The incident could be represented by the Socialists as a veritable reflection of the views of the administration on the important subject of Socialism, but they could not derive quite the satisfaction from it they had in another incident, or accident, which befell the most prominent and authoritative of their local leaders. He was speaking one evening in a crowded street, when he had the good fortune to be arrested by a captain of police. He made the occasion the opportunity for an edifying debate, and lingered as long as the captain would let him; but, in the end, was led to the police headquarters. This was the irresistible meeting the impenetrable. While everybody had a right to speak his mind in the streets, everybody else, we felt, had an equal right not to listen, even to free speech, and the police had orders to keep the streets and sidewalks clear for traffic. Now this captain was a chap who carried out orders given to him, and, as he was in command of the traffic squad, traffic was his specialty. If streets were to be cleared, then, in his philosophy, they were to be cleared, and no little thing like a constitutional inhibition against the abridgment of human speech would stand in his way. And then, after all, police are more apt to arrest people they do not like than those they do, and no one likes those who disagree with him. But after the arrest, the offender is turned out without chances of reparation. In this instance, feeling that the Socialist had had an indignity put upon him by his arrest, while I could not undo what had been done, I could order his release and tender him an official apology in writing, which was accepted, though not acknowledged. And an order was issued that a policemen who thereafter interfered with any voice crying in the wilderness should be dismissed from the department. LVI As a boy, thirty years ago, I used to observe, with a boy’s interest, the little bob-tailed street cars that went teetering and tinkling, at intervals of half an hour, out a long street that ran within a block of my home. I watched the cars intently, and so intently that the impressions of their various colors, sounds and smells have remained with me to this day, speaking, in a way, of the conditions of a small American city of that time, and affording a means by which to measure that progress in material efficiency which is so often mistaken for progress in speculative thought.