vote, (7) that government be by majority and that there be (8) enactment of measures for general education and the conservation of health; that the (9) present bureau of education become a department; (10) that there be a department of public health and (11) a separation of the present Bureau of Labor from the Department of Commerce and Labor, and its elevation to the ranks of the Department; (12) that all judges be elected by the people for short terms; (13) that the power to use injunctions should be curbed by immediate legislation, and that there should be (14) free administration of justice.

It seems hardly possible that any list of general demands could be more practical, more immediate in the possibilities of securing them, or more far-reaching in the effects.

The debate upon the farmer brought out most clearly, perhaps, the change taking place in the party methods. A desire was expressed in a resolution to spread Socialism in the rural districts, but how talk to the farmer? Is he a 'workingman" or a "capitalist"? "He works like a dog," said one of the delegates, "and he does n't get all he produces. But at the same time he owns land and hires men to work for him, and he does n't give them all they produce; and besides that he is getting certain advantages from the private ownership of land. I do n't know what to say to the farmer. If I tell him he's a 'producer' and that he belongs in our movement, the next fellow who comes down the pike to make a Socialist speech may call him a 'little capitalist' and get his blood up. I'd like to know, for one, where we're at." That seemed to be the feeling generally.

"If the farmer," said one ardent upholder of the theory that the party must be very "class-conscious ""if the farmer wo n't take a downright proletarian position, then let him stay where he is until Capitalism comes along and swallows him, boots and breeches."

But in the end, after several hours of discussion, a committee was appointed to consider the farmer's problems and the vote indicated that a majority was in favor of capturing the American farmer for Socialism, making him feel that his interests are with the producers in the large cities rather than with the railroads and the trusts.

There was a vote, too, in favor of propaganda work among the common soldiers and sailors. They must be made to see what Socialism is.

"The talk is for theory," said a delegate, "but the vote for practice."

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But the most interesting debate in a general way was upon the question of immigration, for therein appeared obvious, undeniable, the question of position. Does the old Marxist call: 'Workingmen of the world, unite!" mean that all workingmen should unite with each other without restriction as to country, race or ideals? What position must the class-conscious Socialist take in regard to the "yellow peril"? The Chinaman comes here as a laborer and is employed by a capitalist. Is he, then, common brother of the white man in the fight against capitalism, or is he with his lower standard of living, an enemy?

"We are not living in the age of brotherhood," said one delegate. "We have got to save ourselves first if we are to save the world later. If we stand for unrestricted immigration we stand in opposition to the trades-unionists of this country and we play into the hands of capital who wants cheap labor."

The speaker was applauded, but not so enthusiastically as was G. W. Woodby of California, the colored delegate, whose voice had in it, it seemed to me, the note of enfranchised humanity. He spoke in behalf of unrestricted immigration.

"It would be," he said, "a curious state of affairs for the descendants of immigrants or the immigrants from Europe themselves to get control of the affairs of this country and then say

to the Oriental immigrants that they should not come here. So far as making this a mere matter of race, I disagree decidedly with the idea of the committee. And so far as reducing the standard of living is concerned, the standard of living will be reduced anyhow. You know as well as I do that either the laborer will be brought to the job or the job will be brought to the laborer. We will either have to produce things on American soil as cheap as they can be produced on foreign soil or the production wll be carried to the Orient. It seems to me that if we take any stand opposed to any sort of immigration, that we are simply playing the old pettifogging trick of the Democrats and Republicans and will gain nothing by it. To me, Socialism is based, if anything, upon the brotherhood of man, and to take the stand that we take in opposition to any sort of immigration is opposed to the very spirit of the brotherhood of man."

There was tremendous applause after this speech. The galleries had to be called to order. It was the ethical stand, the stand on which Socialism is strongest that of comradeship and brotherhood of all the workers of the world. Yet a vote was taken, which allowed a committee to investigate the situation, and determine whether the economic necessity recognized by tradesunionism or the all-including ethical principle was to dictate the position of the party.

Another resolution which was of worldwide interest was that which put the Socialist party of this country in line with the European parties in their stand against the liquor traffic. It reads:

"We recognize the evils arising from the manufacture and sale of alcoholic liquors, especially those which are adulterated, and we declare that any excessive use of such liquors by the working class postpones the day of the final triumph of our cause. But we do not believe that alcoholism can be cured by an extension of police powers under the

capitalistic system. Alcoholism is a disease and it can be cured best by the stopping of underfeeding, overwork and underwages which result from the present wage system."

