urged, they might grow so desperate that no one but the Socialists would be capable of dealing with the appalling situation. But this was the attitude only of that coterie which, unselfishly, no doubt, with the purest of motives, and only until the industrial democracy could be organized and rendered sufficiently class-conscious to take over the work, was directing the destinies of the Socialist party, very much to the fleshly eye in the same manner that the Republican machine controlled that party or the Democratic machine its party, or, before we were done, certain persons attempted to control the Independent movement. So far as I could discern, there was not much difference in them all; the Socialists seemed to rely on all the old weapons that had so long been employed in the world, and so long failed; they seemed to contemplate nothing more than replacement of old orthodoxies with new, old tyrannies with new tyrannies; in a word, to preserve the old vicious circle in which humanity has been revolving impotently and stupidly down all the grooves of time. I could not have been a Socialist because life had somehow taught me that this is a world of relativities, in which the absolute is the first impossibility. I could share, of course, their hope, or the hope of some of them in a well ordered society, though with many of them the dream seemed to be beautiful chiefly because they expected to order it themselves; they who felt themselves so long to have been the slaves were to become the masters; their hard and too logical theory of classes circumscribed their vision so that they could imagine nothing more clearly, and possibly nothing more delightful than a bouleversement which would leave them on top. I could recognize with them the masters under whom we all alike were serving in this land, and respect them as little as we might, or detest them as we would, they presented whatever advantage there is in familiarity; if nothing more inviting than a change in masters were proposed, one would prefer those one had to others whose habits and whims he did not know. One could be pretty sure that the new masters would use the same old whips and scorpions, or if new ones, with a sting more bitter. They proposed as much, indeed, in their rigid form of organization, with a discipline more irksome and relentless, what with their signing of pledges, and their visitations and committees of inspection, and trials for heresy and excommunications. They reminded me of those prosecutors who could behold no defect in the penal machinery save that it had not been sufficiently drastic; they would replace all old intolerances and ancient tyrannies by others no different save that they were employed in the opposing cause, and were to be even more intolerant and tyrannical.