It was a tremendous moment. Never had we realized so keenly the spiritual inadequacy of American life: the great war of the cultures left us literally gasping in the vacuum of our own provincialism, colonialism, naïveté, and romantic self-complacency. We were in much the same position as that of the Scandinavian countries during the European wars of 1866-1870, if we are to accept George Brandes’ description of it: “While the intellectual life languished, as a plant droops in a close, confined place, the people were self-satisfied. They rested on their laurels and fell into a doze. And while they dozed they had dreams. The cultivated, and especially the half-cultivated, public in Denmark and Norway dreamed that they were the salt of Europe. They dreamed that by their idealism they would regenerate the foreign nations. They dreamed that they were the free, mighty North, which would lead the cause of the peoples to victory--and they woke up unfree, impotent, ignorant.” It was through a great effort of social introspection that Scandinavia had roused itself from the stupor of this optimistic idealism, and at last a similar movement was on foot in America. _The New Republic_ had started with the war, _The Masses_ was still young, _The Seven Arts_ and the new _Dial_ were on the horizon. Bourne found himself instantly in touch with the purposes of all these papers, which spoke of a new class-consciousness, a sort of offensive and defensive alliance of the younger intelligentsia and the awakened elements of the labor groups. His audience was awaiting him, and no one could have been better prepared to take advantage of it.