I went to the convention in a critical attitude of mind, for while the Socialist principles have always seemed to me the only ones based on fundamental economic truth, which would make possible an ethical society, I have been dismayed at the lack of method in the attempt to put them into practice. The dream, it had always seemed to me, had obscured the path to its realization.

But during the last three days of the convention it was as though the Will to Do was being born in the party. There was contention, bitter at times, debate wherein the same word was used with different meanings to the confusion of the debaters and the listeners; there was strife and animosity. But there was something so much bigger, so much more evident, that you forgot the details. There was a dream common to all and a common effort to realize it! I was caught and held by this unwordable, intangible influence, which rose and spread and lifted itself throughout the hall.

Yet my enthusiasm does not blind me to the inadequacy of the party in dealing with the great problems. It needs master-minds, and courageous, to make it the power that it should be; it needs the very best that has been given to this country by immigration and the best that has been born here. Let it be, if you please, a self-conscious, class-conscious, proletariat body. We belong to it, for there are not many of us whose interests are the interests of that circle of rich men in control. We are, through our self-interest, opposed to them, and we must line up sooner or later. Why waste time?

But even if you and I do not join the party, nor understand and accept the philosophical basis of Socialism, Socialism is present and carries us with it.

We are deriving benefits from the great common struggles going on inside and outside the mechanism of the Party, and inside and outside the walls of the Socialist convention, whose voice, though immature and trembling at times with resistant passion, had in it the sound of youth and the summons of the future.

Here were two hundred and nineteen men and women trying to act intelligently-dealing-for all they might be only flies on the wheel-with the problems of the wheel. Roosevelt in the White House, the Senate actively engaged in preventing all measures of any value to the country, Lawson preparing a billion-dollar gas trust, Harriman seizing part of the Pacific short-line, university seniors writing valedictories, theatrical stars closing their seasons; and, in Chicago during a windy, rain-swept week these two hundred and nineteen men and women trying to get at the best manner and method by which the Socialist propaganda might be scattered among farmers, trades-unions, soldiers and sailors to the end that the class-rule of a few rich be done away with and a more orderly, just and democratic system be worked out and put into effect. They

want to do that; they represented a new international conscience in national convention. And with this new energy of purpose to practice, wherever possible, what they preach, the party is now a political opponent of both the Democratic and Republican. It is preeminently a workingman's party, but in Wisconsin, in Milwaukee, the Socialists summon support from all.

"The Social-Democracy," reads the Milwaukee platform, "combats not alone the conditions which exploit and oppress the wage-working classes, but every kind of exploitation and oppression, whether directed against a class, a party, a sex, or a race. All its measures benefit not only the wage-working class, but the whole people, and while the working people are the banner-bearers in this fight in the last analysis everybody-the merchant, the professional man and the small shopkeeper-will profit thereby. Therefore, we invite every honest and well-meaning voter, without regard to occupation, race or creed, to join in our undertaking for the emancipation of mankind."

CHARLOTTE TELLER.

New York City.

mounted, comes the lack of appreciation for the prophet and his message. Usually the builder of civilization is indifferent to personal recognition, and if a shadow sometimes rests on a soul that never grows old, it is because the prophet of a higher order realizing the need of the world and the value of his message, also sees his great work lagging because insufficient means prevent its proper presentation, while millions of wealth are lavished on things that are relatively trivial and of no permanent value. He who goes to the root of things, who brings order out of chaos and formulates fundamental truths, is rarely appreciated in his day. Too often the splendid services are only recognized after the prophet has passed into the larger life. Then men, beholding his work, marvel at the blindness and indifference responsible for the failure to aid the great master in the noble work he essayed and at which he so faithfully wrought.

II. THE BOY AND HIS DREAM.

In the little hamlet of Chatata, in southeastern Tennessee, in 1847, a boy was born whose noble ambition, serious purpose and idealism were destined to make him typical of that American manhood that more than aught else has contributed to whatever is truly great, noble and worthy in the achievements of our Republic.

Like Franklin and Benjamin West, like Henry Clay and Abraham Lincoln, like William Lloyd Garrison and Thomas Alva Edison, like John G. Whittier and Edwin Markham, Samuel Silas Curry was born into a home of poverty. The circumstances and environment of his childhood were hard, and to the superficial observer must have seemed unpropitious. Like that of Lincoln, his early life seemed to hold little promise of future victories. Indeed, few who might have seen the lad fifty years ago would have imagined that he was destined to become one of America's foremost phil

osophical educators, a man whose fundamental work in one of the most important yet neglected fields of human development should prove of inestimable value to civilization.

But the lad had early caught a glimpse of the vision. A great dream haunted his mind. The august meaning of life had dawned on his consciousness. A noble ambition to be of use in the world, companioned by that sturdy resolution which knows no such thing as failure, had taken possession of his being.

