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.

And then came the day when my socialism grew respectable,--still a vagary
of youth, it was held, but romantically respectable. Romance, to the
bourgeois mind, was respectable because it was not dangerous. As a
"red-shirt," with bombs in all his pockets, I was dangerous. As a youth
with nothing more menacing than a few philosophical ideas, Germanic in
their origin, I was an interesting and pleasing personality.

Through all this experience I noted one thing. It was not I that
changed, but the community. In fact, my socialistic views grew solider
and more pronounced. I repeat, it was the community that changed, and to
my chagrin I discovered that the community changed to such purpose that
it was not above stealing my thunder. The community branded me a
"red-shirt" because I stood for municipal ownership; a little later it
applauded its mayor when he proclaimed municipal ownership to be a fixed
American policy. He stole my thunder, and the community applauded the
theft. And today the community is able to come around and give me points
on municipal ownership.

What happened to me has been in no wise different from what has happened
to the socialist movement as a whole in the United States. In the
bourgeois mind socialism has changed from a terrible disease to a
youthful vagary, and later on had its thunder stolen by the two old
parties,--socialism, like a meek and thrifty workingman, being exploited
became respectable.

Only dangerous things are abhorrent. The thing that is not dangerous is
always respectable. And so with socialism in the United States. For
several years it has been very respectable,--a sweet and beautiful
Utopian dream, in the bourgeois mind, yet a dream, only a dream. During
this period, which has just ended, socialism was tolerated because it was
impossible and non-menacing. Much of its thunder had been stolen, and
the workingmen had been made happy with full dinner-pails. There was
nothing to fear. The kind old world spun on, coupons were