olicy
of indirect or political action for the advancement of that program.
This is my predominant interest at this moment, and through what is
destined I suppose to be the whole period of my life. This is as
much the cause of our day as abolition was the cause of the days
before the Civil War. To this I have given all I have--from this I
intend to withdraw nothing that I have given. Not in any sense of
bitterness or violence in method, but in every sense of utter change
as the end desired, I am committed to the ideal of the complete
democratization of society.

When the significance of this transformation first broke upon me, I
felt an impulse to leave the church, and attach myself directly to
the labor movement. I recall how my soul leapt in answer to the
great scene at the close of Kennedy's "The Servant in the House,"
when the Vicar strips off his clerical garb, seizes the dirty hand
of his brother, the Drain-Man, and cries out, [9] "This is no
priest's work--it calls for a man!" I was deterred, however, not, I
hope, by cowardice but by wisdom. On the surface I felt that I
should miss the services of the church--the prayers and worship with
my people. Deeper down, and nearer the heart of things, was an
unshaken trust in the church as a social institution. I loved her
traditions, reverenced her saints and prophets, believed in her
destiny--was unconvinced that she must necessarily serve the
interests of reaction. At-bottom, was a perfectly clear
understanding that my approach to the social question was a
spiritual approach, and my acceptance of it the acceptance of a
religious task. I saw my new position as nothing more nor less than
the logic of Christianity. Men must be free from all oppression,
because they are children of God, and therefore living souls. They
must be equal in opportunity and privilege, because they are members
of the holy family of God, and therefore brothers. They must be
lifted up out of poverty, disease, war, because their heritage is
the life of God, and they must have it abundantly. The material
aspects of the social question, I would be among the last, I trust,
to ignore. These are central--but central only as the fetters are
central to the problem of slavery. Furthermore, the means which I
recognized to the great end, were also spiritual. I could find no
place in my thought for the use of violence. The plea of
class-conscious rebellion never won my acceptance. Only patience,
persuasion,