He had a poet's soul, this mountain lad of Tennessee. The passion of the artist and the insight of the philosopher were his dower. The mystery of nature and the wonder of creation enthralled his imagination. He had felt and understood in a manner impossible to the child of the artificial hot-house life of the city, the emotions of the sacred poet when he cried:

"The heavens declare the glory of God, and the firmament sheweth his handiwork.

Day unto day uttereth speech, and night unto night sheweth knowledge."

He came from a family of nature lovers, sturdy pioneer spirits who revered justice more than they cared for gold, who loved freedom more than life. Some of his ancestors fought under Washington for the liberation of the American colonies, and in early days the family fared forth to the frontiers. David Crockett was a cousin of young Curry's mother.

In the mountain home the boy early learned to love the children of earth, air and stream. The robin, the bobolink and the mocking-bird; the swift-flowing brook, the pools and lakes that glassed tree and sky; the blush of dawn, the gold of sunset, the lightning's flash, the jeweled mantle of night; the flowerspangled earth and all the myriad wonders and glories of nature's perpetual transformation scene, appealed to his vivid imagination, though it is not probable that the full significance of the facts and their suggested truths was at first real

ized; for the child mind is plastic and takes small note of the impressions flashed upon the mental retina, and it is often unconscious of the images which the mind receives.

Yet in that hamlet, companioned by boys and girls who took small note of God's robes of splendor woven on the loom of nature before their very eyes, this child of external poverty and internal wealth, as the years passed and thought matured, came more and more under the compulsion of truth. He saw the beauty, splendor and bounty of nature proclaimed infinite intelligence and measureless love working with serious purpose through law and order, and from this basic fact he came to feel that man, the crown of creation, the child of the AllFather, must, if he would be true to the solemn demand of life, reflect in his work these dominant notes. He must strive to make the world better; to add to the uplift, the happiness and beauty of life, striving to learn and then apply the underlying laws that govern expression, the orderly out-blossoming of the best in men. And this life must be marked by serious purpose.

These master-thoughts which were to become the dominant ideal of life, were early glimpsed on the child's mindglimpsed vaguely at first and in outline only. As the years advanced, as thought matured and brain developed, they steadily gained in compelling power; and it interesting just here to note how clearly defined they were and how completely they had taken possession of the young man's thought-world by the time his college days were ended.

At the last meeting of the classes of the Boston University School of Oratory in 1879, Miss Guernsey read a poem. The author's name was not given. This poem, which was composed by Mr. Curry, has never been published. For purposes of illustration we have taken the liberty of quoting some lines, because they show that at this stage the truths that haunted the boy's mind had

taken complete form in the brain of the young man, becoming life-guiding convictions; and in the wealth of suggested pictures here given we are reminded how the Great Mother in early days impressed her beauty and truth on the plastic brain of the lad.

The poem opens with the declaration that in nature everything shadows forth serious purpose. Here are nowhere found empty form or sound.

"The robins singing near and far

While sets its watch the evening star;
The bobolink whose sweetest song
Is heard 'mid morning's shadows long;
The myriad voices from the brake,
The ripples of the smiling lake;
The rolling sea, the lowing heard,
The murmuring brook, the joyous bird-
All voices join, from sounding shore
To zephyrs in the lonely pine;
The rustling leaf, the thunder's roar,
In One great symphony combine.
"On conscious sky of sunny noon,
On silvered lake or watchful moon,
No random line is ever drawn,
From lightning's flash to softest dawn.
Bud, leaf and flower, each line and hue,
From burning sky to restless dew,
Are all Expression, each a part,
A smile from one great loving Heart.

"Oh, deaf and blind! Earth is not show,
Nor random noise, nor empty glow.
Behind the face, a living soul
Thinks, moves and animates the whole.
The feeling heart by humblest stream
Can catch a smile amid its gleam;
In daisy's cup can find a part

Of that which thrills his own glad heart;
Can feel in roll of ocean billow
The gentlest sigh of bending willow;
From cloudland glow to budding vine
That earth incarnates the divine.

"Oh, art of art! as 'neath the hills
A spirit all the grasses fills,

So thou, to all our hearts hast shown
That not the painter's art alone
Demands the artist on his knee
To work like old Fiesole.
Thine art is even more divine,
For not on canvas is thy line,
But on the body, life and soul,
Never to fade as ages roll."

Returning to the lad in his Tennessee home, we find him while listening to nature's symphonies and delighting in her ever-shifting scenes of beauty, hearing also her solemn message as clearly as in olden times another little Samuel