deponent sayeth not, though he may hint that
some of his plethoric national patriotism simmered down and leaked out of
the bottom of his soul somewhere--at least, since that experience he
finds that he cares more for men and women and little children than for
imaginary geographical lines.

* * * * *

To return to my conversion. I think it is apparent that my rampant
individualism was pretty effectively hammered out of me, and something
else as effectively hammered in. But, just as I had been an
individualist without knowing it, I was now a Socialist without knowing
it, withal, an unscientific one. I had been reborn, but not renamed, and
I was running around to find out what manner of thing I was. I ran back
to California and opened the books. I do not remember which ones I
opened first. It is an unimportant detail anyway. I was already It,
whatever It was, and by aid of the books I discovered that It was a
Socialist. Since that day I have opened many books, but no economic
argument, no lucid demonstration of the logic and inevitableness of
Socialism affects me as profoundly and convincingly as I was affected on
the day when I first saw the walls of the Social Pit rise around me and
felt myself slipping down, down, into the shambles at the bottom.

FOOTNOTES:

{1} "From 43 to 52 per cent of all applicants need work rather than
relief."--Report of the Charity Organization Society of New York City.

{2} Mr. Leiter, who owns a coal mine at the town of Zeigler, Illinois,
in an interview printed in the Chicago Record-Herald of December 6, 1904,
said: "When I go into the market to purchase labor, I propose to retain
just as much freedom as does a purchaser in any other kind of a market. . . .
There is no difficulty whatever in obtaining labor, _for the country
is full of unemployed men_."

{3} "Despondent and weary with vain attempts to struggle against an
unsympathetic world, two old men were brought before Police Judge McHugh
this afternoon to see whether some means could not be provided for their
support, at least until springtime.

"George Westlake was the first one to receive the consideration of the
court. Westlake is seventy-two years old. A charge of habitual
drunkenness was placed against him, and he was sentenced to a term in the
county jail, though it is more than probable that he was never under the
influence of intoxicating liquor in his life. The act on