbrellas hid her so that not many people noticed
her; but gradually that perennial audience of shabby opportunists
which always gathers anywhere from nowhere, ringed her soap-box. And
Palla began to speak in the drizzling rain.

For some time there were no interruptions, no jeers, no doubtful
pleasantries. But when it became more plain to the increasing crowd
that this smartly though simply gowned young woman had come to
Broadway in the rain for the purpose of protesting against all forms
of violence, including the right of the working people to strike, ugly
remarks became audible, and now and then a menacing word was flung at
her, or some clenched hand insulted her and amid a restless murmur
growing rougher all the time.

Once, to prove her point out of the mouth of the proletariat itself,
she quoted from Rosa Luxemburg; and a well-dressed man shouldered his
way toward her and in a low voice gave her the lie.

The painful colour dyed her face, but she went on calmly, explaining
the different degrees and extremes of socialism, revealing how the
abused term had been used as camouflage by the party committed to the
utter annihilation of everything worth living for.

And again, to prove her point, she quoted:

"Socialism does not mean the convening of Parliaments and the
enactment of laws; it means the overthrow of the ruling classes with
all the brutality at the disposal of the proletariat."

The same well-dressed man interrupted again:

"Say, who pays you to come h