It was at this time, when the first glimmerings of Socialism were beginning to penetrate, that Victor L. Berger—and I have loved him ever since—came to Woodstock, as if a providential instrument, and delivered the first impassioned message of Socialism I had ever heard—the very first to set the “wires humming in my system.” As a souvenir of that visit there is in my library a volume of “Capital,” by Karl Marx, inscribed with the compliments of Victor L. Berger, which I cherish as a token of priceless value. The American Railway Union was defeated but not conquered—overwhelmed but not destroyed. It lives and pulsates in the Socialist movement, and its defeat but blazed the way to economic freedom and hastened the dawn of human brotherhood. Outlook for Socialism in the United States _International Socialist Review, September, 1900_ The sun of the passing century is setting upon scenes of extraordinary activity in almost every part of our capitalistic old planet. Wars and rumors of wars are of universal prevalence. In the Philippines our soldiers are civilizing and Christianizing the natives in the latest and most approved styles of the art, and at prices ($13 per month) which commend the blessing to the prayerful consideration of the lowly and oppressed everywhere. In South Africa the British legions axe overwhelming the Boers with volleys of benedictions inspired by the same beautiful philanthropy in the name of the meek and lowly Nazarene; while in China the heathen hordes, fanned into frenzy by the sordid spirit of modern commercial conquest, are presenting to the world a carnival of crime almost equaling the “refined” exhibitions of the world’s “civilized” nations. And through all the flame and furore of the fray can be heard the savage snarlings of the Christian “dogs of war” as they fiercely glare about them, and with jealous fury threaten to fly at one another’s throats to settle the question of supremacy and the spoil and plunder of conquest. The picture, lurid as a chamber of horrors, becomes complete in its gruesome ghastliness when robed ministers of Christ solemnly declare that it is all for the glory of God and the advancement of Christian civilization. This, then, is the closing scene of the century as the curtain slowly descends upon the blood-stained stage—the central figure, the pious Wilhelm, Germany’s sceptered savage, issuing his imperial “spare none” decree in the sang froid of an Apache chief—a fitting climax to the rapacious regime of the capitalist system. Cheerless indeed would be the contemplation of such sanguinary scenes were the light of Socialism not breaking upon mankind: The skies of the East are even now aglow with the dawn; its coming is heralded by the dispelling of shadows, of darkness and gloom. From the first tremulous scintillation that gilds the horizon to the sublime march to meridian splendor the light increases till in mighty flood it pours upon the world.